How much of our work time is spent focused on trivial tasks that could be automated, delegated, or outsourced?

A lot more than many of us would like to admit.

If you want to ensure company time is respected, and not squandered, it's important to emphasize the need to work smarter, not harder. Of course, hard work and determination has its place in any work environment, but it shouldn't come at the expense of productivity or employee health.

There's a fine line between getting the most out of your employees and pushing them closer to burnout, so the next time you sit down to review performance, raise the question as to how you can work smarter, not harder as an organization.

Here are five ways you can make the most of company time and maintain high productivity levels:

1. Streamline communication

In a business environment, communication is everything. Sever the lines of communication between coworkers and team leaders and you cripple the organization's efficiency and put a dent in the rate of project completion.

Given the importance of communication, you'd think it'd be a focus of most companies, yet it's seldom a skill that's taught. Perhaps rightly so, because these days, there's a much more time-efficient way to streamline communications: software tools.

The rise of the remote work environment has seen a meteoric rise in the usage of all kinds of software solutions, but without a doubt one of the most important tools that's kept many companies afloat in uncertain times, is the communication tool.

Tools such as Slack, Zoom, and the many project management tools out there help employees stay in touch with one another and keep their superiors in the loop. This is true even when working from home, as these apps make it possible to instantly get hold of someone.

With Slack, you can reach out using the appropriate channel according to context, meanwhile with Zoom you can hold video conferences with many people, and with project management software you can send messages as comments on tasks and label them with relevant information.

Making communication easy with tools is one example of how you can work smarter and save time by not relying on outdated systems that delay response time or distract you from the work day.

2. Lean on productivity tools

Productivity apps can become some of the most powerful tools you have in your arsenal for improving company-wide productivity levels.

When we refer to productivity tools we're referring to everything from to-do list apps to comprehensive virtual project management systems. Just as software can speed up communication according to context, productivity tools can speed up the rate at which you get tasks done.

Productivity tools like monitoring software for employees also allow you to prioritize before you execute, so you can make sure the most important tasks are getting done on a regular basis. This prevents the age-old issue of procrastinating major tasks for an imaginary tomorrow that'll never come.

Collaboration also becomes easier with the right tools as you can share your to-do list or agenda with others and they can add their input, or go in directly and make edits on your documents.

3. Delegate and automate

Delegation and automation are two effective ways to minimize the time you spend on less important tasks, so you can focus on the important activities.

For example, say you have an email to send out to all of your clients and you want it to be sent out at a specific time, or a series of emails to be sent at regular intervals. You could take this task on yourself, or, you can automate it with software such as Zapier or Mailchimp and save yourself a lot of time. The same applies for content creation for your business.

Delegation can also be useful when you have a lot on your plate and employees working under you. Certain tasks can be outsourced to a virtual assistant too if you work as a freelancer.

4. Give batching a go

If you want to prevent the issue of context-switching from ruining your flow state and interrupting your productivity, why not give batching a go?

Batching is the process of grouping similar tasks together so that you can knock them all out in one go. The most common example of this is setting aside time during the day to respond to all of your emails. This solves the problem of placing yourself at the mercy of others, waiting for emails to come in to respond to them one-by-one.

When you batch activities, you can focus on the task at hand since you know that you'll get around to that email that just arrived in your inbox. Constant distractions are the bane of productivity, so it's wise to get on top of them and take away their power to throw you off course.

5. Reduce distractions

Distractions, in whatever form they take, can greatly inhibit your ability to be productive. They say that getting distracted even briefly can mean it takes several minutes to re-focus on the task you were working on which is a crazy way to conduct business.

As such, here are some actions you can take to reduce distractions in the workplace for you and your coworkers or employees:

•  Place mobile phones out of sight

•  Limit the number of non-essential meetings and emails

•  Reserve water-cooler conversations for designated break time

You can also install software on work computers which will blacklist certain websites, such as Facebook, which are notorious for being time sinks and distractors. If you're serious about productivity, you have to get serious about cutting out or reducing distractions as much as possible.

Notifications can be useful, though, especially when you're using project management software to delegate and work on various tasks. As such, it's impossible to completely block out distractions, but any effort to reduce them should help you gain a little extra in productivity.

Final words

If you want to work smarter, not harder, you have to think about the greatest issues that prevent productivity. Distractions, trivial tasks, and poor communication systems all have the power to disrupt your work day and send you into a spiral. As such, it's worth seeking optimal solutions to these problems to hack your productivity and boost overall output.