Our mobile devices are the champions of helping us get things done on the go. Using smart phones and tablets allows us to answer email, check calendar appointments, and update our to-do lists when we don't have a computer handy. But is all our app downloading and notification checking improving our productivity, or are our mobile devices just forcing us to keep working after office hours? We surveyed over 850 workers to discover the truth about mobile productivity and whether or not mobile devices are actually the answer to getting work done faster. Check out our key findings in the infographic below: Do you think your mobile makes you more productive? Share your thoughts on mobile productivity in the comments below. Interested in seeing the complete results from our survey? Download the free 2016 Mobile Productivity Report.
Improve your team's collaboration, enhance work visibility, and so much more.
In this week's Work Management Roundup where we bring together the best reads in the last seven days (or beyond) concerning productivity, working more effectively, mindfulness, management, and more. This week, we look at how to get rid of stress by deleting addictive apps and making time for nurturing relationships — whether it's with friends or your direct reports. Read on! How I Cleared My Mind and Became Less Stressed: Deleting All My Apps (The Next Web): Sound too extreme for you? If you can't delete them, here are some concrete steps to disentangle yourself from your apps. Hint: use the mobile browser. Happiness Hack: This One Ritual Made Me Much Happier (Nir and Far): Science proves it: having high quality friendships keeps you healthy. But how do you make the time for nurturing these relationships instead of simply giving them what's left over after your to-dos are done? Productivity author Nir Eyal shares his answer, and it lies in the Hebrew word: kibbutz. A Brief Guide to Better 1:1’s — For Makers and Managers Alike (Medium): If you keep canceling or moving your 1:1, you're sending the message that work is more important than your people. Here are 8 tips to starting, and sustaining your one-on-ones with your direct reports. How to Keep a Bullet Journal (YouTube): This analog method of journalling or keeping your to-dos needs only 2 things: a pen and a notebook. But what it gives you is an effective way to capture your tasks on paper rapidly, record work done for the day, and organize items for future action. In short, it's an analog version of Wrike for people who like working offline. Tech Companies Need English Majors Just As Much As They Need Engineers (LinkedIn): In this interview with LinkedIn New Economy Editor Caroline Fairchild, she says that you need both liberal arts graduates as well as technology experts to build and sell products people want to use. More Work Management Reads Think About This: 4 Common Mistakes New Employers Make (AllTopStartups) 5 Great Invisible Apps - Apps with no UI (Medium) Building a Growth Machine - The Scientific Method: How to Design & Track Viral Growth Experiments (Slideshare) Go Try This: How To Manage Your Time: 5 Secrets Backed By Research (Bakadesuyo) How to Pull Employees Out of Hibernation this Winter (HCM Essentials) Browse The Work Management Roundup on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your mobile device, then you can check out these links via The Work Management Roundup magazine. View my Flipboard Magazine.
It goes without saying that coordinating and managing multiple projects is difficult. Looking to improve your project coordination skills? Find out Wrike’s top tips for getting on top of activities using project coordination software.
Welcome back to the weekly Work Management Roundup, where we link to the best reads in business, productivity, marketing, and management! This week, we look at what it means to live and work in a future where we have technological marvels, but way less free time. And we look at tools and technologies that can help you research blog posts to write, how best to learn new skills, and how to disrupt existing platforms. Read on! Why Do Americans Work So Much? (The Atlantic): A hundred years ago, when economist John Maynard Keynes predicted the rise in productivity of a future America, he envisioned a time when people would be working less due to technological advances. The tech is here, but the work ethic hasn't changed since the 1970s. Americans are still working 40+ hours a week. Three theories as to why Americans continue to work so much. How to Use Twitter to Predict Popular Blog Posts You Should Write (AndrewChen.co): Advisor and investor Andrew Chen suggests a simple way to test whether you should write a blog post on a topic: tweet the headline and see if it gets any retweets. It's quick and shows if there's any interest in a longer piece of content. Technology Doesn’t Disrupt Industries, People Do (Medium): In every 'new tech disrupts old tech' story, the real change lies in the people using the new technology to solve an old pain point. How To Invest In Yourself (Medium): This is no feel-good puff piece, it's an actionable 4-step plan on mapping out 100 projects you want to do including skills you want to learn, and setting up next steps. Read it and change your life. 48 Experts Share Their #1 Tip for New Project Managers (Wrike): We asked the Project Management 2.0 group on LinkedIn to divulge their #1 tip for new project managers. Not surprisingly, these process fanatics shared a plethora of great tips to help newcomers succeed in this ever-changing area of work. A photo posted by Wrike (@wriketeam) on Feb 9, 2016 at 1:00pm PST More Work Management Reads Think About This: Pursuit of a Mutual Goal Can Turn Friends into Foes (Stanford Business) Reading Fiction Improves Brain Connectivity and Function (Psychology Today) 5 Things You Don't Understand About Productivity (Inc) Go Try This: The Demand for eBooks is Rapidly Growing – Here’s How You Can Take Advantage (ProBlogger) The Power of the Outdoor Office (Cal Newport) 15 Productivity Tools Successful People Use to Work Less (Employee Scheduling Pro) Browse Marketing Speak on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your mobile device, then you might enjoy our links to all things digital marketing via our Marketing Speak magazine. View my Flipboard Magazine.
