Three Steps to Increase Your Productivity at Work: Prioritization, Dedicated Time, and Support

It's #NoInterruptionsDay and a great opportunity to get a jump-start on 2022 planning. If increasing your productivity is among the list of resolutions, here are a few tips.

​​1. You Have to be Ruthless About Prioritizing Your Social Media Platforms

There’s a lot of pressure as a business owner or marketing manager to develop a digital presence on every social media platform that’s out there. Every time you establish a platform you then have to put a ton of effort into growing and managing the audience on each platform, as well as maintaining a consistent publishing schedule.

Because time is a finite resource, it’s important to choose the social media marketing mix, and marketing and communications tactics, that are best aligned with your vision, and which best meet your customers where they’re at.

Research shows the average consumer uses social media for 116 minutes per day. If you can be targeted and strategic in your choice of platforms, your chances of capturing their attention improve significantly. Let go of what doesn’t serve you so that you have more time for the platforms (and tactics) that matter most.

2. Office Hours Can Improve Productivity

I recently read It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson (co-founders of 37 Signals/Basecamp). It reinforced a lot of my fundamental beliefs about running a business.

One tactic Fried and Hansson focus on is the benefits of office hours, which ideally create: “...calmer days, longer stretches of uninterrupted time, and planned moments when [one] can enter a more professional mode to teach, help and share.”

Not only do we embrace this concept, we're happy to report it’s helped us serve dozens of nonprofits in 2018 through pro-bono consulting time. Our Nonprofit Office Hours and Faith Community Office Hours are available each week on a first-come, first served basis (and are highly productive). We also establish time for regular 1:1s with each of our employees, so that they have a dedicated time to ask questions and get the support that they need in doing the great work that they do for our customers.

3. Ask for Help When Needed

If you are growing your business or organization, there are a lot of fantastic resources out there that are designed to help you accomplish that. Some of the people and organizations that have made it possible to grow our business include:

• Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program
• Small Business Development Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business
• Find Your Local Small Business Development Centers (Nationwide)
• Wisconsin Procurement Institute (PTAC)
• Find Your Local Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) - (Nationwide)
• Doyenne Group
• Women's Business Development Council in Chicago (Midwest)
• WBENC (Nationwide)
• 10 Resources for Minority Owned Businesses (Nationwide)
• MERLIN Mentors - Madison
• UW Madison Law and Entrepreneurship Clinic - Madison
• DreamBank Madison - American Family Insurance
• BMO Harris Women in Business (Nationwide)
• National Association of Women’s Business Owners (Nationwide)
• Wisconsin Women’s Business Business Initiative Corporation (Wisconsin)

​
​Asking for help can also include knowing when you've reached a limit in terms of bandwidth or expertise as well! If you're looking for help with creating an inbound marketing strategy, managing your social media channels, or learning how to reach more people with social media advertising, consider us your productivity "secret weapon."