Five Tools to Boost Productivity

As the end of year draws in our thoughts are turning to goals and targets for 2018 and we’re sure you’re thinking about your own aims for your organisation. Boosting productivity is a popular business resolution as there aren’t many of us out there who couldn’t become more efficient in the workplace with a few tweaks to our daily routine and working habits.

There are plenty of tools and plugins out there to help you become more productive throughout your working day and help you on your way to achieving your resolution, so today we’re sharing five of our favourites:

Google Drive

It’s likely that you’re using Google Drive to some degree in your working life but we urge you to look at ways you can integrate the service into even more of your daily tasks.

Perfect for collaborative working, why not work on strategies and joint projects in a shared Google Document so you can work with your colleagues even if you’re based in different locations?

Additionally, why not use the time on your daily commute to get ahead for the day by making notes and jotting down your to do list in a Google Doc on your phone – it’ll be ready and waiting for you by the time you arrive in the office.

Asana

Ideal for those who work on development or project-based tasks, Asana allows you to break large projects into manageable tasks that you can assign to relevant members of the team and tick off as you complete them. Plus, the free service provides plenty of valuable features to get you started.

A good one for both productivity and motivation. After all, we all know nothing boosts motivation more than ticking tasks off a to do list!

WP-Smush

Site speeds are becoming more important than ever and it’s imperative that every organisation undertakes steps to ensure their website loads as quickly as possible. As we know, numerous large images can have a negative impact on loading times and you may have been tasked with resizing all of the graphics across your company’s website – a daunting task.

Enter WP-Smush, a WordPress plugin that allows you to compress and optimise all of the images on your website with ease. Tried, tested and loved by WordPress users, the plugin currently has over 900,000 active installs, and we urge you to give it a try if you haven’t before.

Buffer

Do you spend time every day creating and posting content to your organisation’s social media channels? You can slash your marketing time by working with scheduling software like Buffer to schedule the majority of your posts to go out at the optimum time for your audience.

Not only can you schedule your posts for the week in one batch, Buffer will also give you a weekly round up of helpful analytics to help you make improvements to your marketing strategy.

Finally, the Pomodoro Technique

Last but not least, we want to bring your attention to the Pomodoro technique. It’s a time management system to help you increase your productivity through short, focused bursts of work.

The concept is simple: set a timer for 25 minutes and work solidly for that period of time. No distractions, no procrastinating. After the 25 minutes are up you take a five minute break – check your emails, quickly return any urgent calls, take a wander to the kitchen for a glass of coffee. After five minutes, you reset the timer for 25 minutes and start the process again.

Repeat throughout the day and enjoy watching your productivity soar!