Tag: productivity boost

Productivity Tips to Help You Work Smarter in the New Year

Here are some highlights from Amy Landino‘s appearance on Agorapulse’s weekly Facebook Live show. You can also view the entire show if you like (and which we recommend!).

Onward to the productivity tips!

1. Broaden Your Creativity

“See what you can make fly, so that you can observe the results of it and then any success that you have, duplicate that or figure out what that looks like.”

Establish a steady (not frantic) pace

“When you have a content goal, and let’s say it’s to have a weekly show on YouTube, which is industry standard. If you started weekly, you’re doing really well. As a matter of fact, YouTube would tell you to start with once a week. Don’t do more than that!”

Try new things

“I like to compare it to carpool karaoke on the set. On these night shows that we start to see on YouTube that work, it’s because you test them on the show. That’s their testing ground, and then what ends up flying ends up being their huge success online.

“That could also be true for the actual show itself, like what they become known for …

“Maybe you become known for a segment, but you have to build that segment out.”

2. Write Out Everything  

“The procedure for that for me is we have to write everything.”

Embrace documentation

“Obviously, everything has to be documented, from all the talking points that we need and any other basis we have to cover it or sponsor it or stuff like that.

Establish deadlines

“And then we’re reverse-engineering what the deadlines are. When is the video to go out? When does it need to go to certain approvals? What days are those approvals? When do you film? When do you edit?

“Everything is just a reverse-engineering of a deadline.”

3. Schedule, Schedule, Schedule

Reverse engineer deadlines to avoid feeling overwhelmed

“And so I do like to look at what are all the deadlines for a month and then reverse engineer the filming. If I can do at least two videos in one day to make the most of hair and makeup, it pays off for me because I don’t have to go crazy and get ready to film so many times in a month.

“That takes a lot of careful planning and making sure that you’re covering your bases and making the time.

free trial of agorapulse social media management tool

Use your time wisely

“Scheduling is a very big passion in my life. I believe we can all make better use of the time that we have.

“And so if you want the content to be good, I do think it needs to be timely.

“It’s amazing how even a video that’s very well-planned, sometimes just when it’s made too far in advance, even on my channel, it just doesn’t fly the same way as it would if it was like this idea that we came up with and got out like traditional YouTube culture.

Give yourself enough time

“But you do need to give yourself enough time to create it.

“So maybe not looking too far in advance but looking at a monthly level or from a monthly viewpoint of what are we trying to get done and when are we going to do it, especially if you’re hiring people to get this kind of stuff done for you.

“You’re definitely going to want to schedule that as well. So it’s pretty obvious that you would then have to schedule whatever you have to do as it pertains to that content.

“But going on a week to week basis with those videos would be really difficult if you’re thinking, we’re going to do this again, I gotta do this, again, I gotta do this.

“Again, if you can kind of knock out for marketing and content creation, just a certain period of time in that month, and then all the other logistics to follow, just have to get done in time for the deadline, you’re in pretty good shape.

“So I do a lot of batching whenever possible.”

Bonus Materials: Free SMART Goals Guide

4. Take Notes and Outline

“The places I spend my time are Evernote for a lot of outlining and note-taking.

Amy Landino productivity tips for social media managers

“But Instagram and Twitter and YouTube are like my main situations because absolutely everything that I’m doing has to do with the feedback that I’ve been getting from my community.

“There’s no reason to write a book unless people want it. There’s no reason to create a video unless there’s some way to convey a message or a tool or a tactic that people wanted.

Practice the art of listening

“And so I have to be listening to all the time. Otherwise, I’m just creatively dead because I specifically make my videos for a specific person and for a specific community, so I need to go to them a lot, especially when a video goes out.

“You watch and see, like, what spawned from this conversation like, Where do we go from here? What follow up questions are to be had? Because that’s probably a great follow-up to this video.”

5. Embrace Talking About the Same Thing a Lot

“I think one of the hardest things for people when they’re creating content is getting out of their head about talking about the same thing all the time.

