You work hard, and over time, your years of hard work seem to slowly pay off. You do the best you can for your employer and gradually, day by day and year by year, you can see increases in your overall productivity. A task that once took three hours now takes two, and you’re better able to put that saved hour to your advantage than you used to be. That’s great. But what if you could find a way to take these steady, gradual productivity increases and speed them up? What if you could make yourself one percent more productive with each passing day? Where would you be in a year?

Try these tips for one year and see what happens.

First, define productivity.

Your definition may vary from someone else’s, so make sure you know exactly what you’re trying to improve. Do you want to process more client transactions per day? Do you want to manage larger accounts? Do you want to finish your work faster so you can go home and spend more hours with your friends and family? Determine what “productivity” means to you and write it down. Then you can get to work.

Look for weaknesses in your current system.

Maybe you really enjoy sleeping till nine and you have a hard time getting your workday started, and maybe that precious hour between eight and nine offers lots of opportunities to get things done. In that case, focus on that hour. How can you get to bed earlier and fall asleep faster? How can you motivate yourself to be on your feet one hour earlier? What steps can you take to shore up this one specific weakness in your current routine?

Look for obstacles and find ways to skate around them.

Maybe your job requires you to get daily approvals from Steve in accounting before you take any critical step forward. And maybe Steve tends to stand in your way for frustrating reasons. Focus on those reasons and find a way to remove—or at least reduce—this productivity-draining roadblock. If you face several of these problems throughout your day, tackle and solve just one at a time. Keep at it until each separate issue has been addressed.

Look inside yourself.

Is there something else holding you back? Not just one frustrating account manager, but something bigger, an obstacle that lies within your own mind or heart? If so, study this problem fearlessly and face it down. There’s a chance it may be simpler than you think. For example, what if you just don’t like this job and you’d rather be somewhere else? What if you’ve outgrown this entire industry and it’s time for a new start? If you look inside and find that your biggest obstacle to productivity is yourself, be bold. Gather your courage and make the moves you need to make in order to turn your life in the right direction. If it’s time for a new employer, or a new job altogether, the experts at PSU can help. Contact our office today.