In the 2 years of my waitering, I never asked myself, “What is the first shift?” Or, rather, ”What does the first shift mean for my health, productivity, and overall well-being?”

Writing this article, I got a chance to think about the benefits, drawbacks, and write about this topic from my perspective.

In this guide, we’ll discuss:

• First shift definitions,
• Typical first shift jobs,
• Benefits and drawbacks of the first shift, and
• Tips for being more productive during the first shift.

Let’s look at how you can make your first shift experience better.

What is a first shift?

First shift is a work shift where employees get to work in the morning and finish in the afternoon. Sometimes called day shift or morning shift, the first shift is the most common shift in the world. 

First shift usually starts and ends during typical business hours (8 a.m. to 5 p.m.) — and that’s up next.

What are first shift hours?

First shift hours are work schedules that imply working from 8–9 a.m. to 4–5 p.m. Likewise, first shift hours are also known as morning shift hours or day shift hours. 

Employees on the first shift typically work 8 hours a day, with exceptions. For example, some workers — like those in the hospitality sector — have to arrive at work an hour or two before the start of operations to prepare everything for when the customers arrive.

For this reason, we can differentiate between early first-shift hours and traditional first-shift hours. To explain, early first-shift hours start between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. On the other hand, traditional first shift hours start around 8–9 a.m.  

What are typical first shift jobs? 

Some typical first shift jobs include:

• Pharmacists,
• Office workers,
• Postal employees,
• Construction workers,
• Store and hotel managers,
• Coffee shop and bakery employees,
• Electricians, plumbers, and cleaning staff.

Of course, there are other professions — but these are the ones where the first shift work schedule is most common. 

How does the first shift compare to the second and third shifts? 

First shift hours are common in companies that don’t necessarily have to be open around the clock, like construction sites and coffee shops. 

In contrast, second and third shifts are typical in businesses that operate 24/7. Some of these sectors may include:

• Retail,
• Healthcare,
• Manufacturing, and 
• Emergency services (fire departments and law enforcement).

According to sleep expert Matthew Walker, around 30% of people are morning larks and an estimated 30% are night owls. In short, morning larks are employees with high energy levels in the morning, and night owls are workers with more energy in the late afternoon and during the night. Everyone else — the remaining 40% — falls somewhere in between. 

As a result, early risers are better suited to work the first shift because that’s when they’re at their most productive. In contrast, the second and third shifts are best for folks who accomplish the most in the late afternoon and during the night.

Now, let’s recap all you have learned so far in an easy-to-read table.

Next, we’ll get into all the advantages of day shift time.

What are the benefits of working the first shift?

First shifters get to enjoy at least 5 powerful benefits of working the first shift, including how the first shift:

• Promotes meaning at and outside of work,
• Aligns nicely with the body’s natural clock,
• Provides a better work-life balance,
• Lets you better plan the week ahead, and
• Enhances productivity and alertness.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these benefits.

Benefit #1: First shift promotes work motivation

One of the major benefits of the first shift is that first shifters can sustain relationships with their family and friends more easily — creating a boost in meaning and purpose at work. 

To make it more tangible, a 2022 study on non-standard work time found that employees who work traditional working hours (a nine-to-five) have more intrinsic motivation in contrast to workers working non-standard hours (night shifts or irregular schedules).

What does that mean? 

Well, it simply means that employees on the nine-to-five schedule find their work more meaningful. As a result, if an employee is satisfied with their work life, they’re more likely to be happy with all other aspects of life — as they’ll spend more free time with friends and family.

Benefit #2: First shift aligns better with the body’s natural clock

According to a 2023 analysis on shift work hazards, researchers discovered that people working non-traditional work hours — like nights, weekends, and evenings — had disrupted their natural sleep-wake cycle. And that’s a cause for concern. Yet, it’s nothing that first shifters have to worry about.

A managing director at Festoon House and a first shift worker himself, Matt Little, believes that nothing beats a good night’s sleep for a more refreshing morning:

“First of all, first shift hours help with your mental and physical health. Second, a good first shift can help your body’s natural circadian rhythm. A good night’s sleep is good for your overall health, so you’ll wake up feeling fresh and ready to go.”

And that’s not all.

Another positive health effect of the first shift was uncovered in a 2021 study. In the paper, a group of Croatian researchers found that first-shift nurses were more restful than their night-shift counterparts. Also, first-shift nurses had more stable cortisol levels than their colleagues working irregular shifts.

In contrast, the same study discovered that nurses on irregular shifts experienced higher levels of cortisol and prolactin — hormones that mess up the body’s natural clock.

In any case, the first shift does wonders for employees who settle for the traditional nine-to-five.

Benefit #3: First shift provides more work-life balance

We all want more time off. But this time may just be lying there, waiting for you to pick it up. Yes, we’re talking about how the first shift schedule provides more me-time after a hectic day at work.

The CEO of a field service company Klipboard and a first shifter himself, Draven McConville, thinks that the first shift is about syncing your clock with others in your environment:

“The first shift entails integrating your life with the outside environment. Most of your buddies clock out at the same time as you, so you can stop using the ’sorry, I’m working’ defense. Like everyone else, you get to enjoy your evenings while telling tales and making memories. It’s the gratifying sensation of synchronization with life’s beat.”

The president at Mammoth Security, Eugene Klimaszewski, believes that the first shift provides more personal time after all the hustle and bustle of his security work:

“Wrapping up early means my evenings aren’t all about work. From family time to that new book I’ve been meaning to read — it’s Eugene Time.”

Benefit #4: First shift lets you craft better work plans

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” — Benjamin Franklin 

One of the biggest benefits of the first shift is that it allows employees to create better work plans for the workdays or workweek ahead.

For example, imagine getting to the office on a Monday morning, ready to tackle your first shift. In this case, you’ll be able to make bulletproof plans for the period ahead thanks to being completely alert and focused as a morning lark — provided you’re one.

A manufacturing consultant at Levantar, Mark Greenhouse, drives the point home on the importance of visualizing what first shifters need to get done during the workweek:

“You get to think about the shift and the week ahead. Is there any training coming up? Are key staff on holidays? Any important sales visits taking place? Are there any key reports and audits to be produced, are these all planned in?”

Furthermore, Mark Greenhouse explains how planning the work period ahead could solve problems in advance:

“You get a chance to review the production schedule and see if there are any ’problem’ orders coming up during the week and consider how you’ll deal with them.”

All in all, the first shift lets you craft better, more achievable work plans, both in the short and long term.

Benefit #5: First shift enhances productivity and alertness

According to a 2023 article in the Entrepreneur magazine, employee creativity is highest at night, but their productivity is at its peak in the morning. That’s great news for morning larks’ work productivity.

Entrepreneur Priyanka Swamy — who’s also the founder of Perfect Locks — talks about the benefits of starting your work early:

“Our brains work best in the morning when we’re more alert and focused. This means you’ll be able to tackle difficult tasks with a fresh set of eyes, potentially resulting in better work quality. It’s like riding a natural wave of energy that sets the mood for the rest of the day.”

A security expert Eugene Klimaszewski — whom we mentioned earlier — agrees with this idea. As a first-shift employee, he says he loves the peace that comes with early mornings:

“Clear-headed beginnings: That peaceful morning atmosphere? It’s like a secret weapon. It sharpens my thoughts and lets me dive deep into work without the usual distractions.”

What are the drawbacks of working the first shift?

Some of the greatest drawbacks of working the first shift are:

• Not practical for night owls, 
• Indicates a lack of instant team communication,
• Implies limited evening time,
• Suggests the possibility of getting stuck in traffic, and
• Implies fewer opportunities for pay raises.

Now, let’s explore each of those.

Drawback #1: First shift isn’t practical for late-nighters

The first shift isn’t practical for night owls or late-nighters, as it entails getting up early.

An entrepreneur Priyanka Swamy, whom we mentioned earlier, says that your natural clock could be caught off guard if you suddenly become an early riser:

“If you’re not a morning person by nature, it’s no surprise that waking up early can be a challenge. Your body’s natural circadian rhythm may take a bit of time to adjust to this new way of waking up. That initial groggy feeling can make it difficult to feel fully awake and alert, especially at the start of the day.”

Although he loves the first shift, a security expert Eugene Klimaszewski thinks that winter brings its fair share of second thoughts about the first shift, especially for late-nighters:

“Chilly starts: some mornings, especially in winter, make me yearn for a few more minutes under the covers.”

Drawback #2: First shift implies limited evening time

When I worked as a waiter, I usually served our customers during the first shift. But that always meant I had to go to bed no later than 10 p.m. Sometimes, I had to make painful compromises — my friends would stay up late, partying, but I was rarely lucky enough to join them.

An entrepreneur Priyanka Swamy says that avoiding evening socials is a byproduct of the first shift schedule:

“While early morning shifts give you plenty of time in the mornings and early afternoons, your afternoons may be shorter. This means that you may not be able to attend evening socials or attend events that take place later in the afternoon.”

