Posted by Petrissia Teo Jan 25, 2022 3:15:00 PM

Have you always wanted to achieve the perfect work-life balance, where work stays in the office and home is purely a place to rest? You can, with some simple tips on ways to work smarter, not harder. Let us show you how!

1. Declutter Your Workspace by Digitalising

Although it may seem insignificant, a cluttered desk may sometimes indicate a cluttered mind. Studies show that clutter and disorganisation have a cumulative adverse effect on our brains, with the mess acting as a constant visual reminder. This drains one’s cognitive resources and reduces their ability to focus. 

With a cleaner and more minimalist workspace, it would generate a positive effect on your working environment, helping you to be more productive with a clear mind. 

One easy way to declutter is to go digital. Move your paper notes onto a digital cloud to access them anytime and anywhere, be it on your phone or laptop. This way, you can stay productive even while on the go and avoid stressful situations where you do not have access to your paper notes. Storing your important documents this way would also promote easier access for your colleagues, instead of having to meet them and show them in person. 

Going digital would also promote faster communication as you can simply copy over the information from your digital notes and send it out quickly via direct messages or email! You can also save time by using voice typing and transcribing tools to take notes.

2. Manage Your Distractions

Be it snacking, your physical environment or personal messages, it can be difficult to avoid distractions during working hours. This is especially so with the increased frequency of Work From Home (WFH) days. Here are some easy ways to avoid such distractions! 

  • Set break times for yourself! The Pomodoro technique is often used for studying, but a longer version can be applied to a working environment too! Try focusing on your work for 1 hour, then stopping for a short 5-10min break. This repeated cycle helps train your mind to focus, then rest and recharge, and raise your overall productivity.
  • Mute your notifications. Avoid being distracted during working hours by muting your personal messaging notifications until lunchtime, or mute specific chats which you hardly participate in. This way, only work-related pings would come in, helping you stay focused and contributing to a more productive working environment.
  • Remember to take snack breaks! Sometimes, all you need is a hot coffee or tea to serve as a pick-me-up. With all your energy being spent on work tasks, it is only natural for the body to feel fatigued to need a pick-me-up to get back on track.

With these tips, make good use of your work hours and even improve your work performance by staying focused.

3. Strategically Plan Your Off Days

We all want long weekends (in fact, we hope there’s one every week!). To make the most of your leave days, a useful tip would be to plan them to enjoy a long(er) weekend of good rest. Here’s how to plan your leave days:

Moreover, you can set up some fun activities to enjoy with your family and friends during your off days, and even take some time for yourself to practise self-care. Some examples would be to have a fun picnic or outing with them, or enjoying a relaxing walk on your own. 

As much as working is important, taking care of yourself is even more vital, especially for your mental health. With better mental health, you would be able to think more clearly and calmly, achieving a greater sense of inner peace. This would result in a positive effect overall, leading to higher self-esteem and a reduction in anxiety, thus allowing for better work performance.

4. Keeping Things Organised Through Task Automation

Organising your weekly schedule can help you stay productive at work. By spreading your deadlines out throughout the week, you can have a clearer idea of your daily to-do list and feel more motivated as you complete each task one by one. 

With the abundance of free business management tools, it comes down to the question of which tool to use. Some tools for basic planning include Trello, Notion, and Google Calendar. Tessaract.io, a powerful all-in-one system offering useful project management features, is the consummate tool for all of your business needs to overcome the humdrum of repetitive tasks. 

Apart from its time tracking feature, Tessaract.io is capable of automation in document storage, setting up of templates, and even a secure e-signing function for you and your external clients. Additionally, you can even set reminders for upcoming deadlines to better plan your project timelines, helping make projects efficient and stress-free. This would greatly reduce your administrative workload, giving you more time to do other tasks!

5. Prioritise your tasks

We all know how our in-tray/email inbox can slowly become a seemingly endless pile of tasks. Somehow, each task seems extremely urgent and it can become too much to handle after a while, as the pile grows when you are unable to clear tasks as quickly as they come in. 

One way to reduce the stress from this unending list of tasks would be to categorise them into either urgent or non-urgent tasks. Urgent and important tasks would be completed first, leaving the non-urgent tasks for later on. On top of this strategy, the delegation of tasks to a subordinate or asking colleagues to work on it together would also help to lighten the workload. To simplify things, you can use Tessaract.io to carry out these functionalities!

Working Smarter, Not Harder with Tessaract.io

By integrating Tessaract.io into your work routine, you can achieve optimal workflow automation, efficient collaboration between colleagues, and seamless communication with external clients. At the same time, you will be able to maximise your productivity and efficiency to accelerate your business's growth with Tessaract. 

With features like comprehensive document management to a fully-fledged accounting system, Tessaract is the all-in-one cloud solution for your business needs and minimizes time spent on redundant tasks. 

With Tessaract, you can work smarter, not harder. Discover more with Tessaract.io today!

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Petrissia Teo

Written by Petrissia Teo