Keeping track of all your tasks and staying focused is a challenge in any field but in PR it’s even more difficult. Social media, meetings and calls from reporters can take away significant amounts of our time for everyday tasks. To cope with this we wanted to offer our team’s tricks to stay on task so you can be more productive this week.
Maggie focuses on ways she can be efficient with her time.
- Block out distractions – If I need to be laser focused on a specific assignment, I prefer to block all distractions such as turning my phone on silent, force closing my email and logging off all social media.
- Meetings – I always come to meetings prepared with an agenda and a time stamp. If the meeting is one hour, I make it a high priority to not allow the meeting to go on more than that. I want to be respectful of my time and others.
- Outsource chores – I used to want to control everything, but I’ve slowly started delegating tasks and I do a cost/benefit analysis to determine what works with my schedule and what I’m willing to offload to others.
Bryan makes sure to take a break when needed and is always caffeinated.
- I make a to-do list DAILY (and not just little tasks, but things that actually need and can be done).
- I like to take a break from work, whether it’s just for 5 minutes, and read interesting articles that may have absolutely nothing to do with my work. This really keeps my sane and allows me to be more productive throughout the day.
- One word: Coffee. Without it, I don’t know who I’d be.
Priorities are important for Shahla, but she knows that taking breaks help in the long run too.
- Eating a good lunch. I know it’s lunchtime when my mind starts to wander and I become easily distracted. Sitting down for even 20 minutes to refuel does wonders for my productivity.
- Prioritizing my to-do list. When I have a hefty list of tasks to accomplish for the day, I usually number them in order of importance, with number one being the most urgent.
- Walking around. I get restless easily, especially if I have been sitting at a desk for too long. Getting up to grab a drink of water, stretch or even get the mail helps me refocus on my tasks.
I stray away from ways that others have told me about how to be productive and do what works for me.
- I do exactly what I’ve read not to do; I split tasks up so that I do not get bored doing one thing over and over, while it’s a flawed system in some ways it works for me.
- I Reward myself for huge items crossed off my to-do list. My reward system always helps my work in the long run. If I finish writing a huge press release I reward myself my reading articles relevant to PR and suddenly I have social media for next week planned.
- Talk it out. I love that in our office the doors are always open and if I’m feeling unproductive I can turn to coworkers to talk for a minute and after I always feel better.
How do you increase productivity?