With Valentine's Day coming up, I'm sure we've all had the opportunity to reflect on who and what mean the most to us. The people we see, talk to, and check up on throughout the day play a big role in our lives. However, today I'm not talking about your relationship with your spouse, family member, or best friend. I'm talking about how you interact with technology. Our 2016 Mobile Productivity Survey says that 44% of workers check their mobile device over 20 times a day. (Now that's what I call a codependent relationship!) 82% of survey respondents claim that their mobile device improves their productivity, and 37% say it actually improves their work-life balance. What is telecommuting? Is our reliance on mobile devices getting out of hand? Or is the flexibility of working on-the-go lengthening our leisure time? Take a look at the Slideshare below and find out for yourself: Are You Married to Mobile? How is your relationship with your mobile device? Do you think using your mobile device for work is helping your productivity or harming your work-life balance? Share your opinion with us in the comments. Looking to join the 82% of people who have improved their productivity by using their phone and/or tablet for work? Download the free Wrike app now and start getting things done while you're on-the-go.
The infographic below lists some important reminders and crucial stats about how sleep can positively affect the way we work on a daily basis. Read the tips and put them into practice to start catching some quality Zzzs!
If it’s about you, the new auto-complete capability of the fields will please you greatly. Now you can change any responsible party and the title of the parent folder without rewriting or deleting needless words. Place the cursor at any part of the word you would like to change and choose the proper one with the help of the arrow. It is replaced immediately. Also only the name of a person is shown now. The e-mail is visible only if the user has several e-mails.
Can a routine ever get in your own way? Can you fall into the trap of doing things just for the sake of doing them—whether they benefit you or not? Well, to put it simply, yes. And when it happens, your routine isn’t doing you any favors. Here's why we lean on these predictable systems, plus the unexpected positive effects of shaking things up.
Welcome back to the weekly Work Management Roundup, where we bring you the latest and greatest reads from around the web in an effort to help you work smarter, not longer. This week, we kick things off with productivity, mobile devices, and team dynamics. Read on! Released: 2016 Mobile Productivity Report (Wrike): Did you know? 44% of workers use their mobile device for work more than 20 times a day. This and more stats regarding how mobile devices affect work productivity are in our 2016 Mobile Productivity Report. Read it! 9 Unexpected Ways to Ramp Up Marketing Productivity (Jeff Bullas): Not just for marketing, by the way. This list of 9 life hacks backed by scientific studies can help you get more done in less time. 5 Things You Should Never Assume About Your Teammates (Todoist): Five hard-learned lessons on what assumptions you should never make regarding your teammates. We especially like #1: Don't assume they use the same tools as you do. Wow, How, Now: Writing a Killer Sales Pitch (Wrike): An effective sales-pitch email is really half of a deal. The goal is to explain why your client needs your product and why he needs it right now. Using three words, “WOW, HOW, NOW,” can make your sales pitch a winner. The Fragmentation Problem (BCS.org): With so many communication options, today's workers are faced with a fragmented workplace where they have to deal with emails chats, document revisions, and more — all living in different systems. 21 Experts Share Growth Strategy Tips for Scaling Up Your Business (Indigenous.io): A group of startup leaders were asked " What advice would you give someone trying to grow and scale his business?" The quotes are gold. More Work Management Reads Think About This: The Difference Between Content Curation and Content Creation (Crate) Help Your Team Manage Stress, Anxiety, and Burnout (Harvard Business Review) How To Save Yourself From Bad Startup Ideas That Look Good (Medium) Go Try This: How to Work With Difficult People [Infographic] (Hubspot) What are the most effective and proven time management techniques? CEO Brian de Haaff's answer (Quora) 15 Uses for Binder Clips in This Four Minute Video (Quartz) A Little Known Hack from Japan to Get Your Notebook/Journal Organized (Highfive) Browse The Work Management Roundup on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your mobile device, you can check out these links via The Work Management Roundup magazine. View my Flipboard Magazine.
