Five Ideas for New Year’s Resolutions in the Workplace

In the United States we say an overworked person “works like a dog” while in Russia they say an overworked person “works like an American.”

The United States is lot more prosperous than Russia and always has been, but it comes at a cost. All professionals suffer from work stress at least once in a while and an increasingly large number suffer from burnout.

We’re not going to suggest you resolve to work harder in 2016 than you did in 2015. Most of us are already working hard enough as it is.

Instead, let’s resolve to work better in 2016.

Be More Productive

Productivity matters whether we’re paid by the hour, by the project or are on salary, yet it always seems like we have more work to do and less time to do it.

Working longer hours isn’t the answer. Instead, you need to work smarter.

Create your own self-imposed deadlines that are earlier than your actual deadlines. Take plenty of breaks so your internal gas tank doesn’t run dry. Say no to optional meetings and other distractions. And stop pretending you can multitask. Research shows that we all get more done in less time when we’re focused.

Be More Punctual

A long time ago, before the Industrial Revolution, when a huge percentage of us worked on farms, punctuality wasn’t as important as it is now. As long as you got up early enough in the morning to milk the cows, it was all good.

Everything changed with the rise of factories and manufacturing jobs. If you were five minutes late to your shift on the assembly line, the entire operation might grind to a halt until you showed up.

In the Information Age, most of us aren’t working in factories anymore. We have flexible hours. A lot of us work from home. Projects are often open-ended. Deadlines move around.

Modern businesses aren’t likely to lose thousands of dollars in productivity if you’re late for work or for an appointment, but we’re not back on the family farm either. Punctuality still matters for the same reason it always has: it shows that you respect your co-workers, clients and colleagues as fellow professionals and that you also respect their time.

If you’re chronically late, you’re draining everyone’s productivity including your own. Everyone knows it and nobody likes it.

Eat Better at Work

No one likes to be told to eat their peas. Don’t worry. We won’t go there.

But if you’re taking your lunch breaks at fast food joints or—worse—buying your lunch from vending machines, you’re making yourself miserable.

Your body needs food and your brain is part of your body. Most working professionals need protein.

You need carbs if you’re running or hiking or are working construction, but if you spend most of the day in an office and hoover up a huge order of fries on your lunch break, you’ll spend most of the afternoon feeling like you’ve eaten a weight set.

Manage Your Time Better

David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, should be required reading for every working professional. One of the greatest takeaways is remarkably simple. If you have something on your to-do list that will take two minutes or less to complete, do it immediately.

Everyone’s day is filled with such tasks. They can kill your productivity with a thousand tiny cuts if you let them pile up. If you want to manage your time better, start there. It’s easy.

Stay Organized

If you’re unsure which of these five New Year’s resolutions is best, go with this one. Most of us could stand to be better organized and the ripple effect from getting and staying more organized will improve the other four.

You’ll be more productive, you won’t be late as often (if ever), you won’t be so pressed for time or unprepared for your day that hitting the nearest fast food chain seems like the only possible option, and you’ll see at least some improvement in time management as a matter of course.

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll drill down into the nuts and bolts of each of these topics. Stay tuned.