The Working World

5 Ways to Stay Focused at Work

Forget the days of limitless overtime compensation and relaxing hours spent chit chatting with coworkers at the office.

Whereas in the pre-recession years, it may have been commonplace for employees to take extended lunches and bill their companies for the overtime hours it took to complete the day’s assignments, more and more cost-conscious companies are now shutting down requests for overtime compensation and laying off staff—effectively telling the employees who remain to get the same amount of work done with less help and in less time.

What’s an overworked office dweller to do? You could work more hours, even though you’re not getting paid. Refuse to do the extra work that’s been piling up, and risk getting fired. Or simply become more productive with the eight hours a day you’re in the office.

To help you get more done and still have a life, we’ve put together a list of five easy ways to start you on the path to productivity.

Change your instant messenger status to busy.

Of course, you’d be even less tempted to chat with friends if your instant messenger was off altogether. But for people who use Gchat or AIM for work, just turning your status to ‘busy’ is an effective way to signal to friends and family members that now might not be the best time to talk.

Bring your own coffee or bottled water.

Chatting with coworkers about last night’s football game or Jersey Shore episode is one of the biggest time wasters there is. And yet, it’s almost entirely unavoidable for anyone who prefers not to be branded as the office downer. To avoid getting caught in inane conversations—and increase your chances of leaving the office at a reasonable hour—bring your own snacks to work and avoid the office kitchen, water cooler, or break room at all costs.

Stop tweeting at work.

The same goes for Facebooking, MySpacing, or anything else that isn’t necessarily work-related. You may think it’s a form of relaxation or that you’re only spending one or two minutes updating your status each day, but multiply that by the number of times you’re logging in to each site—and add an additional five minutes or so to each time, since nobody really only spends one minute checking Twitter—and you’ve suddenly found another 45 minutes in your day to get work done.

Download a pop-up blocker.

You may not be interested in any male enhancement pills or shady discount websites, but you’re still probably wasting precious time clicking away all the pop-up ads that come up in a typical browser each day. Instead, download one of the dozens of popular pop-up blockers available as add-ons to your Google Chrome or Firefox browsers or Google and Yahoo toolbars, and save time (and potentially money) by avoiding the ads that plague you each day.

Turn off your email notifier.

Who hasn’t gotten distracted seeing an unexpected email come in from a friend, or a one-line response to a question from a coworker? It can be all but impossible not to click on an email inbox when it pings, and yet doing so can be one of the biggest time wasters there is. Avoid getting distracted while working on a serious project by turning off your email notification system until you’re finished working on whatever it is you’re currently doing. Nobody will mind waiting an extra 10 minutes for an e-mail response, and if the message is really that urgent then the sender will most likely resort to IMing or calling you anyway.

Tags: office, productivity, work