151 Powerful Ways to Improve Work Performance

The article talks about 151 super easy ways to improve work performance. Reading this article will not only help you understand the methods, but you will also be able to implement it in your professional life practically. After spending unproductive months during the lockdown & pandemic, people across the world are looking for some ways to improve their work performance. Hopefully, this article will give a massive boost to the productivity.

A. Time Management

Time management is very crucial when it comes to getting the work done. If you can master time management skills, you will optimize your work style and gain much more even if there is a shortage of time. These are 15 ways to improve time management.

1. Prioritize Task

You have to prioritize the tasks. It means you have to decide which task is essential and the sequence of doing the tasks. Which task you will do first and, second then third and so on. You can prioritize tasks based on factors such as urgency, importance, and necessity, etc.

2. Track Time

You have to track your time if you want to measure the performance of doing any particular task. This activity will help you to improve efficiency by completing the task within time. If you cannot complete the work before the expected time, then do it on time. Tracking time will help you measure your capacity, and it will also help improve the skill of doing that task within the shortest possible time.

3. Follow Time Box

A method is called the timeboxing way. Here, you plan individual time boxes and work according to those boxes. Suppose you have a block time of 3 hours, then a break of 20 minutes, and then there is a timebox of 2 hours, then you will be able to decide which work you can accomplish in the first time block and which work you should be doing in the second time box. Everyone can have his timebox based on his routine and requirements.

4. Reduce Downtime

The biggest obstacle to productivity is downtime. It means that even if you have the capacity, there is some other issue where the work is not getting done. This time is counted as downtime, and reducing this downtime would improve the quality of work and optimize your efficiency.

5. Avoid Unnecessary Tasks

While working we many activities, some of them are necessary, and some of them are unnecessary. Reducing or avoid those unnecessary activities will contribute to an increase in the time of required tasks. The analysis of every action will help you to decide if it is a necessary activity or not.

6. Eliminate the Task

You can eliminate the entire task if it is not contributing anything to the results. It is necessary to improve the overall focus of your work. If you are doing ten things, not all of them are important or urgent. You can eliminate those tasks, especially at that particular time box, and you will create more time for your other tasks.

‘The only limits are, as always, those of vision.’

James Broughton

7. Delegate Your Task

Sometimes some tasks are urgent, and those tasks are essential too. In such a case, you can delegate your task to others. It will create more space for you in your time block. This is a secret of making more time when there is a limited time in hand. If you are delegating your task to another person, you will have double time. This works like magic and you get the quick results if you are doing it in a right way.

8. Avoid Repetition of Tasks

You should always avoid repetition of tasks by doing those tasks in bulk. If you are dealing with ten units of something and have to go through the same process every time coping with those units, you will have to spend some time for every ten units. What if you can do the same thing for 50 or 100 units? Then it will save some time because you will not have to spend any extra time for every ten units out there.

9. Schedule the Tasks

Scheduling the tasks also helps to focus on what truly important at the moment. If you have some time in the first-time block of the day and will be super busy in all other time-boxes during the day, you can utilize your first time box for scheduling the tasks, and those tasks will get executed automatically as per the schedule. You won’t have to be there at the time of execution, and it will help you focus on other important work.

10. Use Automation

If you are paying the electricity bill every month, you will have to spend 5 to 10 minutes every month paying the bill.  What if you can set up the automated building system where the bill will be automatically debited from your account every month?  This setup will cost you around half an hour, but it will save your 5 to 10 minutes every month. If you can do this to 20 other tasks, you will save 200 minutes per month. You have to identify those work-related tasks where a repetition could be avoided.

11. Merge Tasks

Sometimes you can also merge two or more tasks into a single task. This will reduce the requirement of time for doing one particular task. Suppose you are drafting ten different emails regarding ten various topics. You can include those ten topics in a single email and use point numbers to discuss it further.

12. Focus on Own Work

We should indeed help others, but it should not be the case where you are already overloaded with the work. If any work is assigned to you, you should complete it within time without losing your work quality. Hence, it is essential to focus on your work in the first place. This is not being selfish but doing the right thing.

‘Average minds analyse. Great minds execute’

Lewis Howes

13. Digital Detox

You have to go through a digital detox if you are concentrating on your work. Those notifications are going to distract you from your work, and it should not happen. Even if it is for a specific time, a digital detox can help you improve productivity. Hence, it is essential to do It, especially during your work where concentration is needed. People are looking for peace these days more than ever.

14. Break Tasks into Smaller Units

How to eat an elephant? You eat one piece at a time! Even if you have a huge task to do, you can still do it without losing its quality. You just have to break it into multiple smaller units. For example, if you want to finish preparing a report of 10,000 words, you can do it by splitting it by a daily goal of it probably 1,000 words.

15. Work Before You Work

Whatever you are doing, there is a process to do it effectively. If you are doing specific work, you have to prepare for it before doing that work, whether it is a meeting, a presentation, or anything else. If you are taking some time before the actual work, it will improve the work quality because you will already have some plans.

B. Communication

Communication is essential when it comes to seeking and sharing thoughts with others. When working as a group, it becomes even more necessary to save time and perfectly convey information effectively. These are 15 ways to improve work performance through effective communication.

16. Have a Clear Communication

Communication is essential when it comes to seeking and sharing thoughts with others. When working as a group, it becomes even more necessary to save time and perfectly convey information effectively. These are 15 ways to improve work performance through effective communication.

17. Maintain the Record

Maintaining a record of communication is essential because not everyone is going to stay forever. Some people might change jobs, or you might start working somewhere else. It is also possible that you might need some reference for the previous discussion to make any decision. In such cases, it is required to have a maintenance of proper record of communication.

18. Action Based Communication

Always focus on action-based communication. Even if you suggest an idea, mention the required actions and who should perform those actions. This will bring a sense of responsibility to the team, and overall work performance will be increased drastically. Mention call to action in your communication, even if you are doing any work, mention steps you took, and the steps you will be taking in the future.