A good performance management process plays a big role in the success of individual projects. Find out how to measure project performance and learn why performance management tools can boost your projects today.
If your to-do list is like mine — longer than the Great Wall of China — you’re probably desperate for productivity tips and shortcuts to help you squeeze a few more hours out of every day. Since we’re all about boosting productivity here at Wrike, we’ve compiled a compendium of productivity hacks to help you zip through your to-do list in record time. Without further ado: Focus 1. Unplug. Put your phone on airplane mode or Do Not Disturb (or use an Android app like Shush). Black out background browser tabs and notifications with an extension like StayFocusd, and mute your email with Inbox Pause for Gmail. 2. Tidy up. Did you know that the average worker spends 76 hours every year looking for lost stuff? Cleaning up your work area lets your mind focus. 3. Write distractions down. Free up some brain space by taking note of every reminder and distraction that pops in your head. It'll silence that nagging "I'm forgetting something..." feeling and let you focus on the task at hand. 4. Read/watch later. Use Pocket or the Wrike Chrome extension to save interesting links and videos that would ordinarily trigger a marathon link surfing session. 5. Take a hike. Periodic breaks refresh your brain, so go for a walk to boost creativity, sharpen your focus, and brighten your mood. 6. Change your scenery. Work from a coffee shop, library, or your backyard to improve focus and creativity without any office distractions. 7. Be healthy. Losing just 1.5 hours of sleep reduces alertness by 32%, and avoiding junk food can raise your productivity 20%. Exercise helps you better handle stress, makes you more alert, and gives you more mental energy. 8. Get comfy. An office that's too chilly or too warm (outside the 70-77 degree range) lessens productivity by 5%. The pleasant smell of lemons improves focus and reduces errors 54%. And sitting by a window keeps you focused 15% longer. 9. Go green. Houseplants improve creativity by 45% and overall wellbeing by 47%, while sharpening focus and concentration. 10. Grab some headphones. Listening to ambient music or white noise improves focus 35%. 11. Practice meditation. It teaches your brain to tune out distractions and focus longer. Even 5 minutes a day can have an impact! 12. Say "Awww!" Looking at pictures of cute baby animals or photos of nature increases your attention span and memory. Want to improve collaboration on your team? Start a 2 week trial of Wrike today! Save Time 13. Quit meetings. If you can't cut them completely, keep them to short stand-ups, or make at least one whole day a week meeting-free. 14. Say no. You can't do everything! Just make sure you say no the right way: “I don’t” is more effective than “I can’t”. 15. Delegate whenever possible. You've got a slew of talented teammates around you, so use them! Just don't dump tedious busywork on them — make sure every task you and your team take on is truly worthwhile. 16. De-clutter your inbox. Unroll.me compiles all your newsletters and subscriptions into a single daily digest. 17. Track your time. RescueTime shows how many minutes you spend using various applications. By productivity tracking, you'll get an accurate picture of your daily work habits and discover where you can improve. 18. Quit Facebook (partially). Move everyone from your “friends" list to "acquaintances" — you'll still get the important updates, but you'll spend less time scrolling through quiz results and food photos in your newsfeed. 19. Automate! Create standard email responses to common inquiries, set your browser to automatically open your favorite tabs, set up an RSS feed to monitor essential news outlets and use Zapier or IFTTT to automate other routine tasks. 20. Batch similar tasks. You'll get in the zone and power through several items in less time. 21. Quit typing. Try speech dictation software to get your thoughts down faster, or record new ideas and communications on the go. 22. Keep a "Stop Doing" list. It'll help you watch out for and eliminate the fruitless time sucks from your day. 23. Stop multitasking. Not only is it less efficient, it drops your IQ 10 points. That means more mistakes, which you'll only have to go back and correct... wasting even more precious time. Prioritize 24. Try the “Must, Should, Want” method. You identify three tasks that will help you accomplish your immediate and long-term goals, plus keep you from burning out. 25. Don't check your email first thing each morning. Instead, spend the first hour or two of each day tackling high-priority items. Too often emails derail our plans for the day, and what we intended to do gets pushed off or lost in the shuffle. 26. Do that ONE thing. Ask yourself: "If I could only get ONE thing done today, what would it be?" Do that first. 27. Pick 3 "Most Important" tasks. Write them on a Post-It, and keep it within sight all day long. 28. Prune your to-do list. If it can’t be done only by you and it's not important enough to delegate, rethink whether it's really worth doing at all. Don't waste time on unproductive tasks! 