In a Slump? Here’s 4 Ways You Can be More Productive at Work

• Manage your time effectively

• Stop multitasking

• Take regular breaks

• Learn to say no

How much time are you dedicating to each task every day? It’s quite easy to get bogged down when one particular thing is consuming the majority of your time and energy. You might overthink things and doubt your ability to finish the task, therefore setting yourself back even further. In a bid to avoid this, we advise paying more, deserved time, into managing it more effectively. Giving too much time to any one task has the potential to make you less productive. Really try and manage your time effectively and you’ll soon find yourself edging out of your workplace slump.

Multitasking is known to decrease productivity and in your attempt to juggle a thousand jobs at once, remember, you’re only setting yourself back a thousand steps in the meantime. Start your day off by making, a physical or mental note, of the tasks you need to tackle throughout that day. Try and focus your attention on one task at a time and once you’ve accomplished this, move on to the next one. An effective way to do this is to tackle the tasks that you simply cannot avoid (boring paperwork that needs to be filled in by Friday or following up for appointments etc) and forget about the rest - until you need to! In between these tasks (that you will now be tackling separately) it’s important to take breaks.

Now that you’ve managed to whittle your attention down to one task at a time, be sure to take regular breaks in between. Whether you’re grabbing a coffee, going for a walk or having a chat with a colleague, your giving your brain a chance to switch off momentarily and recharge. For example, if you’ve had a busy morning with vaccinations and drop-in appointments and you know you have a surgery soon, be sure to take a good break in between. Taking breaks can actually boost your performance. Especially with something like surgery which is highly demanding, physically and mentally, you need to be sure you’re in top form and not caught up on what you were doing earlier in the day. This aids performance but also increases your productivity - it's a win win for everyone! 

When we suggest you should learn to say no, we don’t recommend saying no to your manager every time they ask you to do something! We mean this in the sense that, if you say yes to take on another task when deep down you know you’re drowning in work, you’re not doing anyone any favours. You obviously want to make the best impression possible and do whatever you can to help those you work with but sometimes, it’s better to say no than to say yes and not complete the task to the best of your ability - it’s counter-intuitive.

And if you find that none of the above assist in pulling you out of your workplace slump, you can always create a job alert on VetJobs.ie and we’ll let you know as soon as your dream job pops up!