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.”

Plato

19. Avoid Unnecessary Talks

Sometimes it happens that we start talking about unnecessary things, and it reduces the concentration of us and affects the productivity of everyone around us. Do not include yourself in any unnecessary talks, and you will save time and improve the concentration by doing this.

20. Understand Inward Communication

Do not take things for granted. If someone is communicating any information with you, understand it and then take for the decision. Do not assume anything if you can’t figure out what is expected to do from your side. A clear understanding will help you to do the work as expected. It will reduce the possibility of repeating the same thing and avoiding mistakes.

21. Develop Your Communication Skills

Developing your communication skills will help you to use communication effectively. You will be able to achieve more things in a shorter time. If you have effective communication, you can not only win people but also contribute to their growth.

READ THIS : 51 Easy Tips To Improve Verbal Communication

22. Connect With the Audience

Communication is something that you connect with people first. You have to communicate with the audience if you want to build a good relationship with them on the professional front. You might have noticed CEOs of large corporations sending letters to their employees. This is an example of connecting with the audience and winning people. This also improves work performance because you will be dealing with the people at the end of the day, not with the machines.

23. Use the Fastest Method

Time is crucial while working in a group. If you are expected to communicate with anyone, then do it as fast as possible because someone is dependent on your communication with them. Always use the fastest possible method because it will improve the work pace and optimize the group working system. If you send an extremely urgent email, then call the person and inform him to take necessary action immediately.

24. Stay and Keep Updated

So while working in a group system, you have to keep everyone updated about the work going on your side and stay updated with other individuals who are part of that group. This will build a strong communication bond and improve the quality of group work. It makes the work and collaboration easier for everyone.

25. Ensure Privacy

It is essential to ensure the privacy of any information. Do not disclose it with anyone unless you are supposed to do so for the sake of getting that work done. Your work performance should be backed with a robust set of values. Disclosing sensitive information without justified reason is not recommended at all. Ensure that you are not sharing this information directly or indirectly while communicating with others.

“All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.”

Gabriel García Márquez

26. Keep it Minimal

Keeping your communication minimal is a key to communicating more in a short time. Unnecessarily filling information will cause wastage of time for everyone and might not achieve anything. Thus it is recommended to keep your communication as minimal as possible.

27. Use References

Using references in your communication builds trust in your content. Suppose you are talking about any particular decision, and you are sharing relevant facts and references regarding your decision. In that case, it will create trustworthiness, and it will also help others know more about it in a better way.

28. Involve Others

Involving others in your communication helps to build an all-inclusive thought. If you are having a group conversation, allow everyone to discuss and express their opinions. Sometimes you will learn from them, and sometimes they will learn from you. This is how involving others helps to improve work performance.

29. Say No if Required

You are not supposed to say yes, every time. Take your liberty and say No if required. Saying no will not make you a wrong person at all. Sometimes it is necessary to say no because saying yes might affect your concentration, and it might take your time. Good communication is something that can convince the other person regarding your stand behind, saying no.

30. Don’t Get Distracted

Do not get distracted with any other thing while communicating. It will subconsciously affect your communication, and it should not happen. Your focus should be on the content instead of other things. Distraction from the communication might cause the delivery of any wrong message and intentionally. Therefore it is essential to stay focused on the message.

C. Relations

You are working in an environment where you have to deal with many people. A good relationship is a base of good collaboration. This section will help you to understand how to build and improve relationships that will help you to improve your work performance.

31. Understand Your Needs

The first step is to understand your needs and what you expect from a professional relationship while building your relationships. It could be anything like you might be willing to collaborate on a particular project or learn from someone. If you have a clear understanding of your need, you will build and sustain good relationships.

Nothing reinforces a professional relationship more than enjoying success with someone.

Harold Ramis

32. Don’t Get Involved in Dirty Politics

Believe it or not, politics is everywhere. If you want to improve your work performance, you have to keep yourself away from the dirty politics happening around you. Focus on productivity and follow ethics while working in any ecosystem. If you become a part of dirty politics, it will become difficult for you to work efficiently.

33. Value Other’s Time

It’s not just about you and your needs, but a good relationship should be mutually beneficial for everyone. It should be fruitful for the people who are involved in the relationship. Time is precious, and hence you have to respect it. You cannot waste the time of anyone for your benefit.

34. Exchange Values

A good relationship is a relationship where everyone is getting some benefit out of it. Any imbalance shouldn’t be there while getting value from it. It should be based on exchanging the values with each other. No one Is perfect, but everyone knows something better than others. If you believe that you know something better than others in your circle, then it is your responsibility to share those values with others and enrich them with your knowledge. Similarly, you should be open to understanding and seeking others’ values without making it an ego issue.

35. Respect Boundaries

Even if you are in a professional relationship, you have to understand that there are some boundaries, and you should always respect those boundaries. You should follow the etiquette and should not make an uncomfortable environment for others. Even if you are in a personal relationship with the same person, you should always maintain professional boundaries in the work environment. Having fun is fine but one must be aware, where to stop.

36. Spread Positivity

No matter the environment, it would help if you take the initiative and spread positivity in the ecosystem because positivity improves everyone’s work performance. The best thing about positivity is that if you are spreading positivity, you will come back to you with the growth of 10 times. This is similar to karma; when you build positivity in any ecosystem, that ecosystem will lift you and improve your work performance.

37. Help Others

It is not just with the positivity but also with helping others and improving your colleagues’ relationship. Sometimes they might be able to help you during your tough time. This is how it should be when it comes to collaboration. However, make sure that helping others is not affecting your performance, and first, you are entirely into the task assigned to you. Helping others will also help you know about the areas that are not directly associated with your work. This will improve your knowledge, skills, and experience working in that area, out of your working zone.

“No one has ever become poor by giving.”

Anne Frank

38. Share Skills

As said by anonymous, “Give a man a food, and he can eat for a day. But teach a man how to earn the food, and it will satisfy his hunger forever”. Similarly, you have to share your skills with others and empower others because you won’t be present everywhere whenever your colleagues need any help. Hence it is essential to share your skills and let them deal with the situation.

