Doing more in less time is not the ultimate solution to productivity. It's the path to burnout.
Productivity rests more on small improvements. By focusing on the small things, the big things will take care of themselves.

Focus on the small improvements

Most people perform a combination of varied small tasks in a day. There may be many small improvements you could make to your workflow or environment to get more done.
Step one is finding out what those things are. Involve your peers or your manager if you need help with this.

Identify the small improvements you could make

Every week, choose one thing from your list and focus on it. 
<ul>
<li>Think of ways to improve this one thing.</li>
<li>Experiment, and see what works.</li>
<li>Talk about this one thing with your manager and ask for feedback.</li>
</ul>
The goal is to find ways to improve that small part of your work.

Work on one improvement at a time

Communicate how the small changes helped you to improve. After a week focusing on this one thing, our natural tendency is to want to share how we did toward our output.
Be sure to talk about the small thing you focused on. It will help reinforce that focusing on the little things consistently over time will produce big results.

Communicate your improvements

Large, abstract goals are intimidating. This is why focusing on smaller areas for improvement can put us in control over our own development.
Instead of an abstract goal like "becoming a better manager", you could use an actionable step like, " I want to devote one hour a week to preparing more for my 1:1s with my team."

Small things add up

Here's a productivity tip: do more things in less time! If you don't think that's useful advice, good. It isn't. "Do more" isn't a solution to productivity—it's a quick path to burnout. It's far more productive to focus on small improvements. I help train Zapier's customer champions, the support team who interacts with our customers primarily via email. As a support trainer, I've learned that getting more done depends on thinking small. Find one small thing you can do better, focus on doing that for a week, then repeat that process. One of the primary productivity metrics for our support team is "replies per hour" (RPH), which measures how many support email replies a customer champion sends on average every hour. Many customer champions are looking to increase their RPH—basically, to reply to more customers in less time. Check out how my colleague Tyler <a href="https://zapier.com/blog/automatically-track-personal-performance/" dir="ltr">created a "personal best bot"</a> to help motivate himself to increase his replies per hour. The tricky part here is you can't really just "send more emails" (maybe you can move your fingers faster as you type?). Instead, a high RPH is the result of doing lots of small things well, as well as not doing some other small things. Here's how I teach people to do just that—and how you can teach yourself.<h2>Identify small improvements you can make</h2>Very few people perform the same single task again and again and again all day, which means that how much you get done is a combination of all kinds of small things. What these things are, of course, depends on what your job is. Odds are there are a bunch of small improvements you could make to your workflow or environment to get more done. Step one is figuring out what those things are. If you're having trouble with this, consider roping in your peers or asking your manager.Back to the support team here at Zapier. We send emails every day, but there are a bunch of small things that could help improve replies per hour. Maybe it's eliminating one or two distractions in our workspace, like keeping our phones in another room. Maybe it's trying a new work schedule, or adding new or refining existing text snippets used for common responses. Or maybe it's a matter of finding three support tickets that really slowed us down, figuring out why, and working out ways to respond more quickly next time.The specifics don't matter—just make a list of things you could improve to start.Sometimes, you can make small improvements through automation. <a href="https://zapier.com/blog/when-to-automate/" dir="ltr">Not sure when to automate? Start here.</a> <h2>Work on one improvement every week</h2>Now it's time to get to work. Every week, you're going to choose One Thing from your list and focus intensely on it. The goal here is to raise your awareness, as if you're looking through a microscope at the Thing.Think of ways to improve this One Thing every day. Experiment, and see what works (and what doesn't). Talk about this One Thing with your manager, and ask for feedback specifically around it. Doing this can be uncomfortable, but feedback is a great way to grow and level up, which is the goal here. Consider also mentioning your One Thing to your coworkers, so they can offer you advice and hold you accountable. The idea is that focusing on your One Thing helps you identify tangible ways to improve that small part of your work. Let's say my One Thing is eliminating the distraction of my cell phone. On Monday, I can focus on simply observing how often I check my phone during work hours (or see if there are any apps that track my phone usage). On Tuesday, I can share this info with my manager for accountability and outline how I plan to curb that usage. On Friday, I can share my findings with my manager and my team to see if this One Thing helped me or not.<h2>Communicate how small changes helped you improve</h2><img src="https://cdn.zappy.app/99d50c65d059f31ce32fd2faf78eae65.png" alt="A screenshot of Matt's weekly update where he talks about a small improvement he's working on" width="660" height="398"><div class="caption">Here's an example of me talking small in my weekly update on Zapier's internal blog</div>After a week of this zoomed-in focus, our natural tendency is to want to share how we did toward our output, which is great. Maybe you really did get more done, and you want to tell everyone about that. Just make sure you also talk about the small thing you focused on. I call this "talking small."For example, if you work in sales, you might normally say, "This week, I had ten sales." Consider instead saying, "This week, I focused on asking one more question per sales call, and I had ten sales." In support, we might be inclined to say, "This week, I wrote 6 replies per hour." By talking small, I'd say, "This week, I focused on leaving better internal notes on my support tickets, and I wrote 6 replies per hour."Talking small will help reinforce both for you and your colleagues that focusing on the little things over time can have some big results. Success doesn't happen overnight.<h2>Small things add up to big ones</h2>Large, abstract goals like "become a better manager" are intimidating. This is why focusing on small things helps—it reduces the pressure we feel when we face a large goal in front of us. By breaking our overall goal into smaller areas of focus and improvement, we put ourselves in a position of more control over our own development. So instead of "I want to become a better manager," you could say, "I want to dedicate one hour a week to preparing more for my 1:1s with my team." That's an actionable goal, which means you're more likely to actually follow up on it. That's why this strategy works. Find small ways you can improve, spend a week focusing on one of them, then communicate how that small improvement helped. Build this cycle into a habit. You'll find that, by focusing on the small things, the big things take care of themselves. Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@vidarnm?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText&amp;utm_source=zapier.com&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=zapier" rel="noopener noreferrer" dir="ltr">Vidar Nordli-Mathisen</a> Unsplash.

