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The Ultimate Guide to Boosting Team Productivity Through Psychological Safety and Trust
Do you know what the highest-performing teams have in common? They trust each other. They work in a safe environment where no one fears punishment or retribution for making a mistake, taking a risk, or voicing an opinion.
“There’s no team without trust,” says Paul Santagata, Head of Industry at Google. He knows this because of Google’s two-year study into team productivity. They interviewed 200 employees and looked at more than 250 attributes of 180 active Google teams.
They expected to find a perfect mix of talents and attributes. Surely the highest performing teams were a combination of advanced degrees, skilled specialists, and type-A personalities, right?
Actually, no. What they found is that who is on the team does not matter much. What’s important is “how the team members interact, structure their work, and view their contributions.” Ultimately, the study revealed that the best teams have strong trust and psychological safety, including the belief that you will not be punished for mistakes.
What happens when we don’t feel safe at work? According to evolutionary biology, a provocation or threat by an employer (or anyone with power or authority in our work environment), subordinate, or coworker is processed as a life-or-death threat in our brain. The fight-or-flight response is ignited, which shuts down analytical reasoning, thus preventing us from thinking our way out of a problem.
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14 Tips for Juggling Multiple Freelance Projects
Juggling multiple projects is one of the biggest challenges for many freelancers. It starts when one client decides to expand their services. Then another wants an extra project. Then someone refers you to their friend and they want a one-off job. Now an agency wants to subcontract through you. All of a sudden you’re busier than ever!
What makes this hard is that your clients don’t know each other. They don’t know, or care, but you have other obligations. They only know what you promise to deliver.
Keep in mind that having lots of work is a good problem to have. It means you are doing something right as a freelancer. People want to work with you, so your career is on the right track.
If you don’t find ways to manage multiple projects, there’s a good chance you’ll fail to meet your obligations. Clients will be dissatisfied if you deliver poor-quality work or submit it late. It could affect your relationship with those clients and your overall reputation.
So for the sake of your income and your career, it’s important to learn how to manage a busy workload.
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8 Tips for Better Time Management for Freelancers
As a freelancer, your time is everything. The faster you can complete projects (without sacrificing the quality of the work), the more money you can make. “Time is money,” as they say.
Adding hours to your day isn’t the only way to make more money. If you can complete projects faster without wasting precious time, you can schedule more projects, and thus make more money. If you waste time, therefore, you’re actually throwing money out the window. So it’s critical that you take time management seriously.
“But I work for myself,” you might be thinking. “I want freedom and flexibility. I don’t want a boss standing over my shoulder making sure I’m working diligently, so why would I do that to myself?”
That’s a fair sentiment, but good time management doesn’t mean putting yourself under a lot of stress. It doesn’t necessarily mean working extra hard, either. It just means working smartly.
So how do you improve your time management and truly optimize your workday as much as possible? In this article, we’ll explain how with a collection of time management tips for freelancers.
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The Secret of the World’s Most Productive People: Make a Plan and Stick To It
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” That’s what Abraham Lincoln said, anyway. According to American history, he achieved quite a bit in his tenure as the 16th American president. What was Abe’s secret? Making a plan – or in this case, preparing an axe. (If you’re interested, you can also take a look at another historical superhero of productivity – Ben Franklin, according to productivity influencer Thomas Frank).
Your plan helps you slay your goals – and become a champion at productivity. Share on XYour plan for the day (or week, month, year) is truly the axe that helps you chop down the tree in front of you – whether that’s a monumental project, new business launch, or just a freakishly long To-Do list.
- Your plan forces you to be hyper-focused and ruthlessly diligent.
- Your plan keeps your eyes on the target.
- Your plan helps you slay your goals – and become a champion at productivity.
Abe knew the secret sauce. The secret sauce is in the preparation.
In the following article, we’ll talk about the secret of the world’s most productive people – making a plan and sticking to it.
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Do Productivity Apps Work?
Productivity – more elusive than ever before, but still as highly sought after. It’s the skill that helps us conquer large projects in 2-hour work sessions, build and manage multiple streams of income, and see profitable growth… oh and maintain a great work-life balance.
