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Creative Ways To Be Productive at Work
Treating work like a game, timeboxing and other ways to trick yourself into improved productivity
If you’re reading this article, you’re probably not doing work that challenges you. I’ve been there — moving data from a spreadsheet to a database or transferring text from images into Word. You need to do it. It’s not fun. It’s not something to brag about. It’s also not something you’re going to learn something new.
To get me through some of this mindless work, I like to come up with different ways to trick myself into thinking this is fun.
Find a shortcut
Just because something is mindless doesn’t mean you can’t stop to think about the problem. This is first on the list because IF you can find a shortcut, it’s going to help you save a ton of time and stress later.
Once, I was on a project where I was inputting work from multiple spreadsheets into a database. Yes, we were being paid by the client at a few hundred dollars an hour to do data entry. Sure the work was mindless but as a plus, I got to listen to great podcasts and audiobooks that enriched my learning.
It was a little late into the work that I started to see if there were shortcuts. I started looking online with the…