39. Give Time, Don’t Waste

There is a thin line between giving time to someone and wasting it on someone. If you are giving your time, you are sharing your knowledge or seeking knowledge from someone. On the other hand, wasting time means no one is getting any valuable output from spending that time together. You should always avoid wasting time and try to invest it by giving it to others where there will be an exchange of values.

40. Maintain Honesty

You should maintain honesty in any relationship, whether it is personal or professional. Being honest means not trying to take unethical advantage of the other person involved in the relationship with you. Goodwill is everything, and if you are losing it, it will be very much difficult for you to work in any environment. Hence, brutally honest with others. It is alright to reject the offers directly instead of accepting it with malicious intent in mind.

41. Appreciate Others

What makes people happy and proud of themselves? External validation, Right? Always be open to appreciate others for their excellent work, and it will give them the motivation and good feeling to continue the excellent work. This gesture will also build a good perception of you in your circle. As we know, this habit of gratitude will help you to improve your work performance because it will make you humble, and you will feel more dedicated to your work.

42. Learn to Give

Build the habit of giving, and when you learn to give to others, you get returns in multifold. This habit of giving will help you to build stronger connections and relationships with the people. These people are going to be the base of your efficiency and life. If you are giving to them, those people will provide you with much more in return, improving your work performance.

ALSO READ : YouTuber as a Career Option to Earn Money

43. Seek Mutual Growth

Being selfish will help you in the short term, but if you are looking to grow in the long term, then you always have to seek mutual growth for everyone around you. There is no way to plan a long term growth without planning the growth of people around you. A good relationship is based on everyone’s mutual growth associated with that relationship, and that’s how everyone gets the pie of mutually achieved results.

“Strong people don’t put others down… They lift them up.”

Michael P. Watson

44. Respect Juniors

Giving respect to everyone is one of the ways to win people. It doesn’t mean only giving respect to equal or greater people than you in terms of stature. You should always pay respect to everyone, including juniors. You never know how someone might help you. Your junior might have good knowledge about something as compared to that of you. If you are treating your juniors with the right amount of respect, then they will always be ready to help you beyond your imagination.

45. No Gossiping

Don’t include yourself in the gossip gang. If you want to help somebody truly, go directly to that person and offer him your advice or opinion or anything else that might help him improve in any work area. Speaking ill about someone behind his back is not a productive solution for anyone. It will not help you. It will not help the other person involved in that gossip or help the person who is a subject of that gossip. So, keep yourself away from such unproductive activity.

D. Leadership

A good leader is a person who helps others to grow. If you want to improve work performance, it is crucial to be a leader and build more leaders. You cannot do anything. You need more people with more abilities, knowledge, and skills. Leadership is all about building such people and helping them to grow. These are some ways of improving work performance by improving leadership quality.

46. Develop the Leader’s Attitude

First of all, you have to develop a leader’s attitude and prepare a mindset that will help you to acquire other skills. As Robin Sharma says, leadership is not about the title, but it’s about the behavior. You don’t have to be the CEO of the company to call yourself a leader. A leader is a person who leads, and we have to bring this mindset of leading.

47. Encourage Productivity

As a leader, you always have to encourage productivity among your circle. The people working around you should get inspired by your efforts to continue maintaining and improving productivity. The best way to increase get anything is to show them how to do it instead of telling them what to do. Encourage productivity by helping people figure out their issues and solve them when it comes to being productive.

48. Showing vs. Telling

A leader is a person who shows how to do any particular task instead of telling how to do it. A demonstration is always better than a user manual. Focus on doing the task on your own, and others will observe you while doing it. This is how the leader inspires his team to do more. Developing a practical approach instead of a theoretical approach will always help you to improve your work performance.

48. Showing vs. Telling

A leader is a person who shows how to do any particular task instead of telling how to do it. A demonstration is always better than a user manual. Focus on doing the task on your own, and others will observe you while doing it. This is how the leader inspires his team to do more. Developing a practical approach instead of a theoretical approach will always help you to improve your work performance.

“Leadership is a series of behaviors rather than a role for heroes.”

Margaret Wheatley

49. Ensure Passion

Ensure that you are passionate about the work you are doing. If you don’t have the passion, you will not dedicate everything to do that particular task. In such a case, the people who will be looking at you will not get any inspiration. This will demotivate them from working and making efforts. If you want to do any particular task, then ensure your passion and then start working on that task.

50. Be the Driving Force

As a leader, you will have to be the driving force in your circle. As human beings, we are very lazy. We don’t move unless there is any question of survival. This is how we have evolved so far in the history of evolution. If you want to grow, you have to be the driving force and move things forward with the inclusion of people around you. You cannot ignore the people and work on your own because that’s not the ideal way to work in a team if you are looking for sustainable long-term growth and improved work performance.

51. Take Responsibility

Having this leadership approach will help you to work as a team. However, working on some projects, there will be many events where you might not get the results as expected. In such a case, be open to take responsibility for such failures and don’t blame others. A leader is a person who takes responsibility for failures and continuously trying to avoid the same mistakes. If you want to be a leader, learn to take responsibilities.

52. Give Credits

You will be working as a team, and hence whenever there are any positive events. It is a good practice to give credit to others. This is a part of appreciating everyone’s efforts, and a leader is a person who gives recognition to others. This will help build a good bonding with the team, and it will also create a sense to do more work and achieve more remarkable milestones. The people involved in the group will put more dedication in the next projects.

53. Reward Good Performers

Not everyone in your team will perform in the same way, and the results will be based on the performance of the entire team. Hence, it is essential to uplift the team’s spirit by rewarding the continually giving good performance. This will create a healthy competition, and everyone will seek the reward, and as a result, you will find improved work performance.

