Most people only think about their work performance during an annual performance appraisal, which in most cases is way too late. After all, improving work performance is not an overnight process. There is no secret hack. Instead, it takes creating a system based on the mutual interaction of different strategies, tools, and of course, a lot of experimentation.

A good place to start is by measuring your current performance and going about it with a clearly defined agenda. In this article, we share a systemized approach to improve work performance by following a 3 step cycle you apply to pretty much any job case scenario. So let’s dive in!

How to improve your performance at work

Step 1: Audit and find what you want to improve
Step 2: Adopt relevant strategies but keep your goals in check
Step 3: Review progress and adapt accordingly

Step 1: Audit and find what you want to improve

Improving anything starts with auditing where you’re currently at. After all, it’s next to impossible to improve something without knowing what it is you want to improve. Similarly, improving your performance at work is too vague a strategy. It needs to be fine-tuned to optimize specific areas at work: Do you want to reduce work time? Then you most likely need to adopt time management practices. Or maybe you fail to meet deadlines, which is probably due to lack of organization.

As you can see, there are many areas of improvement at work (read: time management, organization, efficiency, etc.), and each area requires a different strategy. For this reason, it’s crucial to track and measure your current work performance to find your areas of improvement at work. You can use a tracker to track your vital performance metrics (for example, track how much time it take you to complete the most important tasks), and then – after at least 3 weeks – export the data into a spreadsheet to measure and evaluate your current work performance.

Step 2: Adopt relevant strategies but keep your goals in check

At this point, you’ll know exactly where you stand in terms of work performance—and these insights will help you create relevant strategies to improve upon those areas. However, improving work performance can go on for weeks (if not months), and without the right set of goals, you’ll lack focus and direction to go on. For instance, you can’t simply say, “I want to reduce my work time,” and expect it to happen.

Enter: S.M.A.R.T Goals

S.M.A.R.T goals are a goal-setting framework that brings structure and trackability into your goals:

	S.M.A.R.T	Meaning
S	Specific	What needs to be accomplished and what strategies will you implement?
M	Measurable	What data needs to be measured for the goal? What’s deemed success or failure?
A	Achievable	Is the goal doable? Do you have the skills and capabilities to achieve it?
R	Relevant	How does the goal align your professional goals? Why is the result important to you or your organization?
T	Time-Based	What is the deadline for the goal?

For better understanding, we’ll share an example for using the S.M.A.R.T. framework to improve work performance: You're a content writer for a SaaS company and you have recently set a goal to reduce work time. This goal is too vague, so let’s turn it into a smart goal:

S: Reduce time spent writing a single blog article from 5 hours to 3 hours by adopting a structured Pomodoro technique
M: Then, you’ll need to measure time using a time tracker tool so that you can compare it against your current writing time.
A: you’ve been writing for several months, and have enough experience to improve your writing speed.
R: Your current goal is to reduce work time and focus on other personal activities like hiking, dancing, and learning the ukulele.
T: You will complete this goal by December 31st 2020 (which gives you about one month).

Finally, here’s what your S.M.A.R.T goal would look like: “Reduce writing time by 2 hours by adopting a structured Pomodoro work style to free up time for personal activities by December 31st 2020.”

Similarly, you need to breakdown your work performance goals into a clearly defined plan of action as opposed to something vague. But remember, what works for one person won’t necessarily work for another. Instead, what’s essential is to measure your work performance, find gaps, and adopt strategies that work best for you. Shared below are a few techniques you can adopt to improve work performance:

• Avoid multitasking, and adopt unitasking to focus on one task. This avoids dividing attention that, in turn, improves overall efficiency.
• Use task boards to break up complex workweeks into actionable goals and objectives.
• Manage workplace distractions by integrating blockers to remove any triggers. For example, if you’re distracted by constant emails, use a blocker to block emails when you’re working.

Step 3: Review progress and adapt accordingly

A huge part of improving work performance is ensuring you’re still on track. This is where a personal performance review comes in and helps you identify what’s working and more importantly, what’s not working for you. Now, there are no specific rules to carry this out, but you most definitely don’t have to keep it formal, like in a typical corporate review. Here are a few ways to carry out a personal performance review:

• Make sure to space out performance reviews (read: min 2 weeks) to collect reliable data.
• Clean up tracked data into spreadsheets to depict the most relevant performance metrics.
• Evaluate progress with your smart goals and take appropriate measures:

• If things worked out – great! Set higher goals.
• If things didn’t work out – find out why.

Remember, we’re all human, so don’t be surprised if you haven’t seen a considerable improvement. Instead, use this as an opportunity to fine-tune strategy.

Take a break when you need one

You don’t have to peak your productivity each day, so if you feel like you’ve reached your limit, stop and take some time off! Taking a break is not a weakness, but instead, it’s a smart strategy to rejuvenate and come back to your work with higher energy. At the end of the day, it all comes down to measuring progress and optimizing your workplace to something that works best for you.