Finally, you’ll be less likely to enjoy frequent nights out if you’re on the first shift — provided you care about late-night get-togethers in the first place.

Drawback #3: First shift indicates getting stuck in traffic

The fast-paced nature of the first shift is what you might expect — people rushing to get to the office, everyone’s trying to park in their favorite spots, and most people are generally full of energy.

Draven McConville, whom we mentioned earlier, explains how gridlock can push you to lose your patience:

“Being on the first shift will probably put you in the middle of rush hour traffic, which can be really annoying if you live far from your place of employment. We all experience the daily challenge of squeezing past a sea of brake lights, which puts your patience and radio station preferences to the test.”

Drawback #4: First shift implies fewer opportunities for pay raises

When a company provides the same compensation for all shifts, the employer may have issues finding workers to cover later shifts — like night shifts or irregular schedules.

As a result, pay differs based on which shift you work. For example, employees working between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. typically get a night pay differential, according to the US Office of Human Resources Management. This simply means that the workers in question receive a 10% increase on top of their rate of basic pay.

In contrast, first shifters don’t get to enjoy such benefits, as theirs is a regular work schedule.

Tips for working the first shift

Next, let’s dig into a few expert tips for making the first shift more productive and better for your overall well-being.

Here we’ll cover how to:

• Make time management your priority,
• Avoid staying up too late,
• Create the perfect morning routine,
• Eat healthy, and
• Nurture a positive work environment.

Let’s get into it.

Tip #1: Make time management your priority

If you’re not a morning person, but you’re still working the first shift, you need to manage your time like a pro. Easier said than done, sure — but hear us out.

We picked the brains of Jeff Mains — a seasoned entrepreneur and the CEO of Champion Leadership Group LLC — to better understand the importance of time management in working the first shift. Jeff says that tools and techniques are essential:

“Effective time management is key. Implementing well-defined processes, prioritizing tasks, and leveraging technology can streamline operations and reduce stress. Encourage your team to use productivity tools and techniques like the Pomodoro technique or project management software to maximize efficiency.”

Speaking of the Pomodoro technique, you can use Clockify Pomodoro Timer to track your work hours and breaks.

Here’s how the Clockify’s Pomodoro timer works:

• Start the timer,
• Work for 25 minutes,
• Stop working,
• Enjoy your 5-minute break, and
• Start the timer for another 25 minutes.

Yet, often, how and when you work won’t directly depend on your organizational skills but on the number of your incoming customers and your boss. But even in this case, you can use the Pomodoro timer for recurring tasks — when things are less crowded at work. For example, you can use the Pomodoro timer when you need laser focus to get some paperwork done.

Tip #2: Avoid staying up too late

We all need a certain amount of beauty sleep. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that adults require more than 7 hours every day to be rested, refreshed, and alert.

Other respected organizations follow suit. For instance, the National Sleep Foundation in the US recommends between 7 and 9 hours for adults aged 18 and 64.

You can easily tell how getting enough sleep applies to first shifters. In fact, I can remember my time being a waiter and occasionally not getting the prescribed dose of sleep. The next day would often turn me into a groggy, impatient, mind-clouded mess.

A first-shift schedule requires accountability, so sleeping in late can cause trouble at work too — as I sometimes had to learn the hard way.

An entrepreneur Priyanka Swamy speaks to the benefits of a regular sleep routine:

“A good night’s sleep is essential for a restful and productive day. Develop a regular sleep routine and a relaxing pre-sleep routine to tell your body when it’s time to sleep. Avoiding screen time before bed and creating a comfortable and restful sleeping environment can go a long way toward improving sleep quality.”

Tip #3: Create the perfect morning routine

I didn’t have a consistent morning routine in my job as a waiter. I would just storm out of bed and get to work without even preparing myself physically and mentally for the day.

Now, my daybreak ritual consists of meditation, a quick stretch, and reading a physical book — emphasis on physical. These 3 simple morning habits have made me more productive in my first shift hours and rekindled my inner creativity.

An interesting article in the New York Times suggests that, before you start working, you should meditate for just a few minutes. Even 3 minutes is just fine. 

For example, you can try a mantra meditation that’s been proven to:

• Benefit your mental health, and
• Reduce hypertension.

To that effect, you can simply repeat “in” as you inhale and “out” as you exhale. Every time a thought pops up, just refocus on the breath. 

For illustration, an entrepreneur Matt Little suggests the surprising benefits of doing a set of practices consistently:

“To make the first part of your day easier, make the most of the sunrise with a few morning rituals. Eating a healthy breakfast, getting some exercise, and getting some sun in the morning are all great ways to start your day. Schedule your tasks the day before so you can get started right away.”

Whether you want to go on a run, meditate, or do some light stretching, you can use Clockify’s mobile app timer to track your morning routine:

If your personal timekeeping is at a high level, you can then create a more structured first shift schedule around that. As a result, you’ll be able to achieve both personal and professional SMART goals faster.

Tip #4: Eat healthily

One Finnish study found that repeatedly eating healthily increases engagement at work, where work engagement is defined as “a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption.”

In other words, if you eat healthy meals, you’re more productive. 

A first shifter Draven McConville thinks that getting a nutritious first meal makes all the difference for your body and mind:

“With a healthy breakfast to energize your body and stimulate your mind, let your morning routine be the crescendo as the sun rises. It’s the crucial buildup to a brilliant day.”

To drive the point home, health expert at Nutrition Insights LLC, Kelsey Costa, lists a few items that comprise a nourishing meal:

“A balanced breakfast should include a mix of fiber-rich carbohydrates, protein, and healthy fats. To ensure all macros are well-represented, consider options such as eggs, avocados, soy products, nut butter or nuts, seeds, hummus, low-fat Greek yogurt, oatmeal, chia seeds, berries, quinoa, sweet potatoes, and sprouted grain toast.”

On the other hand, Kelsey Costa also explains what you should avoid eating when working the first shift — or any shift, for that matter:

“Avoid highly processed foods like store-bought muffins and scones, white bread, instant oatmeal, ’fruit-on-the-bottom’ yogurt, processed meats (like bacon and sausage), and low-fiber cereals. These selections are usually high in added sugar or unhealthy fats and low in essential nutrients, which can lead to inflammation, energy crashes, and hunger pangs before noon.”

Tip #5: Nurture a positive work environment

Even if you implement the first 4 tips, you may still continue to struggle with your first shift schedule. That’s why it’s critical to create a nurturing workplace where you respect others and others show the same respect back.

The entrepreneur and fellow first shifter we mentioned earlier, Jeff Mains, says that creating a nourishing atmosphere can boost morale and motivation:

“To make the first shift more comfortable and productive, it’s crucial to foster a positive work environment. This begins with strong leadership that sets clear expectations, provides support, and encourages open communication. Employees should feel valued and heard, which in turn boosts morale and motivation.”

For instance, managers need to feel in tune with their employees by:

• Lending a helping hand, 
• Showing empathy when mistakes are made, and
• Doing everything to show that the employees’ work is essential to progress.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ) about the first shift

Many people have different questions about which shift fits their productivity and well-being best. So, we collected a list of questions and answered them in more detail below.

Which work shift is best?

The best work shift is the one that factors in things like the employee’s:

• Sleep schedule, 
• Financial needs, 
• Productivity and energy levels, and
• Life commitments and personal preferences.

Ultimately, employees have to consider all personal and professional implications of working the first, second, or third shifts. 

Is first or second shift better?

The first shift is better if you want more time to socialize in the afternoons. 

Likewise, you may enjoy the first shift more if you don’t have any trouble getting up early and going to bed early.

In contrast, second shifters typically sleep in late and want more time to party into the night. 

What are common shift types?

Common shift types include:

• First shift (or morning shift) — starts around 8 a.m. and ends around 5 p.m.,
• Second shift (or afternoon shift) — starts around 4 p.m. and ends around 1 a.m.,
• Third shift (or night shift) — starts around 11 p.m. and ends around 7 a.m.,
• Rotating shift — changes over time and includes 8–12 hour periods per shift,
• Swing shift — happens between daytime and overnight shifts for prolonged periods,
• Split shift — divides an 8-hour shift into 2 or more parts, and
• 2-2-3 schedule — 4 teams working for 2 days, resting for 2 days, and then working for 3 days, with each employee performing a daily 12-hour shift.

Sum-up: Working first shift hours aligns better with your body’s clock

The first shift is the most widespread work schedule, commonly involving working between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

To wrap up this article, we suggest implementing the following 5 tips to make your first shift a more comfortable and productive experience:

• Eat healthily,
• Avoid staying up too late,
• Stick to your morning routine,
• Make time management a priority, and
• Nurture a positive, supportive work environment.

With all this knowledge under your belt, you are now a professional first shifter — congrats!

Got any tips, suggestions, or questions on working the first shift? Drop us an email at blogfeedback@clockify.me for a chance to have your questions answered or your suggestions and tips featured in future updates of the post. Also, if you liked this blog post, share it with someone who might benefit from reading it.