54. Allocate the Tasks

While leading any project or task, you should allocate it to the part of your team. There should be justified allocation if you want everyone to work with complete efficiency and dedication. This will break the entire task into smaller tasks and improve everyone’s productivity because everyone will have a specific activity. It won’t create an unnecessary burden on anyone.

55. Maintain Creative Ecosystem

You will have to maintain a creative ecosystem if you want new ideas to be a part of your work culture. Continually improving and optimizing work culture is essential to improve everyone’s work performance, which is a part of the team working on any project. Always be open to listening to new ideas and giving everyone the scope to communicate those ideas with everyone else in the team. You might not use that particular idea, but that specific Idea might give birth to any new belief, and that’s how creativity is responsible for innovations.

“Creativity doesn’t wait for that perfect moment. It fashions its own perfect moments out of ordinary ones.”

Bruce Garrabrandt

56. Solve Problems

You have to build a problem-solving approach while doing any work because it is the organization’s essential requirement. As a leader, you will be facing many issues on a day to day basis. You should use your knowledge, experience, and skills to solve those problems in the best possible way. This is a crucial skill to have to improve work performance.

57. Explore Possibilities

Do not ignore the possibilities because there will be many opportunities out there. If you want to grow as a human, you will have to explore the options. It will help you, and it will be beneficial for the organization where you are working. Always be open to explore multiple possibilities and act on them.

58. Do SWOT Analysis

You have to keep analyzing your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This is how you can improve your work efficiency because you will have extreme clarity about multiple aspects of your abilities. If you serve others, it becomes even more crucial because you will be judged based on your performance. This is the reason why you should know your SWOT factors.

59. Develop Automation

Learn to develop automation in your team as well as your work system. Automation will help you to reduce the workload as well as improve the accuracy. It is impossible to use automation everywhere, but you can always automate at least some portion of your work, giving you more time to do the things where manual work is required.

60. Pass The Battel

Sometimes you will have to pass the battle of your position to others. Be ready to do this task because if you become someone who is not replaceable, you will not get a promotion. Give your best in your current work, share, and seek information with others. Always be open to learn from others and give them value in return. No one is here to stay forever, and hence be available to passing the battle to the people we are going to take your place.

E. Work Environment

The perfect environment is necessary for having good work efficiency. There are certain factors which will improve your work performance. Let’s understand those factors one by one.

61. Ensure Silence

You must ensure that your working place is silent enough to focus on your work. Failing to do so will always distract you from your work, and this is not recommended if you are expecting concentration and quality in work. Do the necessary steps to ensure the silence around your workplace while you are working. A peaceful mind can be more productive than a mind that is surrounded by chaos.

“Never miss a good chance to shut up.”

Will Rogers

62. Be Comfortable

You are going to spend 8 to 10 hours a day at your workplace. Hence, make sure that it is comfortable for you because it will affect your productivity if you are not satisfied. Always be comfortable while working, and it will help you to improve your work performance drastically.

63. Develop Productive Culture

You have to develop a productive culture around you if you are expecting new things to happen and make your work process more comfortable and achieve more results in a short time and with fewer efforts. Please don’t do the monotonous work every time because it will give you a sense of stagnancy at some point. This is why a productive culture is necessary to keep things moving in the right direction.

64. Don’t Compare

Don’t compare your environment with the environment of others. You might not have the best and spacious cabin like the one that your boss or colleagues is having with them. Everything will be there at the right time, currently focusing on your work and giving your best in your current task. Please do not compare with others because it will create a feeling of envy.

65. Develop Good Vibes

You have to develop good vibes around you if you are willing to improve the work performance. Creating good Vibes will boost not only the productivity of you but also the people working around you in the same environment. If people are comfortable in a specific environment, they are likely to perform more than their efficiency.

66. Good Air Flow

Ensure that the airflow is sufficient to breathe without any external machine. An excellent flowing air will bring new energy with the flow, and that will keep refreshing you. If the environment is suffocating, you will not focus on your work, and that’s why excellent airflow is required to improve focus and productivity.

67. Develop a Ritual

You can also develop a ritual in your environment, like giving the water to the plant. This will allow you to make the same pattern every day and give you a sense of routine, even if there is any chaos throughout the day. It will make you feel comfortable about the day, and you will be able to continue the momentum of your previous concentration and restart the work with the same amount of focus.

Rituals keep us from forgetting what must not be forgotten and keep us rooted in a past from which we must not be disconnected.

Tony Campolo

68. Don’t Distract Others

Make sure that you are not distracting others from their work on focus. You might have the space near the window, and play with the window might be fun for you, but it might not be delightful for other people in the same room. Hence, please do not do anything that will distract or interrupt people from doing their work.

69. Enough Space

You are going to have important documents or any other essential elements at your table or workplace. If you want to improve your work performance, you will have to focus on one thing because multitasking is impossible for everyone in every scenario. In such a case, you will have to have enough space to keep the things that are not required at that time.

70. Ensure Hygiene

You must ensure hygiene around your workplace because and we all know that a hygienic environment is required for better health, comfort, and focus. You cannot work appropriately in a dirty environment. It might cause you some trouble with your work performance. Hence it is recommended to ensure complete hygiene wherever you are working.

71. Natural Elements

As far as elements are concerned, make sure that you are using maximum natural elements at your workplace. This will help you to connect with the natural vibes and will keep you safe from non-recyclable products, which might be hazardous at some point. This might not be directly related to work performance. It will indirectly affect your productivity somehow, and your work performance is directly correlated with productivity.

72. Ensure Good Lighting

If there is no sufficient lighting at your workplace, you will not focus on the essential tasks. Having adequate lighting conditions will help you to improve eyesight and work more effectively. This might sound a crazy idea, but you will be saving almost 5 to 60 seconds in every task throughout the day if you have the right lighting conditions.

73. Maintain Personal Space

Your work performance is dependent on your focus and concentration. Similarly, if you are not focusing and concentrating on your own work, then there is a possibility of looking here and there without any reason. Irrelevant staring at someone at the workplace might be a threat to someone’s freedom. It is recommended to respect the space of everyone around you and indirectly it will improve the work performance of everyone.