“I actually love getting that comment from like the random troll every once in a while, like, Oh, my gosh, you talk about the same thing all the time.

“My answer to that is: Yeah because I’m an expert.”

Cultivate your expertise

“So if you are feeling that you’re talking about the same thing a lot, you’re an expert.

“And people usually need to hear what you’re saying a lot for you to make a change if that’s the type of content that you create.

“No matter how many times I feel like I’ve said something, there’s always another way to put it. Because I still get the same types of questions all the time.

Invest $500 to get $2500 in a week completely legit

“The reality is everybody thinks that their problems are different from everybody. We all think our problems are special and different. But when you really break it down, we’re all talking about the same issues.”

source

6. Give Yourself at Least 15 Minutes Every Morning

“At least allocate 15 minutes to start your day on your terms. You’re going to be better off for the rest of the world because they’re going to be pulling at you for the rest of the day.

“So I’m unbelievably passionate about having my ‘me time’ in the morning. I’m an introvert; I just need that moment because I know that I have to be on the rest of the day. It’s just a part of the gig. And so I take that for myself.

“You just have to find what works for you and that was probably the final passion behind this book was everything online is really outlining what you should be doing in the morning. I don’t like the word ‘should.’ I shut down when people save them.

“And so to me, it’s what works for you, and just covering the bases.

“Get that little bit of time it might just take for you to feel like you’re up for that day, and make the work around what your season of life is at that moment.”

By: Veronica Jarski

In Conclusion

Social Pulse Weekly brings you incredible marketing experts and today’s latest social media news and developments. Tune in every Friday at 2PM ET to keep your finger on the pulse of social media.

* * *

Want more helpful, actionable content like this? Subscribe to the Agorapulse newsletter, and get the most recent blog posts and news about the social media channels you use most.

.

.

Brian Tracy

The most successful and wealthiest people all practice the habits I am about to share with you on a daily basis. Adding these daily success habits to your own routine will contribute greatly to your achievement. http://bit.ly/2wHVsEs If you want to set yourself up for success, you must create an effective to-do list. Use my ABCDE Method Checklist to plan your days and weeks more efficiently than ever before. Click the link above to download my ultimate prioritization tool for free. “There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing.” @BrianTracy (Click to Tweet: http://ctt.ec/9bdah) ___________________ Learn more: Subscribe to my channel for free offers, tips and more! YouTube: http://ow.ly/ScHSb Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BrianTracyPage Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/BrianTracy Google+: +BrianTracyOfficialPage Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/BrianTracy Instagram: @TheBrianTracy Blog: http://bit.ly/1rc4hlg

How To Incorporate Mindfulness Into Company Culture

Nowhere do first impressions count more than with work culture. When candidates come by for that crucial in-person interview, the culture they experience dictates whether or not they look elsewhere. When workers hang up their coat each morning, the environment they step into influences their productivity. Especially on young teams, culture is meaningfully tied to turnover, absenteeism, productivity, morale, and even company growth.

The good news is that a tight-knit culture comes naturally during the startup phase. Employees who get in on the ground floor are often happy to work long hours toward goals they’re passionate about.

As startups grow, their sense of unity and closeness tends to decay. But the solution isn’t to strangle growth; it’s to scale that culture along with the company.

Scaling Culture Through Collaboration

As teams grow and are siloed into departments, employees’ sense of connectedness blurs. As management layers are added, workers may feel further removed from the company’s original mission. Communication and collaboration suffer.

As with most initiatives, the answer to a thinning culture is teamwork. To keep your culture healthy and thriving, consider these four collaboration strategies:

1. Hire for complementary character.

To improve engagement and retention, hire people who fit with the culture you’re trying to maintain. The trick isn’t to hire people who are exactly like you and your teammates; it’s to bring in cooperative people whose character complements the bases you’ve already covered.

