How to Be Productive at Work in the Summertime
Happy summer! It’s my favorite season of the year, I love soaking in the sunshine. So I thought I’d take time this week to share some tips in order to balance life while being productive at work this summer so you can make the most of your time and hopefully not be too stressed. It can be really hard to stay focused when the sun is out and there’s so many other things you wish you could be doing. However if you follow a few of these tips and work hard when you can then you can get to the good part and truly enjoy the summer. While I do work from home and can implement these maybe a little easier than someone with an office job, I think these tips can really help out anyone.
Batch Work (for real!)
I have mentioned batching before and go into way more detail about how I implement it here, but it’s even more important to get on batching your work now if you want to be more productive at work and enjoy more free time or have a few afternoons off here and there this summer. As long as you know the tasks you need to accomplish at work you can set them up in batches and only focus on one batch at a time so you can be more productive at work. A great way to track your time and batches is to use the pomodoro approach. This approach is when you break your time into 25 minutes of work then a short break and usually once you’ve completed 4 sets of 25 minute working sessions you take a longer break. There are a lot of online tools and apps to help with this, here is just one of them: Tomato Timer. Then you can assign one batch of tasks per pomodoro and you’ll be a productivity wizz!
Schedule & Automate Everything You Can
A great way to maximize your time is to automate anything you possibly can. The ideas below are geared towards the online business world I’m in but I’m sure most jobs have some type of repetitive tasks that can be pre scheduled. In order for me to be more productive at work I use tools to schedule my pins, Instagram posts, and blog posts. When I’m really on point I’ll have a weeks worth of content scheduled ahead of time that way I can move on to more important tasks, like engaging with users and responding to comments. Once you get in a groove of doing this you’ll start to really free up your time!
- Pinterest – Tailwind (referral link) – I have had Tailwind for a little while now and have only recently upgraded to the paid version and I have a feeling it is going to be a game changer. I know it will take time to get it working consistently but it’s really easy to use and the tribes part is great for finding awesome content to pin and share my own content with.
- Instagram – Later – I only post once a day on Instagram so I am able to use the free version and it works perfectly. I love that IG now allows apps to post automatically which I fully take advantage of. Later will also show you a preview of your IG grid which is fun to use and make sure I have a good balance of photos ready to go before they’re posted.
- Blog – WordPress – I don’t use anything extra special in WordPress to schedule ahead since it’s already built into WordPress. But I do use the duplicate post plugin so I can duplicate a blog post to use for my next one. This helps me save time with by not having to reformat the layout of every blog post. Then all I have to do is copy and paste in my text once it’s drafted up.
Get out of the Home or Office
If you have the option to work from different locations then do this! This can be a great summer productivity boost even if you can’t take a day off and sit in the sun. Working in a different environment can be just the change you need to enjoy the summer a little bit more. If you’re able to go to a coffee shop with bright windows then you can enjoy the sun and still be productive at work. Or you could look into co-working spaces that have a good vibe, anything that can get you into a new environment that feels more summery will do the trick.
Change Up Your Hours
Depending on the flexibility of your job you could try having a summer schedule with a different set of working hours. Here’s just a few ways you could set this up:
- You could work a little bit extra Monday through Thursday so you can have Friday off.
- Or start your day earlier so you can enjoy the evenings with more fun activities.
- Maybe take a longer lunch a day or two a week
The goal would be to change up your hours to make the summer more enjoyable and reap the benefits of more time doing fun stuff, so if this stresses you out then definitely skip it!
Go Outside
If you can get away from the computer then do it! It is always important year round to take a break from the desk and go for a walk, but I would argue it’s even more important now. If you can’t justify going for “just a walk” then you definitely need to find some work activities that you can do away from your desk and schedule them on your actual calendar so you do them! Make sure they are at times when you want to be outside. This could be in the morning if it gets insanely hot by the afternoon or vice versa if it’s not too bad in the afternoon.
There are so many things you can do outside and still be productive at work, here’s just a few ideas for you:
- Outdoor walking meetings
- Brainstorm the old fashioned way with pen & paper
- Sketch out new designs
- Take phone calls with customers
- Listen to work related podcasts to further your learning
Enjoy Your Summer!
I hope you liked these tips, let me know if you used any of them and how they worked out for you. Or if you have any additional tips I would love to hear about them too. If nothing is working and you just need a break to enjoy the summertime then take it and don’t feel guilty. Happy summer!
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