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Through our partnership with Samsung Electronics, Blackbox Solutions offers
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Employee
productivity is
also suffering,
with 63%
spending
between
15 and 45
minutes
every day
helping their
colleagues
with IT
problems
UK small business owners are
wasting almost three hours a week
on IT problems, according to new
research by Samsung Electronics.
Employee productivity is also
suffering, with 63% spending up
to 45 minutes every day helping
colleagues with IT problems.
Not surprisingly, SME owners
rate giving staff access to the
latest technology (cited by 92%) as
more important for productivity than
always being contactable (83%),
having access to emails out of work
hours (81%) or providing perks such
as team drinks and half-days (80%).
It is not just having modern
technology that’s important,
but also how you use it. On this
basis, Samsung and Graham
Allcott, author of
How to be a
Productivity Ninja,
make the following
recommendations:
1
Ninja email.
Email is a huge
source of distraction. Keep your
inbox at zero, spend some time
each day at work with email
switched off, and take advantage
of opportunities to cut through the
email, such as train rides.
2
Sharpen the saw.
In
The Seven
Habits of Highly Effective People
,
Stephen Covey argues that if you’ve
got to cut down trees, it’s more
efficient to spend time sharpening
your saw than it is to jump straight
in. The same is true with office
tools: replacing an old laptop or
learning keyboard shortcuts are
examples of sharpening the saw:
invest a few minutes now, and
watch it pay off for years to come.
3
Have a ‘good second brain’.
We live in an age of information
overload. Your brain’s short term
memory is a terrible place to try
and keep track of all those spinning
plates. Make lists, use apps, use
checklists, keep a spreadsheet.
These work like a ‘second brain’,
freeing you to focus on strategic
thinking and problem-solving.
4
Ditch the meetings.
Apps
like Slack, Basecamp or Google
Hangouts can reduce the need
for meetings. Find a way for your
team to work more flexibly, and
never attend or organise a meeting
unless there’s a clear purpose and
you’re sure a meeting is the best
way to solve the problem.
5
Innovate.
The novelty of
apps may have worn off, but the
productive value of these tools is
just getting started. Whether it’s
sending invoices direct from your
phone and taking photos of your
receipts with an app like Xero or
collaborating on documents and
chatting with colleagues, we are just
at the beginning of how technology
can improve our productivity.
6
Voice, don’t text.
One of the
most underrated features of
WhatsApp is the ability to record
short, voicemail-style messages
at the touch of a button. This
saves you from having to type the
message, and it’s a win-win for
the person receiving it; it doesn’t
interrupt them like a phone call
and they get the intonation of your
voice, which makes you more likely
to be understood.
How to be more productive