29. Do creative work first. Take advantage of a fresh brain and leave paperwork, meetings, and follow-up tasks for later. 30. Be picky about the work you accept. Write down your mission (or company's mission) in one concrete sentence, whether that’s “Build useful software” or “Bake beautiful wedding cakes.” Will that task help you achieve your mission? Only take it on if the answer is a firm “yes!” 31. Write tomorrow's to-do list tonight. List 3 items to jumpstart your day with a sense of purpose. And make at least one of those items something fun to get your day started on the right foot. 32. Use Stephen Covey's prioritization matrix to sort tasks. Important & Urgent at the top, then Important but Not Urgent, followed by Urgent but Not Important and finally Not Urgent and Not Important. 33. Ask yourself 5 questions: Does this get me closer to my goal? Is it important to my boss? Does it make me money? Does it make my life easier? Does it have to be done today? Sort your list based on the # of yeses. Get Motivated 34. Break big tasks into bite-sized pieces. This should kill your procrastination. Or, commit to working on a big project for just 30 minutes, and then stop. 30 minutes a day can add up to significant progress pretty quick! 35. Try David Allen's two-minute rule. If it takes less than two minutes, do it now. Yes, right now. Checking small items off your to-do list boosts motivation. 36. "Eat the frog." You know those big tasks you always dread? Crossing one off first thing in the day gives you a sense of accomplishment and makes you motivated to get even more done. 37. Find your “biological prime time.” This is the magic hour where your energy, focus and motivation align at a high point. Schedule your most important tasks for that window. 38. Make progress visible. Check off tasks or keep an anti-to do list (see #38). It’s easy to lose motivation when you feel like a hamster running on its wheel, going nowhere. Celebrate your successes! 39. Create an “Anti-todo list.” Keep from getting down on yourself for not completing your planned to-dos by keeping a running list of all the stuff you did get done. 40. “Don't break the chain.” Mark each day you accomplish an important task with an X on your calendar, and watch the chain grow. Then don’t break the chain! 41. Start a StickK contract. Name your task or goal, give yourself a set amount of time, and then put up some cash as stakes (optional). If you achieve your goal, you keep your money. If not, it goes to charity. 42. Strike a power pose. Think Wonder Woman or Superman — wide feet, hands on hips, chest out, chin up. The right body language can boost confidence, lower stress, and help you get "in the zone." 43. Eat some chocolate. You'll get a rush of dopamine, a hormone that boosts motivation. Chocolate also releases chemicals that promote calm and stimulate your brain, perfect for buckling down and getting things done. 44. Be happy! A good mood makes you 12% more productive, so joke with a colleague, watch a funny cat video, or chat with a friend. With these productivity tips bookmarked or pinned to your wall, your list of accomplishments will be more impressive than ever. Get Work Done - 17 Workplace Productivity Hacks from Wrike Related Reads:• 10 Encouraging Productivity Proverbs for Your Office Wall• How to Create Productive Work Habits (Slideshare)• 8 Lessons in Increased Productivity from Wrike Customers• 10 Free Productivity Apps for Getting Things Done
For those of us staring down hundreds of unread emails each morning, the concept of inbox zero can start sounding like a mythical achievement — like finding the Holy Grail or stumbling across buried treasure. We look at our colleagues who regularly achieve it with a mix of envy and suspicion: there must be some kind of sorcery involved, right? Give these 10 tips and techniques a try to not only accomplish inbox zero, but actually stay there. No magic required. Trick 1: Use Tony Hsieh’s Yesterbox technique. The basic idea is this: today, you only read and respond to yesterday’s emails. The vast majority of emails don't require an immediate, same-day response, so you can let today's new messages come in without being distracted or distressed by every one. And tomorrow when you get up, you’ll already know exactly how many messages you have to get through and can more accurately plan your day. Zappos CEO Hsieh says he’s actually more responsive with this approach: everyone gets a reply the day after, instead of a week, month, or... never. Obviously, legitimately urgent emails can be addressed today — but true email emergencies are a pretty rare occurrence. Hsieh’s Pro Tip: If you’re using Outlook, just collapse your “Today” section to stay focused on yesterday’s messages. Read more details here: http://yesterbox.com/ Want a tool to help improve your productivity? Start your free Wrike trial today! Trick 2: Apply the 2-minute rule. Take a cue from David Allen’s GTD method: if it'll take you less than two minutes