5 Tips for a productive working day

Tips for a productive working day

Do you ever have the feeling after a busy working day that you haven't really moved forward? Sometimes it can help to rearrange your working day. But if you don't fully immerse yourself in it, you will soon fall back into your old work pattern. We would like to get you started with five simple tips for a productive working day.

1. Coffee/water balance

Chances are very good that you start your day with a cup of coffee or tea. This makes sense because the caffeine from coffee is absorbed into the blood within minutes and the effects of caffeine are felt for about 0.5 to 2.5 hours. A small amount of caffeine can boost concentration and performance. Thus, it dispels, the feeling of fatigue and you have the feeling of increased energy. Furthermore, caffeine has a small effect on memory, motivation and alertness.

However, larger amounts of caffeine do not promote these positive effects and you may instead experience negative effects including: restlessness, irritability and headaches. The maximum amount of caffeine depends on each person.

Many think that coffee dehydrates the body. But this is not entirely true. Caffeine causes fluids to leave the body faster. Therefore, it is wise to keep drinking plenty of water. A well-hydrated body ensures better performance, even during the productive working day. This is why we suggest as a rule of thumb that for every cup of coffee, you should drink two glasses of water.

2. Boring work first

Do you also currently have tasks on your list that you really wanted to finish a few weeks ago? That's not surprising. We quickly tend to do the easy/pleasant work first and put off the boring work. In the afternoon you, feel less concentrated and some more tasks have come up so you just postpone the work again. And we all know, procrastination breeds procrastination. This procrastination does not boost productivity. So try to finish the boring work in the morning or work that requires a lot of concentration.

3. Take a walk

Do you take time for a (lunch) break every day? Very good! Do you then sit down to lunch together with colleagues or do you go for a walk? Walking during the working day has many advantages and will really make you feel better. The exercise, fresh air and changing environment will give you more inspiration and clearer thinking. So when you are feeling down, it is better to walk for half an hour than to drink a few more cups of coffee. If you do this in nature, you will enjoy even more benefits.

To encourage walking during the working day, you could invite your colleague to hold the scheduled meeting during a walk. You will find that it is much more natural to have a good conversation while walking than in a meeting room. Because you are not sitting opposite each other, there is already more relaxation and you will experience more air and space. This also works very well when there is tension or something needs to be talked out.

4. Closing off distractions/stimuli

During a (working) day, you receive continuous stimuli from your surroundings, colleagues and digital devices. You may not always realise it, but these stimuli greatly affect your concentration.

By shielding yourself from certain stimuli in the right ways, you will find that you can be more productive during a working day. To start, put your (private) phone on silent or aeroplane mode and store it in your bag. When it is out of sight, you are less likely to be tempted to take a quick look at it. In addition, log out of the social media channels you regularly check. Social media and mobile apps are set up to demand and hold your attention, which makes it chances are you are addicted to them.

When you are stimulated by the environment, you can choose to look for another workplace. Many companies these days offer flexi-workstations and quiet rooms. Easy if you work with a laptop, but when you have a fixed computer this becomes a trickier story. Seclusion therefore does not always work; after all, communicating with colleagues is essential in many cases. Does it often happen to you that a colleague 'just comes to ask you something'? These interruptions may seem harmless, but they can make you lose concentration and prevent you from having a productive working day.

By putting in headphones or earphones (with or without music), you create the impression that you do not want to be disturbed. Also communicate this to your colleagues so they know not to disturb you when you have headphones on.

5. Pomodoro technique

Do the above tips sound simple? Time to really put them to work. One last technique that can be very useful for focusing on your work is the Pomodoro technique. This technique originated in the 1980s and remains indispensable for many people to this day during the productive working day.

The essentials of this technique are a timer and a mountain of work ;). Beforehand, write down all the activities that need to be accomplished. Make sure everything disappears from your mind onto the paper or screen. Afterwards, take a critical look at the activities and form a task list in order of priority. Delineate the tasks so that they do not take longer than 25 minutes

To start this technique, set a timer to 25 minutes. For the next 25 minutes, focus entirely on the task you want to complete. This means that you, cut yourself off from distractions (phone, social media, colleagues) and make every effort to complete the task complete the task within the time.

When the 25 minutes are up and the task is done, you get to tick it off. You then take a five-minute break to go to the toilet or get a drink. After the short break, spend the next 25 minutes working on the next task. Repeat these steps until you have worked four times for 25 minutes.

After that, you've earned a 15-minute break. Just enough time to find some distraction; have a chat with a colleague or go for a walk and then pick up this technique again refreshed.

A productive working day

We hope the tips in this article make sense to you and you will try out some of them to achieve a productive working day. Are you really ready to try a different work environment? EuroParcs offers Tiny Offices! These are compact working environments in inspiring locations with all kinds of resources that support the creative process. Combine a stay at one of our parks with the Tiny Office.

The Tiny Offices can be used free of charge by EuroParcs guests and can also be booked for part of the day for interested parties. You will find the Tiny Offices on the Veluwe and near Amsterdam