Over are the days of silent employees who bear the brunt of poor management and suffer from a staggering lack of career opportunities. Workers aren’t taking it any longer.

We know it sounds far-fetched, but bear with us.

In this article, we’ll explore:

• What quiet quitting is in 2023 and beyond,
• How to recognize the signs of quiet quitting,
• If quiet quitting is healthy, and more.

Buckle up as we dive deep into the exciting inner lives of quiet quitters. 

What is quiet quitting?

According to the Wall Street Journal definition, quiet quitting — also known as soft quitting and silent quitting — is the same as “not taking your job too seriously.”

In any case, quiet quitting is a new term that explains how and why employees do the bare minimum at work. In its simplest form, workers who quietly quit do not invest any more effort and time in their work than necessary.

Yet, quiet quitters beg to differ. 

For example, they may argue that they are simply making a healthy work-life balance. In fact, many quiet quitters think that setting firm boundaries and spending time on personally fulfilling activities doesn’t equate with disliking their job. In other words, quiet quitters often reject the notion that life should be all about work.

And that’s where the confusion arises — no watertight definition has so far been made for quiet quitting. As a result, this leaves plenty of room for different interpretations. 

Whatever the definition we prefer, this phenomenon is probably here to stay in one form or another. But where did it come from? Let’s explore the roots of quiet quitting.

Is quiet quitting real? What are its origins?

Although a viral topic, quiet quitting isn’t yet another news trend. In fact, experts think of it as one of the great workforce shake-ups of our time. 

Arguably, the first popular mention of quiet quitting comes from career coach Bryan Creely, who used to be a corporate recruiter. Creely posted a video on TikTok claiming that quiet quitting is about “doing the minimum amount necessary in order to still maintain your position.”

But that’s just one side of the coin.

HR professionals debate the origins of quiet quitting. Some say it comes from the Great Resignation — when dozens of millions of employees quit their jobs voluntarily and abruptly in 2021. Still, other experts claim that the Great Resignation started back in 2009, only to reach its peak during the recent pandemic.

Finally, some credit the economist Mark Boldger with coining the term back in 2009.

Interestingly, however, one conference paper states that quiet quitting had a predecessor in China. 

In 2021, the country’s hardworking and production-oriented culture was hit hard by Tang Ping (translated as Lying flat). This term suggests a breakup from the Chinese version of hustle culture — a workplace atmosphere where the focus is on intense ambition, success, and productivity at the expense of rest and work-life balance.

Be that as it may, who is to blame — or credit — for the widespread nature of soft quitting? 

Whose fault is it that employees are quietly quitting?

We want to discuss an issue as old as time: Do problems arise due to bad management or bad employees? 

The truth is that leaders have a lot more responsibility than their employees when it comes to quietly quitting.

An article by Harvard Business Review brings home this point. The authors state that their data indicate that “quiet quitting is usually less about an employee’s willingness to work harder and more creatively, and more about a manager’s ability to build a relationship with their employees where they are not counting the minutes until quitting time.”

In other words, if the manager isn’t engaged at work, this will negatively affect employees. As another in-depth investigation by HBR suggests, “approximately two-thirds of managers are either not engaged or actively disengaged in their work and workplace.”

On the flip side, data from the Pew Research Center suggest that 62% of employees say they are very satisfied with their supervisor or managers. Yet, only 34% of employees are happy with their salaries, and a mere 33% state they are satisfied with their opportunities for developing new skills.

In any case, quiet quitting often happens because employees feel they are wasting their time and effort in a toxic work environment. This term describes workplaces where constant conflict persists between employees, managers, and across both of those groups.

Speaking of toxic environments, time management and productivity coach Alexis Haselberger says that she doesn’t view soft quitting as a bad thing per se:

“I don’t think quiet quitting is a totally negative thing, but rather a reasonable backlash to toxic productivity and capitalist culture.”

If that wasn’t mindblowing, wait until we meet quiet quitting’s look-alikes. That’s next.

Quiet quitting vs. quiet firing vs. quiet cutting

Quiet quitting is as real as its dark counterparts: quiet firing and quiet cutting. 

In simple terms, quiet quitting is all about:

• Interacting with fellow coworkers only when necessary,
• Avoiding to fully take part in meetings, and
• Doing the bare minimum at work.

But unlike quiet quitting, quiet firing and quiet cutting are coming after the employee. In other words, it’s the manager, supervisor, or employer who is actively working to create unbearable work conditions.

Let’s expand more on quiet firing and quiet cutting.

For simplicity’s sake, quiet firing is about giving the employee minimum benefits and wage to force them to quit voluntarily. So, the manager or employer makes the job so unrewarding that the employee has no other choice but to leave. Less obviously, an employee in this situation will likely get passed over for a well-deserved promotion.

With quiet firing, employers intentionally create a hostile work environment to drive employees out.

In fact, some companies have recently made headlines for their practice of quiet firing. Sadly, many employees don’t see it coming. As a result, they find themselves in a difficult situation when it happens.

On the other hand, quiet cutting means that a company reassigns its current employees to roles that don’t exactly fit their skill set. The goal? To push workers into performing work tasks that the company needs to do to reduce hiring costs — without any care for the employee’s needs.

For example, a manager may inform an employee that the company has eliminated their job role. Yet, they go on to say that the employee is staying in the company and given a day or two to choose between a few equally unfavorable job titles for the same pay. 

With quiet cutting, companies aren’t really laying off personnel, but they are cutting their costs for sure. As a result, workers are pushed into miserable working conditions.

—

Now that we’ve touched on the gloomy siblings of quiet quitting let’s refocus on our main topic. In fact, how widespread is quiet quitting really?

How common is quiet quitting?

Quiet quitting is spreading like wildfire. 

To back up that claim, employee engagement statistics for the US and Canada suggest that only 33% of the workforce is actively engaged in the workplace. As you can imagine, the remaining 67% could potentially be quiet quitters in the making.

Likewise, the employment platform Monster has revealed similarly disturbing data. They claim that 60% of employees stated they’re quietly quitting or at least thinking about it. The reason? Underpaid labor!

In a similar fashion, late 2022 data from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) unequivocally proved that quiet quitting is rising rapidly. In fact, the authors of the study claim that as many as 51% of HR professionals are worried about employees softly quitting their jobs.

After so much convincing data, the short and sweet answer is a resounding yes — it looks like quiet quitting is just taking off. 

So, what can managers do to recognize signs of quiet quitting? We’re so glad you asked, because we’re now going to focus on just that!

What are the signs of quiet quitting?

Writing for Forbes, Bryan Robinson, Ph.D., stresses that quiet quitting costs companies $150,000,000 every year. Well, that looks like money they shouldn’t be throwing away.

So, it pays to notice the signs of quiet quitting as early as possible — and address them.

If you pay attention, you can easily spot a few prevalent red flags in quiet quitters’ behavior. 

To explain the signs of quiet quitting, we spoke to HR reps, productivity experts, and career coaches.

In a nutshell, the most telling signs of quiet quitting include:

• Isolation,
• Taking longer to do anything work-related,
• Employee disengagement, and 
• Taking an unusual number of sick days.

Let’s explore each of these red flags in more detail — supercharged with expert advice.

Sign #1: Isolation

When employees isolate themselves from other team members, that’s a surefire path to disaster team-wise.

To avoid teams falling apart, the manager has to assess if each individual worker’s attendance at mandatory meetings looks like a potential sign of soft quitting — or if the employee is genuinely interested in contributing.

One way to notice signs of team disintegration is when an employee rarely has anything to add or they are visibly impatient to see the meeting end.

Founder of The New Workforce — a collaborative platform for teams in various industries — Kraig Kleeman speaks to the importance of recognizing when employees are disinterestedly moving away from coworker gatherings:

“Employees who gradually distance themselves from team activities and social interactions within the workplace may quietly quit. They may eat lunch alone or avoid team events.”

In other words, merely tolerating gatherings isn’t proof of soft quitting. For example, shy people often avoid socializing with coworkers, but that isn’t evidence they are quietly quitting. 

Yet, if some workers repeatedly skip joint activities, this can be a sign of quiet quitting.

Sign #2: Taking longer to do anything work-related

Deadlines are among the first victims of quietly quitting. In fact, quiet quitters sometimes neglect their job duties to the extent that they always need a few extra days to complete their tasks.

Deadlines are just one piece of the puzzle. Here are some other silent quitting indicators, according to Chris Wong, executive coach and consultant:

“Common signs of quiet quitting are taking longer to complete tasks, taking longer to reply to emails/voicemails, increased absences.”

When employees consistently need more time to get a task done, managers should start an open conversation on why that is. If the manager keeps on noticing the same issues with failing to meet due dates, then a thorough analysis is necessary to establish the level of employee motivation.

Also, employees may consistently forget to get routine tasks done — tasks they had previously completed diligently. 

