Top 7 Productivity Myths That Need to be Debunked

When people work together at the same workplace, they see each other working, which acts as a productivity booster for them. This not only motivates them but always creates a space for coordination. Whereas, when it comes to remote working, I believe you will agree that we all tend to get easily distracted since that fear of accountability is not that severe, which impacts employee productivity.

1. The Work harder, do better myth.

We all tend to believe that working harder is directly proportional to productivity. We have always believed we aren’t accomplishing enough because we aren’t working hard enough. This is the most common productivity myth; after all, this is something we have been taught since our childhood.

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I’m not saying that hard work isn’t important, but you can’t expect to get a good result by cramming more hours into your day. Are you aware of what the law of diminishing returns is? This is the principle that basically explains that adding more inputs (working hours) does not result in higher productivity after a certain period.

2. Following the habits of Successful people will help you become more productive

Every parent gives their children examples of successful people to motivate them to behave a certain way. Sit back and recall when was the last time somebody told you how many books Bill Gates reads in a day or how many hours Elon Musk works in a day. You must have heard this very often, right? Even my day starts with listening to the stories of these inspiring people, and thus I know Elon Musk works 80+hours in a week and Tim Cook wakes up at 3:45 am and these are the reasons why they are successful. I agree this can be the reason for their success, but this is not the only reason.

3. The fallacy that to be productive, you must stick to a plan

It’s strange that people believe this would succeed. Of course, preparation and organization are important aspects of productivity.

But let me tell you right now, no matter how productive you are or how well you prepare your day, you will almost certainly be interrupted by an emergency that will throw you off track.

I tried the strategy of making a list of ten things to do each day. The first issue is that you need to know how long it would take to complete everything. Of course, this is extremely difficult to do, and it is highly likely that you will take longer (or shorter) than you expected to complete the task.‍

4. It Is Possible to Work Every Minute of Office Time

Trying to achieve this idealistic vision of a perfect employee — being productive every minute of their working hours — is one of the most detrimental things you can do to employee well-being and long-term performance.

The first argument to make, and the explanation for this claim’s inclusion on my list, is that working for such a long period of time is literally impossible. At most, our attention and concentration last two hours. From there, it’s all downhill.

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If you use a time tracker, you can see this pattern. The trajectory should emerge a few days after the time monitoring software download — a little warm-up at the start, a productivity peak, a lunch break, another productivity peak, and then a long trailing downward slope until the end of the working day. And the data from trackwork isn’t deceiving. I experienced this when I used we360.ai to track my Productivity. Before we360.ai, I also believed that I efficiently worked during office hours and barely sat idle, but my reports told me something else- the real scenario.

5. The Lie of Multitasking

Having workers do ten tasks at once is undoubtedly the most efficient process.

That’s incorrect! Only about 2% of people are capable of multitasking; the vast majority simply turn from one task to another, wasting time and energy in the process. Multitasking, it turns out, is potentially making the workers less efficient, which might seem counterintuitive.

Instead, you should allow them to concentrate on a single task for as long as they can naturally. A work time tracker will help you stop multitasking. It will show you what your workers are up to at any given time, allowing you to avoid distracting them when they are working.‍‍

6. Breaks Are Your Enemy

If somebody has ever told you that breaks are your enemy, I would say “Love your enemies!”

You can’t expect workers to work endlessly, as I mentioned earlier, that’s not how productivity works. And seeing the downward trend in your work time tracking app should be enough to convince you that breaks are required for regular day-to-day operations. Ensure that the staff gets daily breaks during the day. This will allow them to return to work refreshed and with renewed emphasis. No one can work efficiently if they are exhausted. Employees would quickly return to their previous levels of productivity. It’s money well spent. So, using Project & Task Management & Health360, determine when your employees need a break and give them one.

7. Productivity cannot be learned

One of the most harmful myths is that productivity can’t be taught and learned. Workers are either inherently efficient or they aren’t, and you should make the most of the ones who are, while there’s nothing you can do with the ones that aren’t. This mindset facilitates unfair job distribution and is typically incorrect.

You can potentially do a lot to boost your employees’ productivity. I’ve covered a few points in this post, but there are a lot of tools out there that could help you out. Tracking efficiency with an Employee Tracker Software like we360.ai is one of the techniques you can use. The information generated will provide you with suggestions for how you and your team can work better efficiently. It will answer all your productivity-related queries such as the distractions, the best time to perform difficult tasks, appropriate break times, which task should be assigned to which employee, what should be the deadlines and many more.

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