How to Be More Productive

If you work in a school, you can most likely relate to feeling extremely busy, overworked, and just plain stressed out. Whether it be report card time, IEP progress reports, or the daily routine it can be easy to feel overwhelmed. Educators, related service providers, administration, (or whatever your title is) can benefits from learning how to be more productive.

Learning to work smarter not harder can help you to get through each day less stressed and more productive.

We all know that schedules of school staff tend to be extremely busy.  If you work in the schools, you know exactly how hard it is to complete all the daily tasks, follow your schedule and maintain focus throughout the workday.  After work hours, add bringing paperwork home or phone calls to parents and doctors not to mention managing your own home life.

With the digital age being in full swing, your attention and focus can be pulled in many different directions affecting overall productivity.

5 Tips on How to Be More Productive

Here are 5 tips to help improve your productivity throughout the school day:

Begin with Mindfulness

Start the day with a simple mindfulness practice.  Whether it be to take a few deep breaths, pray or meditate for awhile upon waking up take some time to be calm.  Don’t roll over and grab your phone.

Organize and Plan Your Day

Organize your day efficiently.  Your brain is most likely more clear and fresh in the morning.  Schedule complex tasks in the morning.  Move simple tasks to the afternoon whenever possible.

Stay organized throughout the day and maintain a clean work environment (this one can be very difficult!).  You will be more productive if you are less distracted by a physical or digital mess around you.  Try to keep your physical work area clean which would include your school bag to carry all your supplies, your car and your paperwork.

Also, don’t forget about trying to keep your digital work area clean.  Delete unnecessary emails, apps or files.  Reduce clutter as much as possible on your home screen.

Keep It Simple

Schedule smaller team meetings when possible and delegate tasks.  Limit the number of people to attend group meetings.  This cuts down on some people just sitting there for extended periods of time being unproductive if their opinion if not needed.

When in a meeting, delegate one person to be directly responsible for each task to make it clear who needs to complete each action item.  For example, if you are meeting on implementing modified seating then assign specific tasks to each individual ie therapist provides the alternative seating equipment, student must be safe with alternative seating, teacher’s assistant collects simple data on whether the modified seating is increasing attention to task, teacher reports on improvements noted in academic abilities and therapist modifies alternative seating choices if necessary.

How to Be More Productive with Templates or Forms

Create templates or forms for frequent communication or documentation.   By streamlining the paperwork process you will be more productive.

If you are a related service provider, check out School and Home Communication Forms for Therapists – a download of 21 forms to increase communication between therapists, school staff, students and parents or Data Tracking Forms for School Based OTs and PTs – a download of 11 data collection forms for monitoring progress in occupational and physical therapy in the school setting.

Rest and Reflect

One of the best way to learn how to be more productive is to always stop, reflect and revise your schedule, routine, and templates.

Take your own brain break.  Allow for time to reflect throughout the day and at the end of the day.  What did you do right and what can you improve upon?

Using self-reflection, determine if there is a pattern meaning certain strategies seem to help more than others.

Using a self-reflection journal helps you analyze your professional and personal growth.  By keeping a record of your ideas, reasons, actions, techniques, and assessments you can plan for your future and facilitate a positive outcome.

Anyone can benefit from reflective journaling.  Professionals can use critical thinking to improve their decision-making skills.  Parents as primary teachers of children can reflect on how to foster independence and growth in themselves and their children.  Students can problem solve assignments to improve academic growth.

Once you have determined what works best for you, move forward to use those techniques more often in stressful situations in order to help you maintain your physical and emotional well-being.

Resource to Help You Learn How to Be More Productive

Do you struggle to complete tasks in an efficient manner?  At the end of the day, do you feel like you waste hours of your time?  Does the paperwork pile up until it feels insurmountable?   No matter what you try, you seem to be spinning your wheels and never catching up.

Therapists, teachers, students, and parents can potentially reach their goals faster by using the Productivity and Time Management Planner because it teaches how to improve the quantity and quality of work you complete each day.  FIND OUT MORE.