Another week of home office and you are trying to find last bits of motivation? You are probably feeling very similar to most of us.. Moreover, it is even harder when the your boss is not looking - it is so easy to lose the track of time when communicating with team or using social media.

It is obvious that being busy is not the same as being productive. Some tasks take long but bring great added value, and that’s hard to compare to smaller ones you deal with within a few e-mails. The feeling of being always on the go can be deceiving and steal the capacity for focused work or finishing your planned tasks. Delivering results at work is very important, as it is motivating, releases dopamine in your brain - the hormone of reward, which makes you more satisfied with your job.

If you are trying to boost your productivity (or just enjoy a splash of dopamine ) , try some of these tips :

Schedule enough time for uninterrupted focused work every day - ideally some time when you feel energized or when there is low possiblity of team meetings.

From a physiological point of view - your daily rhytm consist of blocks of 90 minutes of high energy followed by 20 minutes of rest. Of course, your attention can fluctuate. To start, you could try smaller sprints :

-if you know you could struggle to stay focused for longer time, try Pomodoro Technique- which consists of 25-minute long blocks for uninteruppted work
-if you feel a bit more confident, try an hour-long block with 20 minutes rest

Mute your notifications - information overload - consistent exposure to new information and notifications costs us a high price. It can take almost half an hour for our brain, to gain focus after switching context.

Multitasking, a.k.a. symbol of productivity, is a myth. Moreover, if you think you are good at that, you probably aren't . If you tend to switch between tasks, or just "check something real quick", you could try tracking your time with any of the apps to find out, how much time you can actually pay consistent attention to a task.

For a bit more inspiration....
Have you heard of Deep Work? Cal Newport claims we need deep work to create real added value and to feel satisfied, but at the same time, that we are terribly bad at focusing deeply. If you want to know bit more and learn how to make focus your new default mode, try listening to this podcast or reading this blog or maybe even get that book :).