Factors That Affect Productivity

There are many barriers to productivity in the workplace. The following are the factors that limit your productivity.

1. Lack of Sleep

Lack of enough sleeping makes your productivity to be disturbed. Your mind needs to have a rest so that it can contemplate on various activities.

According to Dr Bea"Our brains are like sponges,"They can only soak up so much information before they're saturated,then they have to dry out  a bit.

Not sleeping enough is one of the worst things you can do for your productivity. Your brain needs sleep to function properly. When you’re tired, it’s harder to concentrate. It also slows you down leading to more work time being put in than necessary.

When you don't allow your mind to rest,you get dizziness, confusion, headache, thinking more slowly than usual,you forget everything and end up messing everything.

Sleeping more and better can save you time and increase your productivity.

2.Perfectionism

I am not indulging you not to be perfect in whatever you are doing, but sometimes you should allow imperfect to take a certain percentage.

In fact, when performed excessively, perfectionistic behavior can have an affect that is opposite of what the person intended. Perfectionists are more likely to experience decreased productivity, impaired health, troubled interpersonal relationships, and low self-esteem. 

Perfectionists are affected and  can lead to depression, anxiety,impatience, suicidal thoughts ,if what they did and thought that they have done to their best of level and end up getting negative results.

3. Not Planning Ahead of Time

Lack of proper planning can lead to delay of certain activities. If you fail to plan you fail to perform. It helps you to be more effective and more productive.

Being well organized and developing effective plans also allows you to achieve important goals and objectives.

Not planning ahead of time leaves you vulnerable to acting on what feels good in the moment. When you plan ahead of time, you’re being intentional about your choices and actions. You’re deciding from your prefrontal cortex — the part of your brain that has goals and can make plans for them.

Planning ahead of time also enables you to anticipate potential obstacles that may arise.

4. Multitasking

Doing two or more things at the same time, it reduces task performance. For example you can't drive while chatting,the performance of reaching your designated station may collude because you may cause accident.

So if you want your productivity to be high just do one task at time. This is important because your all concentration will be highly applied to that task and you will yield highly.

 5. Work Environment

 A Good working environment leads to good relationships among the employer and employees or even employees themselves.

As you can imagine, no one enjoys working in a negative or toxic environment. Make sure to create a workplace atmosphere that is based on your company's values, where your employees feel supported, valued, and safe.

Remember to be honest and faithful to your work, appreciate your employees when they deserve it. Give your employees all rights that pertains to employee code of conduct. Mistreatment of workers can lead to poor productivity.

Always ensure you provide and give credits where necessary.  A busive or unconducive, malicious or barbaric environment ,discouraged the workers thus making the yield to deteriorate.

6 . Training & Career Development Opportunities

Career progression is the most important key for every worker. Through career development, an employee can learn new skills and experiences that can make him/ her to achieve higher goals in life thus higher productivit

If you don't have a training program yet, it might be time for you to develop one. An untrained employee would not know what they need to do or how to do it more efficiently, which can negatively affect productivity.

You can facilitate the training programs by microlearning and employee training each other. Allowing your employees once every three years to go for career progression can  increase your workability at your company thus competition among the employees.

Ensure that you promote them and don't allow your employee to be stagnant in a certain position for more years. If  an employee stays for example 15 years in same position he/ she can't have the urge to work harder because she knows nobody can compete with her.

7. Disorganization and Clutter

 A disorganized and untidy place can lead to less productivity. When your employees and yourself both of are well organized there will be no more commotion and collusion in the work.

A well organized person who arranges his her things in order,helps or leads to time management. Because if your don't put all your necessities in order, you may take a lot of time looking for them, thus concentration in work reduces.

8. Overworking 

Too much of something is poisonous. When you overwork yourself the mind gets tired and leafs to no more thinking. You need to have time to rest so that you can develop a good productivity.

Overworking your employees may lead to presenteeism where a worker does the work under pressure.He/she may be present but she doesn't work. It also makes them to have less time to meet their families, friends, creating feeling of isolation. Thus leading to to stress and health problems.

After a certain point of working, you stop seeing increased return for your time and energy. This is because The Law of Diminishing Returns applies to human productivity. Not only do we see diminishing returns, but we eventually see negative returns meaning that you decrease your overall output from overworking.

Overworking can deceive you to see positive productivity,but at the end you end up diminishing your productivity and energy which can lead to burn out.

9. Too Many Choices

Taking or indulging yourself in too many choices can lead to lack of proper productivity.

Just take small choices that are easier to manage and well organized.  For example you should stick to some activities and make sure you finish first then you move to another one.

Too many choices have negative consequences that result to poor yield and productivity.

10. Distractions

Distractions are probably the biggest killer for productivity. For example if you are stay at home mum,working online. If you have distractions let say from kids your output may not be appeasing.

 Try to limit your distractions at all levels and this would help you to finish the projects you had started and thus having easier time.