Sign #3: Employee disengagement

When employees quietly quit, they often only focus on their work. In other words, quiet quitters tend to avoid taking part in coworkers’ projects. Likewise, volunteering isn’t an option.

In a nutshell, a distinctive sign of quiet quitting is — chronic disengagement.

General recruiter at Jooble, Victoria Potapenko, thinks that employee disengagement takes many forms:

“An employee experiencing quiet quitting no longer strives to excel, assist colleagues, or prove themselves as a valuable team member. Additionally, they do not converse with their manager about their future career ambitions.”

Even more specifically, not speaking up during team meetings could be a sign of quiet quitting. 

Founder of The New Workforce we referenced earlier, Kraig Kleeman, thinks that managers can notice subtle cues in whether the employee has lost interest in their work:

“A decrease in asking questions or seeking clarification on tasks can indicate that an employee has lost interest in their work. They may go through the motions without trying to understand the bigger picture.”

Sign #4: Taking an unusual number of sick days

When an employee softly quits, they sometimes take an unreasonable amount of sick days. In turn, this results in employee absenteeism — the habitual absence from work. 

Simply put, an employee may be dishonest about how many sick days they actually need to recover — over and over again.

Working at CAKE.com, Human Resources Generalist Ena Popović believes that a manager can tell if an employee is misusing their sick days:

“One way is that the worker is taking sick leave far more often than the rest of their colleagues. In fact, they may be avoiding to speak about their current health. Also, a continued poor quality in work produced — such as decreased productivity and proactivity — before taking sick leave can be a telling sign.”

But things don’t end here. Ena Popović thinks that managing emotions is equally vital: 

“Emotional distancing from work and a lack of motivation to acquire new knowledge and skills can also constitute red flags.” 

Quiet quitting examples

Examples are the best way to learn about anything. Go figure, right?!

In this segment, we’ll explore a few real-life scenarios of quiet quitting. 

Let’s start with how employees may distance themselves from volunteering opportunities.

Example #1: Employee neglects to volunteer for new tasks

Part of every modern-age job is to occasionally help out a coworker by volunteering to do a tiny task here and there. It’s what everyone expects. 

Yet, quiet quitting takes that sense of companionship away.

Productivity coach Alexis Haselberger emphasizes that not volunteering for extra activities at the office may be a good example of quiet quitting: 

“An example of this may be an employee who works hard during work hours and gets all their deliverables completed on time, but who isn’t volunteering for extra labor.”

Still, teamwork is often at odds with this way of operating at work. In fact, team members may occasionally need their coworkers to lend them a hand on extra tasks. And this inability to contribute to the team by doing an additional assignment here and there constitutes one of the biggest drawbacks of quiet quitting.

Example #2: Employee doesn’t show dedication to work

Recruitment expert Travis Lindemoen, who also runs the accompanying nexus IT group, talks about the downward spiral of quiet quitting:

“A few years back, I was working on a project with a colleague, let’s call him Mike. At first, Mike was enthusiastic and full of ideas, but over time, he started becoming quieter in meetings, missing deadlines, and seemed disengaged. One day, I asked him how things were going, and he confessed that he was feeling overwhelmed and undervalued, but he didn’t want to make a fuss.”

Travis Lindemoen stresses this as a classic example of quiet quitting. And he isn’t alone.

Executive coach Chris Wong believes that the failure to bring up new ideas can be a solid illustration of quietly quitting:

“A simple example of quiet quitting is an employee who previously brought up new ideas or willingness to improve processes but suddenly does not bring any new ideas and/or takes longer to complete tasks as they don’t have the same sense of urgency or desire to complete work.”

Example #3: Employee fails to show enthusiasm

Enthusiasm isn’t required to do your job well. Yet, it can be a useful trait as it motivates employees to perform better. 

To that effect, expert Kraig Kleeman believes that the shift from proactive to passive employee happens in a flash:

“A simple, rather blatant example of quiet quitting could be an employee who used to be proactive in seeking out new projects and challenges but has recently become passive, only doing what is explicitly assigned to them. They no longer volunteer for extra tasks or contribute innovative ideas to improve processes, showing a lack of enthusiasm for their role.”

Whatever the signs and examples of quiet quitting, most managers want to understand how to prevent quiet quitting from ever happening. 

We’re diving deep into this topic next.

How to prevent quiet quitting

As with any other workplace phenomenon, you can nip quiet quitting in the bud with a few decisive actions. 

But how? 

We picked the brains of a few experts to learn exactly that.

And yes — here you’ll find advice on what employers and employees can do to help.

Tip #1: Eliminate unnecessary tasks 

The first one sounds like common sense — because it is. Likewise, this piece of advice is mostly meant for employers. But, how employers implement this suggestion directly impacts the performance and workload of their employees.

Leadership coach Ayanna E. Jackson believes that you can always trim some unnecessary tasks:

“Take a moment to assess: What should we stop? What doesn’t need to continue? What do we need to do less of? Many times leadership is in perpetual ‘add mode’ to the complete detriment of their employees. We don’t stop to think: What wasn’t successful that we need to stop? Where are we short-staffed and the staff that remains is doing work that doesn’t need to be done?” 

Ayanna E. Jackson continues by saying that we should be wise about choosing our priorities:

“Everything isn’t important or a priority, but we’re so focused on productivity, especially in light of remote work, that we end up with employees doing the bare minimum – quiet quitting – by nature of our own work practices.”

Likewise, executive coach Chris Wong thinks that managerial staff should carve out time to revisit cumbersome procedures:

“A simple example of quiet quitting is an employee who previously brought up new ideas or willingness to improve processes but suddenly does not bring any new ideas and/or takes longer to complete tasks as they don’t have the same sense of urgency or desire to complete work.”

If done correctly, this employer behavior can benefit the employee, freeing up more mental energy and time to complete other mission-critical tasks. In other words, the number of quiet quitters in the organization is likely to drop when employers understand that revisiting employee workloads helps everyone become more productive.

Tip #2: Pay workers what they deserve

According to a 2023 analysis by ADP Research Institute, 42% of female and 46% of male respondents claim they are underpaid. That’s a striking statistic, suggesting that employers need to up their pay game to increase worker satisfaction.

Managing director of Marketing Signals, Gareth Hoyle, says that employers need to show their staff that they are appreciated and valued:

“I know we’re in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. But if your workers are on low pay and working really hard, they may want to leave to find better pay elsewhere. If you’ve noticed a decline in work from your workers, you could implement a bonus scheme so that workers receive points each time they do something well, which can equate to money.”

When managers notice top-performing workers, they should consider giving them a raise. In turn, the employee will feel more satisfied and the overall productivity of the team will likely increase. And yet, it’s not all about money — and that’s up next.

Tip #3: Recognize and praise employees

To build trust and boost morale, managers should regularly praise and reward employees who’ve done their job well. 

In line with that, general recruiter at Jooble, Victoria Potapenko, believes that recognition doesn’t always equate to more money:

“It’s not always about monetary incentives. Sometimes, employees need recognition, acknowledgment of their contributions, and positive feedback from their managers. During meetings with employees, go beyond discussing work-related matters and take the time to thank them for their efforts and praise their achievements.”

Speaking of praise, recruitment expert Travis Lindemoen brings home the point on the power of a simple sign of gratitude:

“Recognize and appreciate your team’s efforts. Sometimes, quiet quitting happens when people feel undervalued. A simple ‘thank you’ or acknowledging their hard work can go a long way in boosting morale and preventing quiet quitting.”

But, it’s hard to establish who has put in extra effort.

On that front, apps like Clockify show you how each team member contributes to the team by looking at who is more efficient at completing tasks. As a result, this may be a signal for management to provide positive feedback and praise the employee in question.

For example, the assignments report in Clockify helps you compare scheduled versus tracked time to understand timekeeping trends better.

What’s more, the assignments report lets users:

• See the progress for multiple projects of one client, and
• Compare between the progress pace of different teams and individual employees.

By carefully learning which employees perform better than others, managers can easily decide who to openly praise. Apart from that, management can also make corresponding decisions on raises and bonuses for top-performing workers.

Tip #4: Conduct regular check-ins

Healthy communication between supervisors and employees always goes a long way.

For example, a survey by SHRM suggests that regular check-ins help calm anxiety among employees.

Kraig Kleeman from The New Workforce is convinced that frequent meetings with supervisors — or HR staff — can yield immense benefits:

“Schedule one-on-one meetings with employees to discuss their workload, challenges, and career aspirations. This provides a platform for them to voice any concerns or frustrations and allows you to address issues proactively.”

In fact, these meetings should take place once per week and last for about 15-30 minutes. These regular check-ins can serve as an outlet for the manager and employee to discuss:

• Recent accomplishments and issues,
• Career development, 
• Ideas and plans, and even
• Personal situations of the employee (if the employee thinks it’s appropriate). 

Tip #5: Be open and honest to your coworkers

This one applies to employees and employers alike. 

