5 Simple Ways To Improve Productivity At Work In The Times Of Covid-19

Ankita Mehra 🤓
4 min readApr 15, 2020

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Photo Credit: Andrew Neel

Staying productive during this recent corona virus pandemic could be troublesome. As we need to be aware of our environment steadily, at the same time we must make sure how our teams are progressing. We must analyze often, how we as individuals are progressing. In such harsh circumstances, we should look into interesting ways to staying productive and avoid all those silly mistakes which might occur on some occasions. Covid-19, as we all know, is here to stay for a while but this shouldn’t deter us from establishing a robust system for our teams and for ourselves on a daily basis.

Take a pause.

Go through these 5 simple ways to improve productivity at work in the times of Covid-19. These ways would certainly help you ascertain the gaps and fix them immediately, so that you stay efficient throughout.

1. Stick to your old routine:

Sticking to your old routine will render a firm foundation to support both your personal and your work responsibilities. Create a weekly calendar with these routines and mark those as per your priority. Break these into doable tasks and block off time for each one of them. If possible, assign shifts to your family members for chores but if you’re alone at home, try to shortlist the most important tasks first for instance, your meals, workout and the like. Try to prevent burning out. Sticking to your old routine will help you do your best to stay productive and active at home.

2. Encourage transparent communication every day:

So, the team is working from home and there are high chances they might feel disconnected sometimes. Nothing to worry about! Communicate what’s happening at the company’s level. It can be related to client-relationship, finance, design, marketing and bigger goals. You never know, some of your team mates might get nervous about the revenue goals and other important deliverables. Don’t let your pace fall and share as much information as you can, with as many coworkers as possible to make them feel better. No team member should feel devoid of any significant information. Flag the information and have your list of people intact at one place to keep everyone in the loop. Transparent communication from leaders can help set a good remote culture for the entire team.

3. Check your message thrice before hitting ‘Send’:

Whenever teams work remotely, stress levels quite often jump. It’s too easy to mis-communicate under such circumstances. Even well-written or well intentioned messages can be miscomprehended. So how do you avoid sending a drooping message or an email? One good option is to apply an emoji, which could easily go a long way in motioning the tone and meaning both. But make sure you don’t use too many emojis. This could destabilize your professionalism. Also, spend a few minutes proofreading your message or email for typos which exhibit you’re not in a rush and have invested your time to deliver the right message with a sign of positivity.

4. Communicate sensitive information safely:

With so many employees working remotely, leaders must set the guidelines around how to share sensitive company information. Remind your employees to be more alert than they were in the office. Remind them frequently that they shouldn’t be using their personal email for any company business and ask them to keep an eye on what they’re printing at home. They must refrain from printing an official document which is confidential. Moreover, ask your employees to use company-issued devices for all their official tasks to avoid any risk. Another must-have would be an emergency contact number outside of company systems. Should your company encounter a cyber-attack, you’ll be able to communicate with everyone. We must value teams’ as well as company’s security irrespective of difficulties.

5. Stay positive to help yourself, your team and people around

During stressful times, it’s OK to be scared and feel anxious. A lot of people around us are feeling it too. But, we must try our best not to succumb to such emotional vicious circles. Try engaging with reliable media channels and social media channels which do not feed fear. Also, frenzied interactions with coworkers and friends must be avoided. Your mental health comes first. It should always be on high-priority. Regular exercise, meditation, a good read and spending time with those who value mental health and inspire others will help you build positivity. Furthermore, the same will pass along to the people around you including the ones who’re are virtually connected to you.

I found these 5 ways extremely important for a smooth and seamless experience at work. These ways can undoubtedly improve your productivity and I am sure you and your team mates will successfully manage all the tasks. Determination is the key.

Hope you find this article helpful.

Your valuable feedback is awaited.

You can go through one more article below for coherent email-writing.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/7-easy-tips-coherent-email-writing-ankita-mehra/

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Ankita Mehra 🤓

I am a full-time content designer, working on websites, apps and communication. Love reading non-fiction books.