to reply, do it now. Don't wait! Trick 3: Schedule a meeting with your inbox. Set aside time each day to go through your email, whether it’s one hour-long chunk mid-morning, or three 20-minute check-ins at the beginning, middle, and end of the day. Then don’t look at your email any other time. Don’t keep it open in a browser tab, lurking in the background as you work. Turn off notifications. You may even be away from your desk at the time you choose, but as long as you are aware of how to access your messages, like, for example, how to access Outlook work email from home, you'll be fine. By dedicating scheduled time to your inbox, it won’t be on the back of your mind all day long, but you'll still stay on top of your messages. Wish you knew the best time to check your email? This article says that the best time to clean out your inbox is two hours after you’ve started working. Trick 4: Try Unroll.me. This app consolidates all your email subscriptions and newsletters into a single daily digest. Instead of dozens of daily emails to sort through, you have one. It’s easy to unsubscribe from lists en masse, and since you can quickly scan all the offers and updates in one message, you get through your "junk" mail that much faster. If you follow a lot of blogs via email, consider using an RSS reader like Feedly or Inoreader to monitor them instead of clogging up your inbox. Trick 5: Reschedule your emails. Install Boomerang for Gmail to schedule emails to reappear at a set time. It’s great for messages that require some research before a response, and for batching similar to-dos together. Say you’ve got a job posting up and emails from potential candidates are streaming in. You routinely sort through new resumes on Friday mornings. So reschedule every email from job seekers to show up in your inbox Friday am. They won’t be sitting in your inbox, distracting you or weighing on your mind, but you’ll still get them done and clear them out. Trick 6: Don’t be afraid to delete. If it’s that important, someone will follow up with you. So if there’s even a question about whether you need to keep the email, just delete it. Your trash bin will typically save deleted emails for 30 days, so if you deleted something by accident, you can always retrieve it. But trust us: 99% of the time you won't need to. Trick 7: Modify your Out-of-Office message. Vacations are great, but returning to a terrifying number of new emails can be really depressing, and can take forever to dig your way out of. Even worse is neglecting your work-life balance by figuring out how to access my work email from home. Replace the boilerplate out-of-office message with this: "I’m out of the office from 11/10-11/18 and won’t see your message. Please resend your email after 11/18.” Then filter all incoming messages straight to the trash while you’re gone. If it’s important and the deadline hasn’t passed, they’ll get back to you — and you’ll come home to a clean inbox. Trick 8: Put all your action items in Wrike. Move your to-dos out of your inbox and into your workspace with the rest of your tasks. Wrike’s Outlook/Apple Mail add-ins and Gmail gadget quickly turn emails into tasks, so you can clean out your inbox and actually get to work on to-dos instead of letting them languish in inbox purgatory. You’ll benefit from better organization, and manageable email. Trick 9: Move conversations out of your inbox. Keep your inbox uncluttered by limiting the amount of email you generate. Prevent a chain of email responses by stepping away from the laptop and holding conversations face-to-face, picking up the phone, or sending an instant message. Trick 10: Play the Email Game. The above tips will help you stay at inbox zero, but how do you clear the current mountain of unread emails to get there in the first place? Cleaning out your inbox doesn’t have to be a chore — make it fun! The Email Game gives you a set amount of time to act on each email: reply, forward, label, archive, delete, or skip to look at later. Collect points for beating the timer, which is set according to the length of each email. After you’ve powered through a batch of messages, you’ll get a status report showing how much time you saved and your rank on the leaderboard. Just try not to get addicted to beating your high score! "Inbox Zero" means zero time wasted in your inbox. Did you know that the real definition of Inbox Zero, as originally coined by Merlin Mann, doesn’t actually have anything to do with your number of unread emails? It’s the amount of your attention that’s preoccupied by email, the extent to which your inbox weighs on your mind. Yes, having zero emails in your inbox is one way to do that, but it’s not the only way. So don’t get down on yourself if you don't hit this productivity benchmark every day — or at all. The real achievement is in figuring out a system that works for you, so email doesn’t rule your life. Give these tricks a try, and be sure to let us know how it goes! Wrike can help you organize and manage all your to-dos and reminders. Start a free trial today and make your inbox a more productive place.