You never understand how dear your privacy is until you lose it.

Rosie Perez

74.Open Workplace

Privacy is one thing, but on the other hand, you should be accessible to others if they have any queries regarding the work associated with you. If your workplace is open enough for everyone, things will move faster, and people will communicate with you without any rigid formalities. Ensure that you are accessible by everyone in a specific way and, at the same time, don’t compromise your privacy. You have to find the balance, and things will work automatically.

75. Customize It

Customization is a process of changing something according to your preferences. Feel free to customize your workplace by taking the necessary permission. If things around you are designed or arranged by you, it will make you feel much more comfortable, significantly improving your work performance.

F. Food

Food is another aspect that is crucial in determining your work efficiency. Following food-related ways will help you to improve work performance.

76. Healthy Food

You should always prefer healthy food during your breakfast, lunch. This is directly related to your health, and if you have better health, you can work efficiently, and there won’t be any concentration issues. Make sure that you are consuming healthy food before or during work hours. Covid pandemic has taught us the importance of the healthy lifestyle.

77. Maintain Proper Schedule

There is work pressure everywhere, but it should not affect your eating schedule. The balance of your body clock is based on your eating and sleeping schedule. If you want to maintain that balance, then you have to follow the proper plan at any cost. The balance of your body clock will help you to focus on your work.

78. Don’t Be Hungry

It is a good thing to be hungry when it comes to work and aspirations. However, when it comes to the body, you shouldn’t be hungry while working. The science behind it says that if you are hungry, you will be continually thinking about the food instead of the actual work you are doing. If you are hungry, you will not be able to concentrate, affecting your work performance. Thus it is recommended to eat something before your work or whenever you will feel hungry, grab a bite of some healthy food.

79. Follow the Break Schedule

Having some breaks during work hours is necessary for continuous efficient working. If you are not taking any break or not following the break schedule correctly, you can burn out if you are working very hard. Work is essential, but it is also crucial to take a proper break and have a little walk in the surrounding environment. It will give you relaxation and energy to work in the upcoming segments.

Taking a break can lead to breakthroughs.

Russell Eric Dobda

80. Eat Fruits

An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Similarly, eating multiple fruits within limits will help you to get nutritional benefits for your body. This will help you to maintain energy throughout the day as well as it will help to improve your health in the long term. A healthy body is a medium to is improve your work performance.

81. Don’t Waste Food

Do not waste food at all. If it is excess for you, you can donate it to homeless or needy/hungry people. Wastage of food will develop the habit of mismanagement, which might be harmful to your professional life. When working in the organization, it is required to do the optimum utilization of every resource. You must be able to finish your food or manage it without wasting it.

82. Maintain Balance of Food

While eating, you should maintain the proper balance of your food, considering nutrition and the positive and negative consequences on the body. You can take the dietician’s help to keep this balance and follow the dietician’s diet plan. This will reduce the possibility of affecting your health due to the food, and you will be able to be more focused and energetic during your work.

83. Don’t Overeat

Overeating will cause health-related issues both in the short as well as in the long term. Don’t overeat significantly if you have something important to do in the upcoming time. You will need some time for digestion, and during the digestion process, it is not recommended to do heavy physical activity.

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84. Maintain Hydration

It would be best if you keep yourself hydrated by drinking adequate water frequently. It is associated with your body, and your mind will be able to focus and concentrate with a better efficiency if you are hydrated. Daily, it is recommended to drink at least 3.7 liters of water if you are a man and 2.7 liters of water if you are a woman. Do this as an experiment, and you will notice the difference in your work performance.

85. Prefer Home Made Food

Prefer homemade food because it is prepared with nutrition, and there is a warmth of love in it. I am not sure if you believe it or not, but we become what we eat. Vibes and intent are transferred from food, so prefer homemade food; it is hygienic and beneficial for your health.

86. Avoid Junk Food

Sometimes it is not possible to have homemade food, in such case you can have outside food. However, strongly avoid junk food if you care about your health as well as your lifestyle. Junk food is tasty and very lucrative, but it is not suitable for you for long-term health. Hence, it is strongly recommended to avoid junk food to safeguard your health and improve your work performance. These things are interrelated, and implementing these ideas will help you sustain and grow your working efficiency.

You can’t have a healthy civilization without healthy soil. You can’t have junk food and have healthy people.

Joel Salatin

87. Focus on Eating

What do you do most of the time while eating? You are checking your phone, laptop, or any digital device, Right?. Focus on eating and feel the taste of every bite of the food from next time. It will help you to improve your focus as well as enjoy the food as well. I agree with the work pressure and responsibilities out there, but eating should be given full attention.

88. Share Food with Others

Sharing your food with others will help build professional connections and personal bonding with the people around you. You can name it something like food diplomacy. However, it works. You will be building relationships and winning people by sharing food with them. This increased funding will help you to improve your work performance.

89. Increase Proteins Intake

Increase protein intake as it will improve your fitness and stamina so that you will work for a comparatively longer time. Energy and vigor are needed when it comes to complete the work in a short period. You don’t have to take any medication for that, but you can include food items that contain a fair amount of protein in it.

90. Have Coffee

If you feel sleepy or tired, you can have a coffee cup to get back to your energetic version. It contains caffeine, which triggers a chemical called dopamine in your brain. This chemical is associated with the reward system. Whenever you do something good immediately, this reward system releases dopamine, and starts feeling good about yourself. The ideal way to get dopamine is to do hard work and earn it because it will make you proud. However, drinking coffee will help you to get dopamine instantly and feel energetic for some time.

G. Creativity

If you want to improve your work performance,e then it is essential to nourish and develop creativity. There is nothing as great as creativity in innovation because it teaches you how to think in a way that is not defined or discovered. It gives you the ability to be the first one on this planet to create something new. It could be anything the product innovation, a  new process to do something in a short period, or anything else out there. These are the ways where you can improve work performance with the help of creativity.

