Starting your day off the right way is different for everyone. Some of us need our coffee, others want to hit the ground running and look back for stragglers. No matter what it is you like to do first, creating a list of tasks that you need to accomplish for the day is objectively smart. Here’s how we cretae tasks using Microsoft To Do (can also be found in Teams under Tasks by Planner and To Do):

1. Click on the New list button at the bottom of the List menu to create a new list. 
    
2. Rename that list as My Day or My Work
    
3. Inside the list, you will see the Add a task button.
    
4. Click on it to add tasks to the named list.

Productivity is the determining factor for the success or failure of small businesses across all industries. However, the definition of productivity varies among individuals, and innovative approaches are constantly challenging conventional notions of productivity, as well as the strategies employed to foster it within a team. So what’s going on with productivity?

Here we discover why employee productivity in the tech industry has gone down. Basically, the pandemic, remote work, and heavier workloads have led to burnout and lower productivity levels. The author points out that a lot of companies haven't done much to adjust their management strategies to tackle these problems, like giving their employees more flexibility in their work schedules and encouraging them to take breaks and look after themselves. And even though this article is directed toward the tech industry, these issues are prevalent across the board.

Article 1

Corporate Productivity in the Tech Industry is Down: What is the Real Reason? | Entrepreneur

Key Takeaways: 

1. After the pandemic, many workers expected that working from home was here to stay.
    
2. As workers head back to the office, the extreme productivity increases seen by working from home – less distractions, more incentive to get work done quickly, etc – are rearing their ugly heads
    
3. Being driven back into the physical workplace after working from home is bringing down the morale of tech employees.

It’s impossible to get away from the likes of ChatGPT and other AI tools for better or worse. But, for most, AI tools are massively increasing workers’ ability to generate solid, useful work quicker than ever. So which is it, are workers being replaced or are they being outfitted for the future? Turns out, it’s the latter.

Article 2

A Fortune 500 firm paired workers with ChatGPT-like A.I. tools—and they were happier | Business Insider

Key Takeaways:

1. Using data from 5,179 customer support agents, the research team found that workers who had access to an A.I.-based conversational assistant were 13.8% more productive than those who did not.
    
2. In less experienced staff, A.I. helped them work 35% faster than they had without the tech’s assistance.
   
   
3. Jack Hampson, CEO and founder of British A.I. consultancy Deeper Insights told Fortune that A.I. tools like ChatGPT will “1,000%” be a game changer in the workplace.
   

Learn how pinning documents can help your current workflow here: Where, How and Why to Pin Documents

There’s been a lot of talk lately about productivity and with good reason: It’s the single most important element to success in your business. Even when it comes to guarding your data, the reason is you want to stay productive at all times. So, how can you leverage what you already have to improve your own productivity? Let’s LITERALLY put a pin in that and check out Pinning for a second.

How can Pinning Help Me?

 

Pinning documents has become a useful task in today's digital world. From social media posts to links in your iMessage backend and well beyond, there are many places where pinning has become normal. In our blog, we outline how to pin frequently used files in Excel, Word, or PowerPoint, how to clean up your desktop by pinning documents, and how to use pinning on social media as a marketing tool. 

 

Pinning files is a great way to cut down on file search time and improve access to files you want to share. Pinning on social media helps highlight the most important post you want page visitors to notice first – you can even pin time-sensitive announcements and offers to ensure your followers see them. And for a whole explanation of how to do all of these things and more, read the full blog here.

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