People at our Mountain View office were recently fascinated by a trending YouTube video showing what is allegedly "Calgary's Worst Driver" taking a painful four and a half minutes to pull out of a pretty standard parking spot. It's a video that leaves you with more questions than answers. BUT! What you see on the video isn't merely an incompetent driver trying to worm his or her way out of a tough spot. What you see is an enlightened guru with vital lessons to teach us about life, career, and the pursuit of efficient productivity. Read on: Lesson 1: Plan Before You Do. The driver kept at it for over four minutes, trying different patterns, each one more complicated than the next. We can't help but think the entire debacle could have been avoided if the driver had taken some time to think things through. Perhaps even stopping completely to step out of the vehicle and judge how close the surrounding cars were situated. When you get into a tough spot in your career, Nike's tagline won't always work; "just doing it" won't lead to success without first thinking things through a little. What are the repercussions of your actions? Which resources will you need to access? Even better, plan out your entire year in advance. Lesson 2: It's Okay to Ask for Help. If you are no expert at your task at hand — whether it's driving in snow, programming code, or writing a blog post — it is incumbent upon you to seek assistance. If you don't, you could cause serious damage to your surroundings and innocent bystanders. Humble yourself, grasshopper. Ask for advice. For example, talk to subject matter experts in a LinkedIn group. You're more likely to get out of a tough spot when you have input from those more skilled or more experienced than you. In the end, succeeding with help will hurt your pride far less than failing alone. Lesson 3: If It's Not Fun Anymore, It May Be Time To Walk. While perseverance is critical in the pursuit of your passions, failure to improve may be a sign that your heart just isn't in it. Our CEO Andrew Filev recently told a story about a time he had a heart-to-heart with a struggling software engineer only to discover the employee was reevaluating his career path — he wasn't enjoying it and it was leading to his substandard work. In the case of "Calgary's Worst Driver," their struggle is probably a sign for them to move on. It may be time for the driver to invest in a bus pass. Lesson 4: Admit Your Mistakes. Everyone messes up sooner or later. The difference between moving on with your dignity intact and going infamously viral is how well you handle the situation. If "Calgary's Worst Driver" had stopped their car and left a note after dinging that red car, we probably never would have seen this video. Similarly, if you make a mistake and miss a vital deadline, man (or woman) up and admit it. Then ensure it doesn't happen again. It's a small world, and your reputation as someone who dodges responsibility will follow you. If Karma doesn't find you, the internet definitely will. Some of life's lessons can only be learned the hard way. If you haven't seen the video yet, it's time to sit through 4 of the most painful minutes of your life: Hindsight is 20/20, so it's important that we keep looking back to catch those learning moments. If you have any embarrassing stories that taught you a great lesson, please share them in the comments — even anonymously! It's important to pass on your newfound expertise and prevent other poor souls from making the same mistakes.
Engagement is a hot topic for many business leaders today, and for a good reason. Studies show that companies with engaged employees lead to greater productivity and higher profits. Our infographic illustrates what drives employee engagement and how engagement relates to productivity.