91. Do Experimentss

Always be open to do experiments and explore new things. Yes, there are some rules and ethics and some defined process to do any particular task. You should follow it because it is the way how the organization should work as a collective team. However, that does not mean you should not do experiments on your level and explore something new. Do as many experiments as possible without harming anyone or anything.

92. Break the Things

Move fast and break things because you will have more information, and that information will help you be more productive and take more process decisions. Yes, sometimes,s it is not easy to do It, but breaking the things will help to build something sustainable in the long run. Don’t worry to break things. You have to understand what to do next and how to improve your current status.

“Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.”

Mark Zuckerberg

93. Take Calculated Risk

Breaking the things doesn’t mean random hitting everywhere without anything in mind. It means taking a calculated risk and analyzing what could be the best possible scenario and what could be the worst-case scenario while taking any decision. It would help if you had some plans before executing anything. Even if you don’t have any plan,n you should be ready to deal with any unexpected scenario and consequences of your decision.

94. Seek Something New

Always seek something new, which will help you improve your work performance by adding new work system abilities. Doing any monotonous work will be out of fashion someday, and the whole industry will change within a short time span and you cannot wait for that day. You have to build your system that will be upgrading itself time to time, and that’s why you need to see something new everyday while working.

95. Make Mistakes

As far as you can rectify your mistakes, don’t hesitate to make mistakes. Yes, you cannot do anything beyond your work scope, but taking responsibility for your mistake and your ability to rectify it will improve your work performance. You simply cannot keep making mistakes and forcing others to rectified on behalf of you. It’s your mistake, and you should learn from it and rectify it.

96. Allow Creative Culture

It would help if you allow creative culture around you, and creativity should not be limited to yourself. Everyone around you should have the freedom to explore their creativity, and that’s how you will grow as a team. It will improve not only your work performance but also the performance of everyone in your circle.

97. Work-Life Balance

Maintaining work-life balance is necessary for improving not only personal life but also it will enhance your work performance. It means that not excessively giving more time and putting efforts in any single zone every time. When you are maintaining the proper balance, you will perform very well in both living areas.

98. Collaborate with Others

When you are collaborating with others, there is a new vibe of creativity in the team. When you are working without a group, you have limited efficiency and creativity, but you have many minds working as a team. That collaboration helps you to boost your creativity and performance at work.

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”

Helen Keller

99. Have an Inspiration

It would help if you have some inspiration, and it will help you be more creative in your work. It will give you the confidence to seek new ideas and work on it based on your skills, knowledge, experience, and intuition.

100. Always be Curious

What is the best way to learn something new everyday time? You just have to follow this mantra of ABC. Always be curious to learn, explore, and experiment with new things. If you are curious, you will find answers and solutions to many issues, and it will help you improve your overall performance and skills, knowledge, and experience.

101. Stop Being Monotonous

Being monotonous is boring when you are doing something for the long term. As a human, it can reduce your productivity and creativity, which might reduce your work performance. It is recommended to be open and try to figure out multiple ways of doing the same task, and you can stick with the most productive and creative method. Even after that, you will have to keep exploring new ideas and strategies to do it.

102. Overcome Failures

If you want to be creative and productive during your work hours, you will have to overcome your failures. Learn from your failures and move forward. That’s how it should be when it comes to growth. The first step is to attempt something, and even if you are getting failure, you can learn from it and avoid it in the future.

103. Avoid Negativity

It will help if you avoid negativity because it creates a sense of not doing something, pushing you towards being non-productive and non-creative. If you are struggling to stay positive, then at least try to stay neutral.

104.  Have Faith in the Process

Everything will happen at the right time, and hence you should have faith in the process. You should focus on your work and implement creative things in it. It will give positive results in the future, so it is essential to have faith in what we are doing, which will help you stay focused and improve your work performance.

“All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.”

J.M. Barrie

105. Brainstorm Regularly

You might have some information and ideas, but you don’t have the vision and information about everything out there. Hence, it becomes essential to do a brainstorming activity with your colleagues. It will enrich your creativity, and you will improve your work performance by getting more Ideas and showing different perspectives about your work.

H. Productivity

Productivity is something that is continually creating something new without losing the quality of it. If you are always engaged in doing the work, which adds value and makes more value for everyone through your work, it is productive. These are the methods that will help you improve your productivity, and as a result, you will see improvement in your work performance.

106. Have the Perfect Plan

To execute anything and expect productive results, you will have to draft a perfect plan, and this is a way of doing anything with a complete constructive approach. Practically you will have everything ready, and then it will be much easier for you because you will have an idea of what to do next.

107. Execute the Plans Effectively

You might have excellent planning ideas, but trust me on this, ideas are easy execution is difficult. You have to execute your plans effectively if you are expecting good returns out of your efforts. Use digital tools, plan your things as per your execution capacity, build a productive atmosphere, and that’s how you can execute the plans effectively.

108. Start Executing Early

What’s the best way to achieve success early? It is nothing but to start attempting and chasing it early. Some people might get it quickly, and some people might get it later, but if you are beginning your execution early, then there are more chances of achieving your goals faster.

109. Build a To-Do List

A To-do list will help you to prioritize your task based on urgency and importance. It will also be your guide to do the things as per the priority and help you track your completed and remaining work. You can use a to-do list application. It will hardly take a few minutes to set up the tasks, and then you will have to follow the tasks and complete them as per the list of priorities.

110. Routine Follow Up

No matter how effectively you are doing any task, you always have to take routine for love because it will help you understand where you are doing very well and where there is a need for improvement. This routine follow-up will improve your productivity because you will know no how to overcome non-productive areas.

111. Do Something Extra

Beating the deadline is cool, but what if you can do something extra beyond the expectations. It could be anything like if you are supposed to do ten things, and you are you going beyond it and doing maybe 13 or 15 items, then it boosts your productivity.  Your work performance will have drastic improvements because you will finish the task, which is expected, but you are giving something extra. However, make sure that you are not losing quality till the end.