In short, improving productivity is the secret to slaying your work goals. But it’s easier to talk about it than to actually achieve it. Share on XHere’s the good news: There’s a productivity app for that. In fact, there are plenty of apps for that. But do they really work? Do they actually make a difference, or are they just a glorified form of procrastination?
In this article, we’ll take a look at how productivity apps like Timing work, why and how they can be beneficial, some potential downsides of using productivity apps, and finally, why a productivity app can actually improve your overall work-life balance.
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Tools You Need to Build Your Business as a Solopreneur
Congratulations! You’ve taken the leap to become a solopreneur. Most likely, you’re seeing a long-term vision or dream come to life. Expect an exciting, fulfilling ride with lots of hard work and well-earned profits.
That being said, getting started as a solopreneur can be extremely overwhelming. All of a sudden, you’re responsible for setting up every aspect of a profitable business – including scheduling and time-tracking, all communications, website hosting, marketing, accounting, and more. To launch your business as a solopreneur, you’ll want to be prepared with a suite of tools that will help ensure your success. Share on X
Here are a few that can help you to automate administrative processes, establish effective workflows, and strategize on how to successfully market your product or service.
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Time Tracking for Video Editors & Podcast Producers
Editing video and audio content is uniquely detailed work. As anyone who has spent two hours working on a 5-minute clip knows, there’s a lot that goes into producing that video or Podcast episode. That’s why professionals like podcast producers and video editors need extraordinary focus, meticulous attention to detail, and lastly, a keen sense of timing.
But these creatives don’t just need to know how to time things right. They also need external tools to help them track their own working hours. In this article, we’ll take a look at why automatic time tracking can be so beneficial to video editors and podcast producers; specific time tracking strategies for these creatives; and features to look for in a time tracking system.
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Time Management Hacks for Self-Employed Professionals
Kayla Matthews, a productivity-obsessed writer from Pittsburgh, has been writing for nearly a decade about self-improvement and business efficiency. You can see her articles on sites like MakeUseOf, Inc.com, Information Age, and her blog, ProductivityTheory.com.
Are you managing your time in the best ways? Self-employment and remote work can come with an abundance of benefits. But they can also come with the pesky issue of time management.
Time management isn’t just about time, either. It overflows into productivity, profits, stress, planning and so much more. Finding a balance in it all is the most important thing you can do.
Whether you have been freelancing for years or just started working from home due to the current crisis, read on for hacks that will help you with time management!
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How to Create a Project- or Task-Specific Report in Timing
One of the most powerful benefits of using Timing is that it allows you to export instant reports that include details about how you’ve spent your working hours.
A detailed, project- or task-specific report can be especially useful when it comes to billing clients for your time–but it can also be used for:
- Reviewing your personal time usage on specific projects or clients,
- Estimating time usage/costs for similar projects or clients, and
- Leverage while proposing an increased rate to a client (or potentially, an employer).
In this article, we’ll take a look at how to create a report in Timing, as well as different types of reports you might want to generate to get richer insight into your most valuable resource: your time.
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10 Signs You Need to Start Tracking Your Time
Kayla Matthews, a productivity-obsessed writer from Pittsburgh, has been writing for nearly a decade about self-improvement and business efficiency. You can see her articles on sites like MakeUseOf, Inc.com, Information Age, and her blog, ProductivityTheory.com.
When you wake up every day, you know what you can expect based on your schedule. You might need to take notes at meetings or present to your team. Blocking off time for big events is easy, but how good are you when it comes to narrowing down what you’ll do in shorter periods?
Imagine you have two hours to work on assignments before your next meeting. You might tackle your duties by jumping in and not stopping for breaks, but then time slips by. Before you know it, you’ve barely accomplished anything and you have to leave.
This is one of the common ways people realize they aren’t as productive as they’d like to be. If you think that might be you, here are 10 signs that prove you need to start tracking your time. Once you try a few of these tips and start tracking time, you’ll breeze through your daily schedule and accomplish more than ever before.