If you’ve got a bubbly, extroverted salesperson, perhaps a contemplative marketer is a good match. Collaborative teams need multiple perspectives to draw from.

As with culture itself, first impressions are key. Jot down notes from that first interaction with the person so you can share it with the wider team: Did a candidate come across as a go-getter with a sharp sense of humor? Did she seem honest and helpful?

If the candidate gets the green light from you, bring in a few trusted team members for the final interview. Make sure their first impression matches yours. To encourage genuine responses, tell each person to write down his or her take before sharing it with the wider group.

2. Balance formality and fun. 

Even if you hire well, everyone has a different idea of how formal work should be. To salespeople, going to happy hour may feel like part of the job. But if marketing is filling out forms and logging every task, friction between the two teams is bound to develop.

People in different roles operate in different worlds, each with their own goals and discipline-specific jargon. Start with what you share: your purpose and values. Remind everyone why they do the work, even when working together is challenging.

With that sense of unity, start to dig into the processes that get you there: Is swapping memes important to team morale? Perhaps it should be codified as part of your culture. Does logging each project accurately in a spreadsheet keep stress levels low? Do that, too.

Your team has to be both happy and productive. Decide what processes you need to get there, and put them in writing for everyone to follow.

3. Create opportunities for employee connection.

If high-profile projects are the only reasons your workers interact with others outside their team, they’re likely to associate those people with stress and frustration. To avoid this, create opportunities for cross-department engagement.

As much of a buzzword as it’s become, team building still has an important role in your company’s culture. To bridge the gap between departments, CRM provider Ontraport puts together employee peer groups that meet on a regular basis. Regularly exposing employees to others’ perspectives and challenges fosters empathy, making it easier to work through obstacles together when they arise.

Plan extracurricular activities — like lunch-and-learns, volunteering, or even laser tag — involving two or more departments. Give employees the opportunity to get to know each other outside of their roles at work.

4. Celebrate wins together.

When a whole-company project draws to a close, it’s easy to breathe a sigh of relief and move on to the next. Build a sense of camaraderie by taking the time to celebrate those accomplishments, big or small.

A company celebration doesn’t have to be an all-day event or an expensive bonus. Think outside the box. Some of the best ones are free and collaborative. To people nominated by their peers, Stoneridge Software gives “Stoney Awards,” including “Most Likely to Leave a Whiteboard Dirty,” and provides periodic bonus holidays.

Encourage employees to congratulate each other. Distribute company-branded thank-you cards to everyone, not just managers, and challenge everyone to give them all out by a certain date. Tell people to focus not just on outcomes, but also on effort and intention. A sense of appreciation is contagious.

As you grow, you can’t save everything that’s great about being a startup. But no matter how big your company becomes, you can always be a place where people want to work together. And when a candidate or employee walks in and sees that on a Monday morning, it makes all the difference.

Check out my website.

Serenity Gibbons

Serenity Gibbons is a former assistant editor at The Wall Street Journal. The local unit lead for the NAACP in Northern California and a consultant helping to build diverse workforces, Serenity enjoys gathering insights from people who are creating better workplaces and making a difference in the business world.

Source: How To Incorporate Mindfulness Into Company Culture

SAP
62.8K subscribers
Parham Vasaiely and Matt Champion will share practical experience of why mindfulness in the workplace is bringing about a new state of consciousness within their respective organisations. The session will explore why we need mindfulness? How to establish mindfulness in the workplace? And the benefits mindfulness enables at both human and organisational levels. You will also learn how Jaguar Land Rover’s Mindfulness programme is helping them to establish a foundation for an Agile culture and approach.

What Microsoft Japan’s Successful 4-Day Week Suggests About Work-Life Balance

1-27-1

Topline: Microsoft’s Japan office experimented with a four day workweek in August, resulting in a 40% productivity boost, with over 90% of employees reporting they preferred the shorter week⁠—which aligns with previous studies that show greater work-life balance makes for more productive employees.