“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.”

Carpe diem

112. Accounting Partner

As per the research, it is said that if people are not answerable to anyone regarding any particular task, then 80% of them are likely to avoid that task. Thus, find your accounting partner and be accountable for your to-do list. Your accounting partner will help you regularly beat the deadlines without losing the quality because you will be answerable for everything expected from you. This will give you a sense of responsibility, and it will improve your work performance.

113. Focus on Solution

If you want to grow, you should always have a solution-based approach instead of focusing on the problems. A good analysis of the issues is required, but you should not focus entirely on the problem because you might never find the solution if you are stuck in the problem itself. You have to focus on solutions and keep trying new things that will allow solving more questions in a short time.

114. Take Adequate Sleep

You won’t feel productive unless you have taken an adequate amount of sleep. Don’t interfere with your body clock unless it is creating an obstacle in your productivity or health. Ensuring the quantity and the quality of your sleep hours will help you feel energetic, improving your focus while working. Ultimately it will help you to improve your overall work performance.

115. Ask for Help

You won’t be able to do all the things because you don’t have the knowledge and skills of everything. In such a case, you can ask for help from the people who are experts in it. Productivity is all about ensuring consistent results as per your expectations. Everyone is good at the bottom of his/her heart. If you are approaching with genuine concern, people will feel good to help you with it. Do not hesitate to ask for help but make sure that you are not wasting someone’s time.

116. Have Clarity

You should have clarity while doing anything because if you are not clear what to do, then it will create unnecessary anarchy, and you won’t feel productive. This will also affect your work performance because you will be wasting your time in uncertainty. Be clear about what to do, and then you will have the scope for experiments and all other stuff related to it. You should have a clear goal, and then you will decide how to follow it.

117. Keep Improving Skills

People around you will help you in your work, but they will not stay there forever. Hence, the only way to grow and support yourself is to build your skills and improve it daily. There is no shortcut here. You have to have a self-sustaining approach.

“Schooling doesn’t assure employment but skill does.”

Amit Kalantri

118. Maintain Progress Reports

If you want to improve your performance at work, you should always have the maintenance of performance records, which will help you analyze your performance and progress. This will be the document that will be beneficial for finding out the deficiencies and maintaining the improvement.

119. Stay Healthy

If you are not healthy, you won’t be able to do productive work, and it might adversely affect your work performance if you are not healthy and productive; hence it is recommended to stay healthy. Multiple methods will help you to stay healthy and maintain your fitness.

120. Listen to Music

Some of you might find this destruction but listening to peaceful music while working boosts productivity as it helps you maintain your focus on your work. Try this as an experiment and do some work while listening to soothing music, then finding out the progress or amount of attention you have given compared to usual times.

I. Growth

Continuous growth is a way to maintain current performance and improve your skills, efficiency, and abilities. Always be open to learning new things and doing experiments to help you grow on your intellectual level. Ultimately this is going to help your work performance. These are some ways which will help you to perform well at your work.

121. Be in an Uncomfortable Zone

Always keep yourself in an uncomfortable zone because it is the only way to grow at a sustainable rate. If you are in your comfort zone, you will never succeed, which will restrict your progress in the long term.

122. Value Constructive Criticism

Indeed, you should always follow your intuition and not rely on your decisions based on people’s opinions. However, you should always value constructive criticism because you are not perfect. If the people are willing to help you with a genuine intention, you should always respect it and value their criticism by considering their suggestions.

123. Ignore Negative Comments

There will always be people who will always criticize you no matter what you do, and hence it is necessary to understand the difference between constructive criticism and negative comments. Constructive criticism is something that helps you to grow with specific points and solutions to improve your work. On the other hand, a negative comment is something that demotivates you without any legit point. You have to develop the skill of ignoring negative comments and keep focusing on your work without getting distracted.

“I neither revenge nor forgive, I just choose to ignore.”

Irfa Rahat

124. Take the Ownership

If you want to grow, then you have to take ownership of things without blaming others. You have to take ownership of your work and the consequences of it. I will help you be responsible for your actions and help you grow by correcting your mistakes and achieving perfection in any work.

125. Improve Communication

You should always have good communication with others because communication is necessary while dealing with people, and it is a base for building strong and mutually beneficial relationships. If you haven’t read this article, I would recommend you read it because it will help you understand improving communication skills.

126. Take New Challenges

If you are doing the same things repeatedly, you might achieve perfection in that particular work, but you won’t be able to do new things. Hence, it is recommended to take new challenges every day and keep yourself active in dealing with different work types. This will boost your growth of skills and experience, and knowledge, which will eventually contribute to your work performance improvement.

127. Test Your Limits

You never know what is your maximum limit if you are never trying to hit it. You are growing every day, and it. As a result, your limitations are also increasing, so if you can do a certain amount of work today doesn’t mean you should be doing the same amount of work after ten days from now or one month from now because you might have developed some skills, knowledge, and experience that might allow you to work much more than you are usual capacity and hence it is recommended to test your limits frequently without affecting your health.

128. Read More

If you are reading one book, then it is similar to living a new life, and hence if you are expecting growth in your current life, you should be reading as much as possible because it’s impossible to live so many lives at the same time. Reading will give you the knowledge and idea of different lives, helping you grow.

“Think before you speak. Read before you think.”

Fran Lebowitz

129. Help Others

Be open to helping others because helping others also contribute to your knowledge and experience in dealing with specific work types. Remember the mantra that ‘givers gain.’ However, ensure that you are not affecting your work by helping others. You will be able to help others only when you will be focusing on and completing your work.

130. Build Connections

Your growth is also based on the number of people in your life who are contributing value. Be open to build new connections and maintain those connections by exchanging values with each other. A good relationship is something that helps each other to grow. You can use professional platforms such as LinkedIn to build and maintain connections.

131. Invest in Skills

Some people are afraid while investing in skills, the investment in yourself is the best investment you will ever make in your whole life. You might invest in courses but never complete it due to lack of time or any other reason. This should not happen if you invest in something, then you should take every benefit of it.

