We’ve almost reached the end of the year and as much as we encourage you to plan ahead for 2018, don’t forget that part of the Productivity Ninja skills, is also to look back on our performance throughout the past year. We’ve shared lots of top notch productivity and time management training tips with you over on our blog. Below are some of our top tips from 2017.
1) Polite Ways to Decline a Meeting Invitation
As part of our facilitation training, we discover ways to improve the way your team plans and facilitates meetings. Making meetings more enjoyable is one part of being a Productivity Ninja. The other one is to make sure your calendar leaves you some breathing space and you don’t attend every single meeting you’re invited to. We know how difficult it can be to decline meetings, so we’ve put together a handy guide for you to use – you can have a look at the full blog post here.
2) Polite Ways to Say “No”
It’s not just difficult to say “No” to meetings, but also in general. Being ruthless is such an important skill for a Productivity Ninja, but it certainly isn’t the easiest one to master. We’ve put together a short guide, including a video on why we can’t always say “Yes” and how to say “No” without coming across as rude or “lazy” – you can read the full blog post here.
3) Ways to Start Your Day Without Checking Your Emails
It’s tempting to arrive in the office and immediately proceed checking your emails. Guess what? It doesn’t have to be like this. We’ve made it our routine to start the day off inside our inbox, but there are plenty of other ways to kick off your working day. We’ve explored some options in this blog post.
4) A Busy Person’s Lies
Everyone is “busy” – we hear it all the time around us. The problem with busy is that it’s a meaningless, mindless word that just creates more busyness. The real question is: what are we actually busy with? We explore the reasons why we default to being “busy” and how we can change the habit in our blog post right here.
5) The Pros & Cons of Remote Working
Flexible working is thankfully becoming more and more accepted and employer’s increasingly want to give their teams the freedom to work from wherever they want. Your manager wants you to create the best quality of work you can produce and therefore it shouldn’t matter where you produce that work. Thinking about working remotely in 2018? Have a look through our list of pros and cons of remote working.
6) 2017 Work-Life Balance Trends
Earlier on in the year, we’ve looked at various Work-Life Balance trends. As a Productivity Ninja you will know the importance of taking time for yourself and that there is more to your life than what awaits you in the office each morning. It’s become increasingly more important for managers to lead by example when it comes to Work-Life Balance. It’s one part to say to your employees they are free to leave the office on time, but if you constantly pull night shifts in the office, your team might lose their confidence in prioritizing their Work-Life Balance. We explored various ways of creating a Work-Life Balance culture within your team – have a look here.
7) How I Stay Productive & Productivity Apps
Throughout the past year, we’ve had the pleasure to sit down with some of our own team members as well as other Productivity Ninjas in the wild, who all shared their productivity secrets and Productivity Ninja tips with us. It’s always nice to hear how other people are implementing what they’ve learned in our productivity training, so have a look through the interviews here.
We’re big fans of technology helping productivity rather than adding yet another distraction to the mix. We’ve reviewed some of the top productivity apps for you here.
8) Beyond Busy
It hasn’t just been a productivity tips filled year for our blog, but Graham’s podcast Beyond Busy has featured some top-notch interview partners throughout the year. The most recent episode, for example features Action for Happiness director, Mark Williamson. Throughout the year, Graham also sat down with: Evernote’s Beat Buhlmann, stand-up comedian Josie Long, TV chef Lorraine Pascale, Moonpig founder Nick Jenkins, legendary businessman Gerald Ratner and many many more. Make sure you get caught up on all of this year’s podcast episodes to tie you over until the release of new episodes in 2018.
Missed out your favorite productivity tip of 2017? Let us know in the comments below or @thinkproductive
By Hannah Urbanek
Hannah is Think Productive’s Head of Outreach and the voice behind a lot of our editorial and social media content. Would you like to hear more about Think Productive or share relevant content with us? Get in touch with her directly here or connect with her on LinkedIn.
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