According to a report by Michigan State University, “transparent communication is the act of both good and bad information being shared upward, downward, and laterally in a way that allows all to see the why behind the words.”

However, managing director Gareth Hoyle thinks that not every single person will be candid in their day-to-day communications:

“Not everyone will be open and honest with you through fear of repercussions. Try creating a culture where workers feel happy to come to you or another manager with any issues so that they can be resolved quickly without turning into resentment.”

To wrap up, general recruiter Victoria Potapenko thinks that open and honest communication is the cornerstone for resolving problems:

“Engage in clear and frequent communication with your employees. Discuss their concerns openly and express your willingness to support and assist in task distribution. Silent dismissal often evolves from burnout issues.”

In other words, quiet quitting also arises when employers don’t offer support to their employees and engage in clear communication with them. You can easily avoid such situations — by keeping communication transparent. 

Tip #6: Grant time for career development

A 2023 survey by the American Psychological Association suggests that the vast majority of US employees (91%) think it’s quite important to work at a job with consistent growth opportunities. 

No surprise there!

But what is surprising is the survey’s finding that a mere 47% of employers offer those  opportunities.

Leadership coach Ayanna E. Jackson presses on the point that employers need to provide the space for employees to develop themselves:

“Employees are constantly asking for career development, promotions, skill building. We love stretch assignments. What don’t we love? Giving time to do it. Leadership has to actually give employees the time and space to learn and grow. This means taking 1-2 hours a week to attend the training – uninterrupted.”

If you want to better track how your coworkers are progressing on their career development path, we advise using a time tracking system. 

For example, Clockify’s scheduling feature allows you to create milestones. You can use this functionality to track how your employees are advancing in their professional development.

Apart from that, you can choose the amount of time you think workers need to complete a professional development goal. That way, employers and employees can learn how much time they need approximately to learn a certain skill or adopt new knowledge relevant to their job.

Tip #7: Send employee engagement surveys

Occasionally, managers have to get some hard-hitting advice from their direct reports.

Every month or so, supervisors and other managerial staff can send out surveys to test if widespread disengagement is ravaging their workforce. Such surveys typically include questions on:

• Job satisfaction,
• Employee commitment and motivation,
• Company fit, 
• Sense of purpose in the workplace, and others.

To ask these questions regularly means to make educated guesses about what employees are up to.

But don’t take our word for it. 

HR consultant at face2faceHR, Rachel Weaven, thinks that employee engagement surveys can be a handy tool to check the pulse of the workforce:

“When companies are busy making products and keeping customers happy, then a ‘quiet’ employee can often be overlooked, which is where engagement surveys come into play. Whilst some people don’t fill them in, there is a chance as a business you can monitor the morale and culture of the company through these.”

Similarly, the director of Kincentric — a company that focuses on employee experience and culture — Kamela Lupino, believes that it’s not just employees who benefit from employee engagement surveys:

“Organizations reap full benefits when they listen to employees (and act on what they hear). It’s ultimately up to executives to drive a consistent employee experience that creates an engaged workforce.”

Tip #8: Understand sick leave patterns

According to the US Bureau of Labor, almost 8,000,000 employees took sick leave in January 2022 alone. Yet, not all sick days are spent on recovering from an illness — some employees abuse their sick leave and spend that time on other things. 

If one employee takes sick days more often than others, this can signal to the manager that the employee is lacking in motivation — or quietly quitting.

So, what can you do about it?

For starters, you can use a time tracking software to create a sick leave policy. With Clockify’s PTO and vacation tracker, you’ll be able to set an exact number of days employees can use for sick leave (and other types of leave, too). 

Then, simply keep track of the number of sick days an employee takes — and then liken it to others in the company.

Likewise, a sound time tracking system lets you compare accrued days versus used days. That way, managers can tell if somebody is misusing their time off.

Frequently asked questions about quiet quitting

Next, we’ll explore a few frequently asked questions about quiet quitting, including the ones on:

• Triggers of quiet quitting,
• Intentions behind quiet quitting,
• Health concerns with regard to quiet quitting, and more.

Let’s get into each of these.

What triggers quiet quitting?

The single biggest trigger for soft quitting is job dissatisfaction. 

But that’s just one big umbrella term that means many things. 

Namely, a concrete trigger is a lack of employee recognition. In fact, such managerial behavior sets the stage for quiet quitting. When employees feel overworked and undervalued, they are more likely to softly quit their jobs.

Similarly, when people lack flexibility in the workplace, they tend to slowly incline towards the so-called quiet quitting period (more on that later).

Another powerful trigger for quiet quitting is when employers disregard the need of their employees to focus on:

• Travel,
• Family, 
• Passion projects, and
• Other areas outside of work.

On the other hand, when employees don’t feel trapped in their job role, they are more likely to contribute to their company’s bottom line.

Is quiet quitting intentional?

Quiet quitting is the employee’s natural and deliberate response to toxic work situations and low incentives.

Strategic HR advisor and CHRO at Plotline Leadership, Tim Toterhi, thinks that quiet quitting is definitely a willful decision to act in certain ways: 

“Quiet quitting is the act of doing exactly what you were hired to do as promised — no more, no less. It’s a matter of opportunity cost. An employee can work more for free and hope for an eventual reward. Or they can devote that extra time to family, friends, hobbies, or a side hustle that actually pays.”

Is quiet quitting lazy?

When the recent pandemic triggered quiet quitting among those below 35 — Millennials and Generation Z — elderly workers thought of it as mere laziness. Yet, there’s more to it than meets the eye. 

In fact, a 2023 research article on reimagining quiet quitting suggests that quiet quitting was “an enhanced way of dealing with job stress, disengagement, and burnout.”

So, it would be unfair to suggest that quiet quitting is about younger generations being lazy. In contrast, quiet quitting is a new workplace revolution that puts employees’ needs first. Of course, that’s not to say that there aren’t any lazy people slacking off at work — but they are not necessarily quiet quitters.

Is quiet quitting healthy?

Since quiet quitting entails doing the bare minimum at work, it’s a safe bet to assume that it also reduces stress and burnout. An antidote to hustle culture, quiet quitting can free up space in the day to spend time with family and friends — but also work on passion projects.

Still, whether quiet quitting is healthy really depends on the individual. For example, some employees may be quietly quitting due to a lack of meaning at work.

For instance, doing the bare minimum might suggest the employee has lost a sense of meaning at work. To that effect, an interesting 2023 HBR article pointed out that “meaningfulness is more important to us than any other aspect of our jobs — including pay and rewards. When we experience our work as meaningful, we’re more engaged, committed, and satisfied.”

However, a lack of meaning can negatively affect a person’s well-being. For example, a 2022 article in the MIT Sloan Management Review points out that a lack of meaning can create “feelings of discontent, emptiness, and sadness.”

So, yes, quiet quitting can be unhealthy if it promotes the loss of meaning at work.

What is the quiet quitting period?

Quiet quitters don’t become quiet quitters overnight. It happens over weeks or months of piling up dissatisfaction with various areas of work. 

But when quiet quitting starts, the end often isn’t in sight.

HR advisor Tim Toterhi, whom we mentioned earlier, is confident that quiet quitting doesn’t have a specific expiration date:

“There is no set period. Employees quietly quit as soon as they realize that many companies have devised HR processes to take advantage of employees. They hire you for a role and immediately expect you to do more than they pay you for. Check your job description. No doubt, you’ll see a convenient phrase listed in the responsibilities section — the old ‘other duties as assigned.’”

Similarly, HR consultant Rachel Weaven thinks that the quiet quitting period depends on the company culture:

“I don’t think there is a timescale when it comes to quiet quitting — it depends on the culture of the business. Signs to look out for will be staff disengaging from conversations to do with the business, sticking to their core hours, and maybe unwilling to do tasks that sit outside of their job descriptions.”

Sum-up: Quiet quitting happens when employees feel unrecognized and non-incentivized 

Quiet quitting is a loaded term. Yet, that doesn’t mean that quiet quitters are as quiet as they used to be. In fact, they are increasingly voicing their concerns.

And for good reason.

In this article on quiet quitting, we covered the signs and examples of quiet quitters, including:

• Isolation,
• Minimal questions,
• Less stress and burnout,
• General disengagement, and
• Taking longer to do anything work-related.

But let’s also recap a few words of advice from the experts we spoke to. Most of them seem to think that managers should:

• Pay workers fairly,
• Recognize their employees consistently,
• Conduct regular check-ins, 
• Grant time for career development, and
• Remove unnecessary tasks and workloads.

Finally, always keep in mind that work productivity is a 2-way street. In other words, the employee and the employer have to invest efforts to make things work. Both sides will be better off for it — we promise!

Got any tips, suggestions, or questions on quiet quitting? Drop us an email at blogfeedback@clockify.me for a chance to have your questions answered or your suggestions and tips featured in future updates of the post. Also, if you liked this blog post, share it with someone who might benefit from reading it.

