Workflow Productivity and workflow management is a secret tool to get more done.
Workflow focusing on productivity is a process that helps you get more things done. It is more about being smarter to accomplish more and focus on your top priorities each day.
Working longer hours isn’t the answer as does not necessarily mean higher productivity. Most people believe productivity means getting more things done but instead it should focus on getting important things done consistently.
Planning work based on the most important priorities, and then with a defined objective in mind. The Key is learning to manage a high volume of information and tasks.
Workflow system can guide us, and offer a way of collaborating with team members making sure no one feels out of the loop and thus become unproductive.
What is workflow?
What is workflow? A sequence of tasks that need to be carried out in a business process. Every time a task needs to be completed in a business process a workflow is created.
Think of workflows as guides on the stages a process needs to go through from start to finish. Ensuring steps are not missed or mistakes made and time is focused on the most important tasks.
What is the workflow process? A workflow process is a number of steps or tasks that need to be completed in sequence or not but must be completed to perform the process correctly. These tasks have rules and conditions that must be carried out to perform the business process in the best possible way to achieve a certain outcome.
Prioritise for Productivity
Harvard Business ran a survey focused on seven habits to improve productivity: developing daily routines, time management, organising messages, getting things done, productive meetings, communication skills, and delegating tasks as productivity has many aspects.
Pointing out what you need to understand is your priorities, then plan focus on top priorities. Reduce time spent on getting through small stuff that clutters the day.
Working out that short meetings, responsive communications, and clear directions were key to increasing productivity.
Workflow Productivity Key Steps
Workflow productivity tools make business processes and activities work better depending on how you implement them. High productivity can be achieved from better workflow management, workflow automation collaboration, and stronger communication skills.
Avoid multitasking: Start one task and complete it before beginning the next, you will work better. Moving between tasks back and forth can be exhausting and you are not giving your full attention.
Automation and Tools: Maintain an efficient workflow and automate as much as possible. Understanding what is workflow automation and how workflow automation, can help your business. E.g Calendars, scheduling tasks.
Improve communications: Communication between team members are essential to improve productivity within the whole team and understand who is responsible for each task. This offers trackability and accountability.
Methodologies: Learning new methodologies, tips and tricks that can aid your productivity. Some will work for you and others not but here are a few that can help increase workflow productivity. Pomodoro Technique, Eisenhower Decision Matrix, Pareto Principle, Ivy Lee Method, Eat the frog, and create smart goals.
Limit Distractions: Phones, emails and social media can interrupt your productivity by disturbing your workflow. Turn off non-essential distractions until your tasks are complete or allocate a specific time during the day.
Personal Care: Remember productivity needs to start with essential building blocks. Sleep, food, exercise and drink lots of water. These can all help improve energy levels and enable you to focus for longer periods of time.
Meditation, mindfulness and relaxation.
Happiness is also key to increasing productivity.
Manage Information Overload
Information overload happens when you have too much information about a task or process to effectively understand where to start.
Write things down, make a to-do list or checklist to allow you to empty your head of things you need to remember and information overload.
So what effective workflow productivity techniques can you use to manage the overload of information and tasks from your daily workflow?
Workflow refers to the flow of tasks. When you have to complete a series of activities to accomplish certain goals, and that is workflow. Repeatability is the defining factor of this concept. When you only do one unique thing to reach an objective, it doesn’t qualify.
Workflow management is a way of creating and ultimately optimizing workflows to boost a team’s efficiency and coordination. It plays a crucial part in any organization and the optimization of its projects.
Read More: What is Workflow Management?
Processes are top of the chain, whether as workflows are smaller parts of a process.
Workflows are small parts of a process so need a process to exist.
Processes don’t need workflows to exist
Processes naturally occur within a business, whereas workflows require more planning.
Read More: What is the difference between processes and workflow?
Workflow automation aims to simplify these tasks. Through technology and specific tools, a company can reduce the time and effort required to complete these processes. A business has to identify the areas that require automation, and then settle on the right applications to use.
Read More: What is Workflow Automation? Its Place in Business Processes