Tag: startup success tips

6 Ways to increase productivity in a startup

What you need to keep in mind is that increasing productivity in your startup is definitely not a difficult matter.

One of the biggest problems of running a startup lies in the fact that it always feels like an uphill battle. First of all, you’re trying to outcompete companies that have several times your manpower, logistics, and resources. Still, just because something sounds difficult, it doesn’t mean that it’s impossible or that it’s not worth doing. What you need to keep in mind is that increasing productivity in your startup is definitely not a difficult matter. Here are the top six ways you can do so on a budget.

1. Focus on the task at hand

The first thing you need to understand is the fact that it’s quite easy to get distracted, especially when working online. After all, tabs with your social media accounts are just a click away and making a five-minute YouTube break always sounds like a compelling idea. Still, you need to show some restraint. The simplest way to do so is to actually make it harder for you to get distracted. For instance, if you need social media for work, make a new profile, don’t use your own with your personal contacts and DMs. Also, it would be ideal that you use a separate computer for work. Sure, it’s an additional expense but it’s definitely worth the investment.

2. Use adequate tools

The use of proper tools for the job is also a major determiner when it comes to the productivity of your team, regardless of its size. For instance, a tool like Taskworld can help you with all those vital micro-management tasks that lead to the improvement of productivity as a whole. You get assistance for file management and performance report compiling. You also get some aid when it comes to time tracking and composing an efficient project timeline. Overall, the use of an adequate platform can automate some vital tasks and make your job a lot simpler.

3. Improve office design

Improving office design is one of the simplest ways to achieve a slight boost in productivity without having to sacrifice anything. There are so many simple design tricks that you can use like enhanced task lighting, ergonomic furniture, and so on. For instance, one out-of-the-box ergonomic trends that are used all over the world is – standing desks. This boosts not only the health of your employees but also their focus and alertness in the workplace. Finally, keep in mind that design can also be used to minimize distractions. For instance, by adding rugs to the office you can lower the noise generated by the foot traffic, which will help minimize the number of audio distractions within the room.

4. Mandatory breaks

Perhaps the most important thing you need to consider when it comes to boosting the productivity of your startup is the concept of mandatory breaks. You see, there are some people who believe that they can reach excellence by pushing themselves extra hard and skipping breaks. All that this achieves is that it makes them more likely to make a mistake and it makes them overworked in the long run. In fact, in order to turn this one around even further, you could always consider starting a trend of interval working.

5. Encourage a healthy lifestyle

The problem with productivity is that it’s not just something that you can fix in the office 100 percent of the time. An employee that doesn’t eat well, sleep enough, and has some issues at home will not be the most productive member of your team. Here, however, you can just encourage, inquire about the problem (but not be too pushy), and offer your advice. There are some things that you just can’t affect, nonetheless, you can’t know if you can fix this problem if you don’t at least try.

6. Invest in talent retention

A lot of employees see startups as a starting point and not a place where they’ll build their careers. This is a shame, seeing as how by the time your employees get enough skill and experience they might already start considering other offers. So, make them stay by incentivizing them, building a personal relationship, and showing that they have a career in this industry.

Conclusion

The most important thing you need to learn how to do is to track your progress. You see, without tracking your progress, you might get the wrong idea, seeing as how you can subjectively overestimate or underestimate the difference. This is why you need to consistently track your progress over a longer period of time and then calculate averages. This way, you’ll get the most accurate picture possible and find yourself in a situation where your productivity can truly reach its full potential.

11 Success principles we often forget

Sometimes we find ourselves running in place, struggling to get ahead simply because we forget to address some of the basic success principles that govern our potential to make progress.

Identify your problems but give your power and energy to solutions. Sometimes we find ourselves running in place, struggling to get ahead simply because we forget to address some of the basic success principles that govern our potential to make progress. So here’s a quick reminder:

1. You are the only person responsible for your success

The best part of your life will start on the day you decide your life is your own – no one to lean on, rely on, or blame. You are in full control of your future. Believe with all your heart that you will do what you were made to do. It may be tough at times, but refuse to follow some preordained path. Make your own rules and have your own game plan. There is no happiness and success to be found by playing it safe and settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.

2. You don’t have to invent the wheel

Actually, to be successful you don’t have to invent anything at all. Coming up with a new invention or idea is one way to achieve massive success, but it isn’t necessary. And it can be the most challenging roads to success there is. You see many people have found lots of success just by taking something that already existed and simply putting their own twist on it (their unique selling proposition).

3. There is no progress without action

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow. Some of the greatest ideas never made it. Why? Because the genius behind the idea failed to take action. Just remember, no action always results in a 100% failure rate. So get into action now, and begin to move in the right direction. Once you get started every step afterwards gets easier and easier. Until eventually, what had once been invisible, starts to become visible, and what once felt unattainable, starts to become a reality.



4. Persistence always wins

As Winston Churchill once said, “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” It may take more than one swing to compose an efficient hit, so make sure not to give up on strike #1. And remember, a river cuts through rocks not because of its power at a given moment, but because of its persistence over time.

5. Focus is everything

When you are too busy looking behind and around you, people are passing you. If you never focus clearly on something, you will never be 100% efficient at anything. Multi-tasking might seem to make you efficient at getting multiple tasks done at once, but it usually reduces your efficiency in dealing with each individual task.

6. Failure is necessary

Don’t wake up at seventy-five years of age sighing over what you should have tried, but didn’t because you were afraid to fail. Just do it, and be willing to fail and learn along the way. Very few people get it right the first time. In fact, most people fail to get it right the first 5 times. If what you did today didn’t turn out as you hoped, tomorrow is a new opportunity to do it differently. Interpret each failure as a lesson on the road to success.

7. Positivity fuels productivity

Thoughts are like the steering wheel that moves our life in the right direction. Success comes from positive energy. You can choose to get caught up in the negativity surrounding you, or you can decide to do something positive about your situation. You always have a choice. Remember, happiness is an element of success, and the happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything, they use positive energy to make the best of what they have.

8. You must believe you can

You must find the place inside yourself where anything is possible. It starts with a dream. Add confidence, and it becomes a belief. Add commitment, and it becomes a goal in sight. Add action, and it becomes a part of your life. Add determination and time, and your dream becomes a reality.



9. Helping others is a big part of being successful

Successful people constantly come up with new ideas, new projects, and new and innovative ways of helping others. This means that your aims and objectives just benefit you, but also help benefit others as well. Bottom line: Your long-term success is directly tied to how well you serve your community.

10. Success is a journey of countless baby steps

It’s a constant process of growth. If you want to be successful, you must continue to hold yourself to a higher standard than anyone else, and strive to improve. Oftentimes a person or organization will be successful, but then drop off. A person may become lazy, and an organization may succumb to weaknesses or competition.

11. Sustained success

Sustained success means continually improving even if others may not see a need for it. Remember, the great thing in the world is not so much where we stand at any given time, as in what direction we are moving.

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