In fact, many employees switched to working swing shifts. 

But what are swing shifts, really?

A swing shift means you get to work irregular schedules. In other words, your work swings from one period to another depending on the workday, workweek, or other work periods.

For example, some days may require you to work hours between the day shift and the night shift — say, from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. On other days, you may need to divide your single 8-hour shift into 2 shorter work shifts during the workday.

We know — it’s a mess.

To get to the bottom and usefulness of the swing shift, we’ll cover everything on this type of schedule, including:

• What a swing shift is,
• How and where to apply swing shifts, and
• What the benefits and drawbacks of swing shift schedules are.

So, what’s the deal with swing shifts? Let’s explore.

What is a swing shift? 

A swing shift is a type of work shift that typically happens between daytime and overnight shifts. This means that it starts around the afternoon and ends late at night.

To get more insight, we turned to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary and found that a swing shift represents “the work shift between the day and night shifts (as from 4 p.m. to midnight)”. 

Still, this definition isn’t carved in stone. In fact, it varies from sector to sector, but a swing shift usually covers 8 or more work hours. Similarly, a swing shift doesn’t always have to start in the afternoon — it can also begin in the morning and end in the next 8 to 12 hours. 

For simplicity’s sake, swing shifts often happen outside regular 9-5 business hours.

Generally speaking, companies with continuous operations need swing shifts to cater to the needs of their customers 24/7 or to simply uphold company standards. 

Due to the nature of their business of around-the-clock protection, a private security business may need its employees to work in the following periods:

• 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on one week,
• 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. on another week,
• 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. on a different week — and so on. 

Before we go any deeper into the nitty gritty of swing shifts, let’s quickly clarify a mistake people often make. That’s right — the difference between swing shifts and rotating shifts.

Swing shift vs. rotating shift

Many people confuse the swing shift with the rotating shift. To clear the confusion, a rotating shift is a type of swing shift. 

To give an example of the rotating shift, let’s look at a waiter at a prominent restaurant. This employee may be called in by the employer to work 12-hour morning shifts for 6 weeks straight, and then work 12-hour evening shifts for the next 6 weeks.

With the rotating shift, employees may have to alternate between evening shifts, night shifts, and day shifts every few days, weeks, or months.

Curiously, the rotating shift comes in many shapes and sizes. For example, the DDNNOO work schedule is one of the most popular techniques for organizing your rotating shift. In short, it entails working 2 day shifts, then working 2 night shifts, and finally taking 2 days off.

For practical purposes, swing shift is an umbrella term for many different shift schedules, including rotating, evening, day shifts, and other types of shifts. Simply put, you are working a swing shift when you switch between different work schedules every few days, weeks, or months.

How does a swing shift schedule work? 

A swing shift schedule differs from a day shift and a night shift schedule because it sometimes entails working 8+ hours. For illustration, a swing shift schedule typically includes the following patterns:

• 8-hour workday for a week or month,
• 10-hour workday for a week or month, and
• 12-hour workday for a week or month.

As you may have guessed, a swing shift schedule is usually inconsistent with how life unfolds. For example, it creates plenty of turbulence.

Nevertheless, efficient shift management always has to factor in ever-changing client needs and company requirements, including periods of increased business activity, holidays, vacations, etc.

Therefore, employees must organize their lives around the company and client needs, disrupting the employee’s health and social life.

Suddenly, a manager may decide to institute a swing shift schedule for a week. On another occasion, they may have to introduce a swing shift schedule for a span of a month. There really is no hard and fast rule.

Typically, swing shift workers don’t have a lot of say in choosing their monthly, weekly, or even daily schedules. Yet, managers sometimes ask their employees to state their preferred swing shift type for an upcoming period — i.e., when plans are underway. In this case, workers may choose to work the split shift for the next month or the third shift for the next week.

Be that as it may, swing shift hours come in many shapes and sizes. 

So, let’s look at a few.

What are a few common types of swing shifts?

To wrap your head around the concept of hours worked during swing shifts, here are a few types of swing shifts in a simple table:

So far, so good — but what’s a real-life example of a swing shift? 

We’re so glad you asked!

What is an example of a swing shift?

Imagine you run a private security business in the US. With many employees spread out on the ground in different locations, you’ll need to assign shifts so that the individuals or buildings you’re tasked with protecting aren’t left unsupervised for a second. To do this, you’ll probably have to juggle a few schedules to make things run smoothly.

For example, a security staff member specialized in safeguarding high-level executives may need to protect a wealthy individual for 12 hours every day for 4 days straight. After those backbreaking 4 days, they may get 3 days off of work. 

Here’s how that looks in a simple list:

• Monday: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
• Tuesday: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
• Wednesday: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
• Thursday:  11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
• Friday: Off
• Saturday: Off
• Sunday: Off

In this example of a swing shift job, the physical security guard works 12 hours a day for 4 days straight. After that, this employee enjoys 3 days off in a row. 

In another common shift pattern, security guards work 4 days and rest 2 days — this is called the 4 on 2 off schedule for obvious reasons.

And that’s it — that’s how swing shift works in a sector like security. Yet, note that the exact weekdays and work hours will depend on the following:

• Industry conditions, 
• Employer standards, and 
• Client requirements. 

Common swing shift jobs

If you’re applying for a swing shift job, you probably had to search the web for its meaning. So, what does swing mean on a job application? Simply put, it means that you’ll be working irregular schedules for days, weeks, or even months on end.

Some of the most common swing shift jobs include:

• Healthcare professionals,
• Retail workers,
• Hospitality employees,
• Transportation and public safety officials,
• Customer support and service professionals, and others.

For some of these sectors — healthcare, retail, and emergency services — we often see both rotating shifts and other types of swing shifts.

Let’s get to each in more detail.

#1 Common swing shift job: Healthcare 

Emergency rooms and hospitals must have staff on-site 24/7 to provide care for patients. 

Yet, this type of work can often be burdensome due to the changing shift schedules. For example, the authors of the book Nursing Management in the New Paradigm suggest that the day shift provides better results than other nursing shifts:

“Day shift nurses had scores closer to the ideal scores, with stronger achievement, self-actualizing, humanistic-encouraging, and affiliative scores than nurses on the other shifts.”

For honesty’s sake, the nursing staff typically doesn’t get to choose their schedules. Still, shift managers in hospitals often take into account several factors when they assign specific swing shifts, including:

• Number of patients,
• Complexity of the care provided,
• Known discharges and admissions, and
• Staff availability.

Apart from that, shift managers also consider things like which employees can better stand the night shift compared to the day shift.

Finally, nurses make up a critical part of healthcare because they are usually the first ones to spot negative health trends in patients and alert doctors.

#2 Common swing shift job: Retail 

Grocery stores and supermarkets need to have their shelves stocked day and night so that customers can buy at any moment. And this means working outside regular business hours.

As a result, some US cities handle the issue of unpredictable schedules of retail workers fairly well, including:

• Chicago,
• Philadelphia,
• Los Angeles, and
• New York City.

The last from the list, New York City introduced the Fair Workweek Law that prescribes that retail employers within city limits must “give workers their work schedules 72 hours before the first shift on the schedule.”

With 3,640,040 retail employees working in the US as of 2022, millions in the country stand to benefit from the Fair Workweek regulations.

#3 Common swing shift job: Hospitality industry

Hotels and restaurants typically work for extended periods of the day — and some provide services long into the night. Thus, employers in this sector have to ensure somebody is serving the customers whenever they require assistance. 

In the hospitality industry, shift managers often schedule longer shifts since customers expect prolonged business hours. That’s the case especially during rush hour, the holiday season, or when more visitors are expected.

On a similar note, a Washington Post article suggests that job openings in the hospitality industry are sky-high in 2023, reaching almost 2,000,000 positions. All this fuels the belief that people joining this industry have many options to choose from.

#4 Common swing shift job: Transportation 

According to the US Bureau of Labor, more than 108,000 flight attendants work in the country as of 2022. With millions of flights yearly, this huge workforce caters to the needs of customers from around the globe. 

On a different range of the transportation sector, almost 2,000,000 truck drivers are employed in the United States. These workers help move products and materials from one place to another at short notice, benefiting a multi-trillion-dollar industry. Notably, transporting goods and merchandise often occurs outside rush hours — in the late evening and early morning.

Thus, shift managers in charge of flight attendants and truck drivers often need to introduce different kinds of swing shifts so as not to delay flights or let products get spoiled. 

In the case of truck drivers, it’s critical that they are well-rested and get the appropriate amount of sleep. So, shift managers also have to allow for a suitable number of days off and create well-balanced shift schedules.

Finally, flight attendants often suffer from jet lag. Due to this, it’s vital for shift managers to let flight attendants recover after long flights.

#5 Common swing shift job: Public safety

Police officers and firefighters usually have swing shifts as they must provide emergency services to citizens in need around the clock. These professionals benefit the general public by ensuring everyone is safe and sound. 