  • In addition to a burst of productivity, Microsoft Japan reported it used about 23% less electricity and printed around 59% fewer pages during the experiment.
  • Microsoft Japan will conduct a second experiment over the winter and will encourage more flexible working, but it won’t include the shorter work week.
  • But previous studies show that giving employees more flexibility increases productivity; a New Zealand company permanently adopted the four day workweek in 2018, after a trial resulted in a 24% productivity increase.
  • The Harvard Business Review reported that a Chinese travel agency experienced a 13% productivity boost when it allowed call center employees to work from home.
  • In the U.S., a 2017 Stanford University study found the average worker is willing to give up 20% of their pay to avoid their schedule being set with short notice, and 8% of their pay in exchange for the option to work from home.
  • A work-from-anywhere program for patent examiners at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office showed productivity gains of 4.4%, according to a 2019 working paper by the Harvard Business School.

Big number: 80 hours.That was the length of a required workweek for 25% of Japanese companies in 2016, according to CNBC.

Key background: Japan’s culture of overwork first made headlines in 2015, when a Dentsu employee died by suicide on Christmas Day after working excessive overtime, and again in 2017, when a Japanese reporter died after clocking 159 hours of overtime the month before her death. Since then, prime minister Shinzo Abe has introduced “workstyle reform” to Japan, including an annual cap of 720 overtime hours per person. Although workstyle reform’s intent is to get big companies to improve their productivity internally, the Japanese government acknowledged the burden of overwork might be passed onto small and medium businesses as a result.

Today In: Business

Surprising fact: As a result of their brutal working culture, the Japanese coined the term “karoshi,” meaning “death by overwork.”

Tangent: Despite studies that show benefits to the four day workweek, it’s not universally favored by executives. Some owners have employees work on Friday when there’s a holiday the following Monday. Others have reduced vacation time to make up for the extra weekly day off. And one Portland, Oregon tech firm experimented with a four day workweek before returning to a five day schedule, because the owner realized a shorter week meant its competitors had a leg up.

Follow me on Twitter. Send me a secure tip.

Lisette Voytko

I’m a New York-based journalist covering breaking news at Forbes. I hold a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Previous bylines: Gotham Gazette, Bklyner, Thrillist, Task & Purpose, and xoJane.

Source: What Microsoft Japan’s Successful 4-Day Week Suggests About Work-Life Balance

87K subscribers
After spending August experimenting with a four-day work week in a country notorious for overwork, Microsoft Japan said sales per employee rose 40% compared with the same month last year. The “Work-Life Choice Challenge Summer 2019” saw full-time employees take off five consecutive Fridays in August with pay, as well as shortening meetings to a maximum of 30 minutes and encouraging online chats over face-to-face ones. Among workers responding to a survey about the program, 92% said they were pleased with the four-day week, the software maker’s Japan affiliate said in a report on its website on Oct. 31. Japan has been struggling to bring down some of the world’s longest working hours as it confronts a labor shortage and rapidly aging population. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s push to make workplaces more flexible and reduce overtime has drawn mixed reviews. The summer trial also cut costs at Microsoft Japan, with 23% less electricity consumed and 59% fewer pages printed compared with August 2018, according to the report. Some Microsoft Japan managers still didn’t understand the changes in working styles and some employees expressed concern that shorter workweeks would bother clients. Microsoft Japan plans to hold another work-life challenge in winter. Employees won’t get special paid days off, but will be encouraged to take time off on their own initiative “in a more flexible and smarter way.” Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2TwO8Gm TICTOC ON SOCIAL: Follow TicToc on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tictoc Like TicToc on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tictoc Follow TicToc on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tictoc Subscribe to our newsletter: https://bit.ly/2FJ0oQZ TicToc by Bloomberg is global news for the life you lead. We are a 24/7 news network that covers breaking news, politics, technology, business and entertainment stories from around the globe, supported by a network of Bloomberg’s 2,700 journalists across 120 countries.

Category

News & Politics
%d bloggers like this: