{"id":136895,"date":"2018-08-10T06:25:44","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T11:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ict-pulse.com\/?p=136895"},"modified":"2018-08-10T06:33:07","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T11:33:07","slug":"5-productivity-tips-business-professionals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/2018\/08\/5-productivity-tips-business-professionals\/","title":{"rendered":"5 IT productivity tips for business professionals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many of us work hard, but do we work smart? Since we all need to maximise what little time we have on the job, the five tips shared will help us increase our productivity \u2013 our output \u2013 in the workplace.<\/em><\/p>\n

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We all know the saying, \u201ctime is money<\/em>\u201d, but perhaps more importantly we are all required to do more with what little time we have. As much as productivity has been a buzz word for several years, the fact of the matter is that we all need to find ways and means of working smarter. Along that vein, below are five IT-related tips that can help busy professionals be more productive.<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0Get a second monitor<\/h3>\n

The impact of connecting a second monitor to increase productivity cannot be overstated. Essentially, you are more than doubling your viewing area, and consequently, the amount of information that you are able to manipulate at any given time. As a result, using two screens can significantly increase productivity \u2013 by more than 40% (Source:\u00a0 Online Class Mentor<\/a>), thus allowing you to focus better, and so get through tasks much quicker.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Identify and track your to-dos<\/h3>\n

One of the most crucial pieces of advice that is frequently communicated, is to clearly identify the tasks you need to do and to prioritise them. Over the years, we, at ICT Pulse, have identified several productivity applications, especially task trackers\/managers that might be useful. Regardless of the application you choose, or even if it is an Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, or just pen and paper, the point is to clearly account for how you intend to spend your time during a day: what are your priority tasks; along with any other tasks you want (or need) to accomplish.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Store files in the cloud<\/h3>\n

In some organisations, the \u2018cloud\u2019 is still almost a bad word. However, when you are working on important documents, storing a version of those files in the cloud can be invaluable, especially if you need to access and work on documents from more than one location. Additionally, should you choose to\u00a0 work on documents in the cloud, you are unlikely to lose (some of) your work \u2013 because you forgot to save your work frequently, or if the application closes unexpected, since virtually all of the popular cloud-based applications tend to save changes in real-time.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Organize your contacts effectively<\/h3>\n

This point has two issues. First, do you systematically ensure that details of new contacts are entered into a single and coherent contact management application or system? Second, are entering sufficient detail to facilitate efficient searches of your contacts when needed?<\/p>\n

With regard to first point, we tend to have our contacts stored across several media \u2013 business cards, in our smartphones, and in our email application. They each have some of our contacts, but not all. It thus means that when you are looking for the details for a particular individual, you are not guaranteed to find it \u2013 and find it quickly \u2013 depending on where you look.<\/p>\n

For the second point, many of the popular contact management applications allow you to enter a broad range of information on each contact. Frequently, we may not remember a person\u2019s name, but might remember where they work, but if those (and other) details are not captured in the system, we can spend s considerable amount to time scrolling through our contacts, hoping that a name we are looking for (or other tidbit) might jump out at us.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Streamline repetitive tasks<\/h3>\n

Do you consistently get the same request from clients, or even colleagues, resulting in you having to send the same, or virtually identical, replies over and over again. Some of these repetitive tasks can be automated, or even streamlined. For example, templates responses \u2013 or information \u2013 that can be cut and paste into an email (or document) can be established, thus reducing the time spent trying to compose a message you have already sent out dozens of times. It may also be possible to automate certain email messages, so that they are sent by the email platform when specific information has been requested, or even to acknowledge receipt of certain communication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many of us work hard, but do we work smart? Since we all need to maximise what little time we have on the job, the five tips shared will help […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[34,50,313],"class_list":["post-136895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ict-tech","tag-lists-2","tag-productivity","tag-tips","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/businessman-control-success-graph-geralt-Pixabay.jpg?fit=1024%2C466&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2iE1G-zBZ","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136896,"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136895\/revisions\/136896"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}