But how many people work in these roles that require swing shifts? 

In line with the latest data, the European Union had over 1,510,000 police officers in 2021 alone. As for other public safety jobs, EU countries employed around 365,000 firefighters in the same year. 

Swing shifts are particularly popular in the public safety sector. There, workers can assist citizens 24/7 thanks to a work schedule organized around the needs of the general public.

#6 Common swing shift job: Customer support and customer service 

Software companies, for example, hire customer support agents to ensure their clients always have somebody to talk to in case of software bugs or related issues. 

Customer Support Manager at CAKE.com, Milan Tankosić, says that his team works 3 shifts. They operate in morning, afternoon, and night shifts to meet client requests in any time zone. He told us that the company’s customer support team is front and center when it comes to helping customers:

“Full coverage is critical every single day because our support team is the first to spot server downtime and alarm the developer team. In fact, we also need to ensure full uptime of our app.”

Apart from that, he explains that swing shifts provide a not-so-routine lifestyle:

“Swing shifts can impact work-life balance, because humans are designed to sleep at night. Yet, some people are night owls and others dislike getting up early in the morning to work. For me, swing shifts made a lot of sense as long as I could plan my schedule for at least a few weeks or months ahead.”

All this applies to customer service roles as well. When you need your car fixed ASAP or something unexpected happens on the road, you want to have a car pickup service provider who can quickly help you out.

—

With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few major benefits of introducing swing shifts, both for the employer and employees.

What are the benefits of swing shifts?

The advantages of swing shifts are numerous and vary from sector to sector. Yet, here we’ll present a few most notable benefits, including:

• Higher pay,
• Better customer retention, and
• Less time spent in rush hour.

Let’s get to it.

Swing shift benefit #1: Higher pay

Employers frequently offer shift differentials, a 10-15% increase in payment for working irregular hours — according to a 2023 Forbes article. This slight raise is usually paid to employees who work outside regular business hours.

In other words, the shift differential is a kind of reward for people who decide to work less desirable hours, like 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Yet, a shift differential isn’t a hard and fast rule in all companies. Instead, it depends on the employer and sector. 

Swing shift benefit #2: Better customer retention

It’s no mystery that customers prefer to have around-the-clock support in most sectors. This rings especially true in IT and hospitality — where support staff provide guidance for resolving issues on the fly.

A 2022 report by McKinsey has shown that company leaders are increasingly focused on improving customer service and customer experience. In fact, the article’s authors claim that businesses are looking for ways to improve their organizational culture, “With 3 out of 5 surveyed leaders citing attracting, training, and retaining talent as a top priority.”

Thus, companies will be more likely to retain customers if they offer 24/7 top-notch coverage to cater to their needs. And employers are increasingly realizing that.

Swing shift benefit #3: Less time spent in traffic

London, Chicago, and Paris comprise the 3 most congested cities in the world. And so, many employees spend plenty of time stuck in traffic. A less than desirable situation — especially when we consider that today commuters spend hundreds of dollars more on fuel than in previous years.

But swing shift workers operate under irregular hours. As a result, those who work flex shifts and second shifts (both types of the swing shift) in particular weeks or days, tend to avoid rush traffic hours. In effect, this means they get to the workplace faster and get home equally quickly — or at least quicker than most workers.

What are the disadvantages of swing shifts?

Although swing shift times can yield vast benefits, this type of work schedule also comes with a cost. 

In this segment, we’ll explore 3 major drawbacks of swing shifts, including:

• Negative impact on social life,
• Less time off, and
• Burnout and mental fatigue.

Let’s dive right in.

Swing shift disadvantage #1: Negative impact on social life

Suppose you work swing shifts, leaving you to get off work only in the late evening. In this case, you may consistently miss out on many opportunities to hang out with friends and family for a week or month.

The swing shift clashes with most people’s working schedules. As a result, this can lead to missing get-togethers with loved ones. In fact, a swing shift schedule makes it harder for employees to:

• Take care of family responsibilities (like childcare),
• Plan personal commitments, 
• Adjust sleeping and eating habits, and
• Engage in social activities.

For illustration, a late-2020 comparative study has shown that hospital nurses — who often work night shifts or irregular schedules — endured various consequences. These effects include a diminished ability to function in a social context, e.g., around family and friends.

Swing shift disadvantage #2: Less time off

Swing shift jobs aren’t as frequent as the rest of the jobs on the market. So, it’s often challenging for employers to allow swing shift workers to request time off, as employers won’t be able to find cover for their shifts.

Yet, many countries have regulated this segment of their labor laws differently.

For example, the Australian government prescribes that some shift workers get 5 weeks of annual leave every year, in line with their National Employment Standards’ definition. That’s in contrast to the 4 weeks of annual leave for full-time and part-time workers in the country.

In comparison, the US has yet to regulate this area.

Swing shift disadvantage #3: Burnout and mental fatigue

Burnout and mental fatigue comprise two of the most prominent pitfalls of swing shift hours. One of the reasons is that a swing shift schedule forces employees to get used to working non-traditional hours. In turn, this work schedule disrupts sleep patterns, delivering severe blows to your at-work productivity.

For example, an article out of Harvard Medical School refers to this problem as shift work disorder. In fact, the authors of the same article claim that shift workers can succumb to health risks “because shift work disrupts the body’s normal alignment with the 24-hour sleep-wake cycle called the circadian rhythm.”

Similarly, the article suggests that shift workers are misaligning their sleep hours with the natural cues to be asleep or awake — meaning sunlight or a lack thereof. As a side effect of sleep deprivation, swing shift workers can suffer from mental fatigue while performing job duties.

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Next, let’s get to a curated list of timeless tips to help you integrate your swing shift schedule into your workflow.  

Tips on how to introduce a swing shift in your business 

Around-the-clock coverage and increased productivity — these are the top 2 reasons why a swing shift can benefit your business. Here, we’ll provide a few time-tested strategies to make your company operations even more efficient.

In this section, you’ll read about 3 things that may help you out on your way to introduce swing shift in your business, including how to:

• Implement employee scheduling software,
• Use team chat apps to communicate effectively, and
• Plan swing shift schedules with your team.

Let’s make it short and sweet!

Tip #1: Implement employee scheduling software

First and foremost, the best and fastest way to make shift scheduling a breeze is to introduce employee scheduling software. Unlike paper-based scheduling, software of this kind allows you to easily:

• Create optimized shift schedules,
• Keep tabs on who’s working which shift,
• Visualize milestones and projects, 
• Track time off, and much more.

In Clockify, you can see what your workforce is up to through an app or the kiosk station. In fact, your employees can seamlessly clock in, start breaks, and clock out with a single click. 

Apart from that, you can customize working and non-working days per employee. In this case, you can know exactly who works the first, second, or third shifts this week. 

Similarly, you can use the “repeat schedule every X weeks” option to determine which employees work which shifts.

All this helps your company focus on the real work instead of constantly chasing different employee schedules.

Tip #2: Use team chat apps to communicate effectively 

A lack of open and frequent communication can stifle team cohesion. In turn, this results in poor management of work schedules when it comes to swing shifts.

For the best results in shift scheduling, we recommend using team messaging apps. For a quick setup, you need to find an app that:

• Works across platforms and operating systems,
• Features integrations with project management platforms,
• Has affordable pricing plans for small and large teams, and
• Offers advanced team collaboration features like sharing multimedia files.

Geared with a team chat app, you can easily communicate schedules and shift changes with your employees. In turn, this allows you to avoid downtime in your business, leading to greater customer satisfaction.

Tip #3: Plan swing shift schedules with your team

Yet, team communication needs to go one step further. Every once in a while, we recommend conducting regular check-ins with your team to find out which shifts work best for them.

Customer Support Manager Milan Tankosić — whom we spoke to earlier — told us that sometimes you need approval from your team to make swing shifts work:

“If possible, give the opportunity to your customer support agents to let you know about their preferences when it comes to types of swing shifts and what kind of rotations they’d like to see in their work schedules — whether weekly, biweekly, or monthly.”

Next, he provides a tip on how to plan better swing shifts:

“Having a swing shift schedule ready by the 15th of every month allows me to help our customer support agents organize their days properly. With this predictability, employees could better allocate their time — and plan their personal and work responsibilities accordingly.”

FAQ about swing shifts 

Near the end of this article, let’s quickly discuss a few common concerns of future or current swing shift workers — and managers — who may struggle to keep up with their rigid work schedules.

1. Is a swing shift healthy?

Research suggests that working swing shifts may lead to anxiety-related symptoms. Still, swing shift workers aren’t necessarily doomed to sickness.

Instead, some types and patterns of swing shifts are more favorable than others when it comes to your physical and mental well-being. 

For example, working the first and second shifts allows employees to rest and get a good night’s sleep. On the other hand, you can nurture your friendships or provide childcare better if you work a flex or fixed shift schedule.

So, it’s entirely possible to stay healthy and connected to your social circles, family, and children if you make your swing shift schedule slightly adjust to how you usually go about your life.