As a support trainer, I've learned that getting more done depends on thinking small. Find one small thing you can do better, focus on doing that for a week, then repeat that process.

productivity

Productivity

remotework

Remote Work

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

problemsolving

Problem Solving

timemanagement

Time Management

Here's a productivity tip: do more things in less time!

If you don't think that's useful advice, good. It isn't. "Do more" isn't a solution to productivity—it's a quick path to burnout. It's far more productive to focus on small improvements.

I help train Zapier's customer champions, the support team who interacts with our customers primarily via email. As a support trainer, I've learned that getting more done depends on thinking small. Find one small thing you can do better, focus on doing that for a week, then repeat that process.

One of the primary productivity metrics for our support team is "replies per hour" (RPH), which measures how many support email replies a customer champion sends on average every hour. Many customer champions are looking to increase their RPH—basically, to reply to more customers in less time.

Check out how my colleague Tyler <a href="https://zapier.com/blog/automatically-track-personal-performance/">created a "personal best bot" </a>to help motivate himself to increase his replies per hour.

The tricky part here is you can't really just "send more emails" (maybe you can move your fingers faster as you type?). Instead, a high RPH is the result of doing lots of small things well, as well as not doing some other small things. Here's how I teach people to do just that—and how you can teach yourself.

Very few people perform the same single task again and again and again all day, which means that how much you get done is a combination of all kinds of small things. What these things are, of course, depends on what your job is.

Odds are there are a bunch of small improvements you could make to your workflow or environment to get more done. Step one is figuring out what those things are. If you're having trouble with this, consider roping in your peers or asking your manager.

Back to the support team here at Zapier. We send emails every day, but there are a bunch of small things that could help improve replies per hour. Maybe it's eliminating one or two distractions in our workspace, like keeping our phones in another room. Maybe it's trying a new work schedule, or adding new or refining existing text snippets used for common responses. Or maybe it's a matter of finding three support tickets that really slowed us down, figuring out why, and working out ways to respond more quickly next time.

The specifics don't matter—just make a list of things you could improve to start.

Sometimes, you can make small improvements through automation. <a href="https://zapier.com/blog/when-to-automate/">Not sure when to automate? Start here. </a>

Now it's time to get to work. Every week, you're going to choose One Thing from your list and focus intensely on it. The goal here is to raise your awareness, as if you're looking through a microscope at the Thing.

Think of ways to improve this One Thing every day. Experiment, and see what works (and what doesn't). Talk about this One Thing with your manager, and ask for feedback specifically around it. Doing this can be uncomfortable, but feedback is a great way to grow and level up, which is the goal here. Consider also mentioning your One Thing to your coworkers, so they can offer you advice and hold you accountable.

The idea is that focusing on your One Thing helps you identify tangible ways to improve that small part of your work. Let's say my One Thing is eliminating the distraction of my cell phone. On Monday, I can focus on simply observing how often I check my phone during work hours (or see if there are any apps that track my phone usage). On Tuesday, I can share this info with my manager for accountability and outline how I plan to curb that usage. On Friday, I can share my findings with my manager and my team to see if this One Thing helped me or not.

Communicate how small changes helped you improve

After a week of this zoomed-in focus, our natural tendency is to want to share how we did toward our output, which is great. Maybe you really did get more done, and you want to tell everyone about that. Just make sure you also talk about the small thing you focused on. I call this "talking small."

For example, if you work in sales, you might normally say, "This week, I had ten sales." Consider instead saying, "This week, I focused on asking one more question per sales call, and I had ten sales."

In support, we might be inclined to say, "This week, I wrote 6 replies per hour." By talking small, I'd say, "This week, I focused on leaving better internal notes on my support tickets, and I wrote 6 replies per hour."

Talking small will help reinforce both for you and your colleagues that focusing on the little things over time can have some big results. Success doesn't happen overnight.

Large, abstract goals like "become a better manager" are intimidating. This is why focusing on small things helps—it reduces the pressure we feel when we face a large goal in front of us.

By breaking our overall goal into smaller areas of focus and improvement, we put ourselves in a position of more control over our own development. So instead of "I want to become a better manager," you could say, "I want to dedicate one hour a week to preparing more for my 1:1s with my team." That's an actionable goal, which means you're more likely to actually follow up on it.

That's why this strategy works. Find small ways you can improve, spend a week focusing on one of them, then communicate how that small improvement helped. Build this cycle into a habit. You'll find that, by focusing on the small things, the big things take care of themselves.

Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@vidarnm?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_source=zapier.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zapier">Vidar Nordli-Mathisen </a>Unsplash.

Why big changes happen when you focus on small improvements

Focus on the small improvements

Identify the small improvements you could make

Work on one improvement at a time

Communicate your improvements

Small things add up

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