16 Apr How To Get Rid Of Productivity Killers In Your Team
It does not matter if you are a project leader or an assistant, at some point everyone in your team would be struggling with productivity in the workplace. We all need to find different ways to collaborate with our team and, no doubt, this can be a big challenge if an intercultural or virtual team must achieve a common goal. Team management is a very challenging task so you cannot ignore the productivity killers and rely on traditional methods to improve the productivity of your team.
Team responsibilities are always shared, but eventually, the team leader must be able to lead the team to achieve optimum results. Unfortunately, most team leaders focus exclusively on the final results of the day. This is not the best strategy because if you and your team are not productive enough, you can’t achieve expected results at the end of the day. Below, you will find out how you can get rid of the 5 biggest productivity killers in your team.
Multitasking
Multitasking is trying to do more than one thing at a time, and this can be one of the worst productivity killers. Nowadays, almost everyone owns smartphones, tablets, emails and social network accounts; it’s so easy to multitask without even knowing. And the moment you start multitasking, you will be distracted from the main job because the human brain is not connected to work that way. Several researchers including Mark Robert Waldman have discovered that when we try to do more tasks at the same time, rather than becoming more productive, we become exhausted easily and therefore become unproductive. Thus, encourage your team members NOT to multitask.
Distractions
Distractions, such as receiving phone calls and watching videos, are the biggest productivity killers. It’s very hard to focus on your job when you are trying to watch some videos on your desktop or when you are trying to receive some calls. So, as the team leader, be sure to eliminate every possible distraction in your team. Of course, you can’t take away their mobiles and switch off the internet. The best way to deal with distractions is to raise the awareness of your team members about these productivity killers, and then to establish rules and routines that are supportive of a highly productive environment.
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Lack of breaks
Make sure you plan some breaks in your daily schedule. Even if it’s two pauses of 10 to 15 minutes and an hour for lunch. Do not pretend to think that you and your team have to work all day to be productive. Breaks are really needed. Take time to stretch, eat and walk around. Lack of break is one of the biggest unknown productivity killers.
Absence of carefully designed tasks for your team
There are different types of tasks, and every task must be carefully designed for your team members, including the time line it involves. Good time management is really important when dealing with team tasks. In addition, frequent meetings should be avoided as much as possible as they are mostly considered as a waste of time and productivity killers. There should be a template of meetings and a well-prepared agenda. Carefully scheduled meetings can increase the overall productivity of the team while frequent unplanned meetings will often reduce the productivity of the team.
No regular schedule
A great way to increase your team productivity and stay on the right track is to have a regular work schedule. As a team leader, you can create a schedule for your team which includes but is not limited to: when to start working, how much time is available for a specific task, etc. You may even set some milestone for every team member. Not following a regular schedule is a productivity killer, as team members would just pick on any task at any time.