132. Have a Long Term Approach

Some things might be beneficial for you in the short term, but it might be very much harmful in the long term and hence always consider a long term approach while taking a decision. For example, fixing an issue with a random method might give you instant relief, but that issue might reoccur anytime in the future. Hence, you should find out the root cause of that issue and fix it forever with a complete and practical solution.

133. Have Patience

Always have patience while doing any work. You will never get the returns instantly in most cases, which might be very disappointing for some people, but this is how things work. Do your work with complete dedication, honesty, and focus. You will be getting relevant results for it at the right time.

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”

Aristotle

134. Don’t Quit

Sometimes you will feel like quitting and leaving everything because things will not always be good for you. This is the testing phase where you should prove yourself by putting more effort and defeating that feeling of quitting. You can slow down for some time but never stop unless you complete your task.

135. Practical Execution

Focus on the practical execution of tasks instead of thinking about it. Remember that 10 minutes of doing something is way better than 10 hours of thinking about doing something. You will never achieve results if you keep thinking without any practical execution. Leave all your worries about feeling you and do it practically because it will give you the experience, and your experience will decide your results. The more knowledge you will gain, there will be more chances of being accurate.

J. Work Culture

Your work culture has some influence on your work performance, and if your work culture is positive, it will positively influence your performance. These are the ways that will help you improve your work culture and your performance at work.

136. Be Open to Change

Always be open to change; Kodak was the biggest company in the camera industry. Still, they refused to change their mindset when digital photography was taking place, and the rest is history. You always have to be open to change your work culture as nothing will stay in one condition forever.

137. Dynamic Skills

Acquire and improve emotional skills because depending on one skill might not benefit you in the long term. You should always try to learn new things and acquire new skills. Your work culture is based on how dynamic it is in nature. If people with emotional skills are there, then your work culture automatically becomes dynamic.

138. Stay Focused

You have to maintain your focus and do everything which is required to maintain that concentration. No matter your execution skills, if you cannot focus properly, it won’t work. It might take some time to sustain the focus, but always try to do it and improve it step by step.

139. Uphold Humor

It’s completely alright to have some humor and uphold it even in your professional environment. Humour is something that helps to maintain open connections in the work culture. You cannot preserve a serious attitude all the time. Upholding humor will make everyone feel relaxed.

“When humor goes, there goes civilization.”

Erma Bombeck

140. Have Collective Approach of Growth

The culture of any work ecosystem should be based on the principle of growth. There should be equal opportunities for everyone to grow, and this collective approach will help improve work performance for everyone. Unequal development will create a sense of envy, and it should not be there.

141. Build People

It would help if you are focused on building people, and the team will be made automatically. People with proper experience, knowledge, understanding, skills, and ideas can boost overall work performance.

142. Focus on Core Values

Every work culture has some core values. Even if you upgrade the overall ecosystem and work style, those core values should never change because it is the entire organization’s foundation. You should respect those core values and consider them while taking any decision.

143. Give More than Expected

Always give more than what was expected from you because it will inculcate the habit of growth in your organization’s culture. It might cost you some time, but this culture will help the entire work system be more productive and achieve great results.

144. Beat Deadlines

It’s good to complete your work at a given deadline, but it is great to complete it much before the deadline. Ensure that you are not compromising anything with your work’s quality or quantity because it doesn’t make any sense to beat the deadline with low graded work.

145. Have Rewards

If you are performing as per your expectations, then have some rewards. This will help you to get dopamine in the right way. This will inspire you to work even more and achieve more results.

146. Have Mentors

Having a mentor will help you improve your technique, and your mentor will guide you to do things with more accuracy. You don’t always have to have this formal relationship between mentor and mentee, but you can advise any senior member who has more knowledge, experience, and skills than you.

“A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself.”

Oprah Winfrey

147. Be Innovative

Develop an innovative attitude regarding your work culture. Innovation is key to progress in the right direction. Things will be old someday, and hence innovating new ideas is the need for any work culture.

148. Give Punishments

Since you will be having a reward for all the excellent work completed by you, there should be a punishment system where you should punish yourself if you are not achieving something that was expected from you. This will not demotivate you, but it will be the system that will keep an eye on you and your performance.

149. Follow Ethics

No matter what you do and how you do it, ethics should be the foundation of everything. If you want to develop a culture and improve your performance, then you will have to follow the ethics at any cost. There are some written rules, regulations, and laws, but ethics are generally unwritten, so you must understand those ethics and follow it.

150. Outsource Your Work

If it is not possible for you to complete the work within the deadline, then you can seek some external help that will help you to complete your work on time. Outsourcing your work will also help you to develop the culture outside your organization as you will be having all the control overwork and the process of completing that work.

151. Empower Your Team

Empowering your team is empowering yourself. You cannot keep all the controls and powers with yourself because you have limited time, and if you want to achieve something big, you will have to distribute the power and empower your team to do the work on behalf of you. Even if you are not a leader, you can empower the team you are working in. You can empower them by sharing your skills, knowledge, experience, and ideas.  

“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”

Henry Ford

Conclusion

Your work performance is based on multiple factors such as your skills such as leadership, time management, communication. Your relations, environment, food, creativity, productivity, growth, and work culture. It will help if you are focused on improvement in these areas. These are the ways to improve your work performance by focusing on the root cause and optimizing or in your favor. This improvement will not happen overnight but you can pick one option at a time and work on it systematically.

It generally takes anywhere between 30 days to 66 days to form a new habit. If you are working on something always for this period, then it will automatically convert itself from the activity to habit. You can shift to the next improvement once you have inculcated any habit. There are multiple other ways to improve work performance, but these are some of the best ways. If you know any different ways, please share it in the comments. It will help me understand your perspective and help other readers out there improve their performance at work. Also, so don’t forget to share this with your colleagues because, as we have seen that giving others will give you more in return. 

Featured photo courtesy : Jopwell