Note: All this data doesn’t equally apply to every single industry. In fact, it depends on how the employer schedules swing shifts or how the employee prefers to work. In other words, it’s a mixture of personal preferences, health considerations, and company requirements. 

2. How do you survive a swing shift?

A swing shift can be hard on your body. But you can survive a swing shift and be more alert during one by: 

• Keeping on bright lights whenever possible,
• Taking moderate exercise and short breaks,
• Eating well and healthy, 
• Avoiding to rely on caffeine, and
• Changing your sleep schedule to fit your swing shift.

Of course, we aren’t saying that you’ll be able to implement all these things at once. Instead, see what works for your situation best.

3. What is a 7-day swing shift?

The 7-day swing shift occurs on a 4-week cycle. 

In this schedule, employees work for 21 days in total and enjoy 7 days off in total during the 4-week cycle. With the 7-day swing shift, teams get to:

• Work 7 day shifts and enjoy 2 days off,
• Work 7 swing shifts and enjoy 2 days off, and
• Work 7 night shifts and enjoy 3 days off.

One of the benefits of the 7-day swing shift is that it lets employees work shorter shifts than teams on 10-hour shifts (typically for 8 hours per shift). On the downside, workers are rarely off on weekends.

4. What is a 12-hour swing shift?

The 12-hour swing shift — also called the 12-hour rotating shift — works something like this:

• Work 12 hours for 3 day shifts straight, then enjoy 2 days off,
• Work 12 hours for 4 night shifts straight, then enjoy 3 days off, and
• Work 12 hours for 3 day shifts straight, then enjoy 2 days off.

In terms of achieving work-life balance, the 12-hour swing shift is one of the most challenging. The reason? Well, it doesn’t allow you to keep a steady sleep schedule and maintain social interactions as other types of shifts do.

5. What is the difference between day shift and swing shift?

A day shift worker may start working in the early morning hours and be done with work by 5 p.m. at the latest. For example, an employee on day shifts can work in the following timeframes:

• 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.,
• 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., or
• 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

In contrast to the day shift, swing shifts typically happen in the following periods of day:

• 3 p.m. to 11 p.m.,
• 4 p.m. to 12 a.m., or
• 5 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Unlike the day shift, the swing shift usually covers late afternoons and evening hours. 

Wrap-up: Optimize swing shift schedules for best business outcomes

The swing shift isn’t going anywhere. In fact, its many shapes and sizes are here to stay in industries like retail, hospitality, and public safety. 

To recap, the swing shift is an umbrella term encompassing many different work schedules, like split, fixed, first shift, and many others. The key is that the work schedules and work hour duration change over days, weeks, or months.

To check what you’ve learned, let’s take a look at a few benefits and drawbacks of swing shifts. 

In short, swing shifts help you:

• Get paid better,
• Retain more customers, and
• Spend less time in traffic.

On the downside, a swing shift schedule can:

• Impact your social life negatively,
• Allow for less time off, and
• Cause burnout and mental fatigue.

Finally, here are a few hard and fast rules that can help you make swing shifts an integral part of your company’s work:

• Introduce employee scheduling software,
• Use team chat apps for better communication, and
• Get buy-in from your team to plan swing shift schedules.

Got any tips, suggestions, or questions on swing shifts? Drop us an email at blogfeedback@clockify.me for a chance to have your questions answered or your suggestions and tips featured in future updates of the post. Also, if you liked this blog post, share it with someone who might benefit from reading it.

But did you know that social media can — at the same time — be used to do good in the world? 

Joining forces with her girlfriend, content creator Taz Zammit harnessed the power of popular online platforms to benefit the LGBTQIA+ community and become a successful business owner.

We came across Taz on LinkedIn, where she mentioned how Clockify helped her track 508 hours — that’s not a typo — of creating, editing, and brainstorming.

So, we reached out to her to discuss:

• How to turn your regular social media presence into a business,
• What platform to use as a content creator,
• How Clockify helps Taz stay on point every day, and more!

Without further ado, let’s dig in!

How Taz turned her ‘hobby’ into a business 

If her interests can be put in a nutshell, Taz Zammit is a social media influencer and company founder based in Australia. She is 28 years old and likes to describe herself as a driven and creative person.

“Content is probably my biggest creative outlet. And I love putting my analytical hat on for more of the business side of things.”

Today, Taz and her girlfriend Alessia run a successful TikTok account and their business called TANDA VENTURES — TANDA stands for Taz and Alessia. It’s a company that creates a safe space for the LGBTQIA+ community through live events and in-app experiences.

“We weren’t even doing this as a hobby. It was literally just posting on social media — we definitely didn’t view it as a business. Until we hit 100,000 followers — then we started getting emails from global brands. We were shocked. This is our full-time job together, and we have over 580,000 followers on TikTok.”

Taz says she and her girlfriend have been lucky on the social media platform in many ways.

“The community is very supportive — even when our videos come up on random people’s pages that have never seen us before. We usually don’t get that much hate.”

Curiously, Taz strives to create a different image of gay couples than what we usually see in the movies and on TV generally.

“We want people to see that two girls can be together and that’s totally normal. I think just by us posting our daily life, it achieves that without us having to say anything.”

Picking out a platform: TikTok vs. Instagram 

Next, we pick Taz’s brain to learn more about why she settled for TikTok in a sea of social media platforms.

“I love TikTok because of the discoverability. [We started the account and] no one knew who we were [at first]. But TikTok shows you people who have similar interests. So, it’s a great way to be discovered.”

Although Taz uses Instagram too, she believes the tide is turning in favor of TikTok. One advantage of TikTok, according to Taz, is that it’s more innovative than Instagram. In any case, Taz and her business continue to use a few outlets.

“We still post on all platforms: Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Pinterest. But I would definitely say TikTok is our major platform, based on the views as well. Last month we achieved over 14,000,000 views, and 13,000,000 came from TikTok.”

Along similar lines, Taz brings home the point of why TikTok is better for creators.

“The great thing about [TikTok] is your content lives on. When we post on Instagram, [the content] kind of gets lost after a few days. People aren’t able to view it. But with TikTok, people are liking our videos from when we first started 2 years ago.”

Tips to skyrocket success on TikTok

Now, Taz shares a few useful tips and tricks for maintaining a successful TikTok account.

“The #1 is consistency. And I know that sounds so basic, but it’s the thing that I would say contributed most to our following — just us showing up every day and posting.”

Apart from that, Taz believes that interacting with your community can do wonders.

“Getting in the chat and communicating with the people that are engaging in your comments section [is important]. If you’re brave enough to go live, live streaming really changed the game for us.”

Another benefit of live streaming includes sharing unique experiences and life moments. All this seems to be vastly contributing to their success online. In fact, Taz feels her everyday wins would be capped if it weren’t for the live engagement.

“Live streams take you into our house and into emotional times in our life. We’ve cried on the live streams and shared lots of stories there that just wouldn’t work in a [regular] video on TikTok. If you’re brave enough and courageous, get on a live stream.”

Yet, some people feel scared when they want to start their TikTok accounts or launch any social media endeavor for that matter. So, Taz shares a magic bullet.

“It’s not about being perfect, having a script, or looking a certain way. It’s just about being you. I would encourage you to start small. Start creating a piece of content a week, and then once you feel confident, you can ramp it up a little bit more too.“

How did Taz discover Clockify?

At first, Taz’s former company started using Excel sheets to track everyone’s availability and work sessions. But, it turned into a headache quickly.

“People would forget [about it], and it was just very complicated with the time zones too.”

When Taz’s former boss asked her to compare time management apps, she did her research and settled on Clockify. So, we were eager to learn why.

“My boss was flexible with when we could work and allowed us a lot of freedom in choosing what we worked on, which was fantastic. But the problem with that was he just never knew what everyone was working on. The work was getting done, but he didn’t know when he could collaborate with us or when we would be online.”

Next, we turn our eyes to how else Clockify helps Taz stay successful day in and day out.

Clockify features Taz enjoys the most

In this section, we explore in detail how Taz uses Clockify to reimagine her daily routine. Apart from becoming a master of her time, Clockify lets her find the space for what truly matters every day — whether it be exercise or work.

Feature #1: Project scheduling

Taz’s greatest realization of how Clockify could make a difference came fast — the app allowed her ex-company staff to become more of a connected team in the long run.

“We moved into using Clockify for just when everyone was online — just hit the button, write in what you’re working on, just so that the people in the business can see. Instead of us all doing individual tasks, we knew when people were online and things like that.” 

More importantly, Taz and her former team were able to forecast projects for the week ahead. With Clockify project scheduling, they could get a bird’s-eye view of the current tasks. In turn, this overall picture allowed them to project what to focus on for the upcoming period.

“So, it was really easy for my boss to just go in there and check what everyone’s doing. [Clockify] is a massive help when you are working with people in different places.”

Today, as part of her business, Taz praises Clockify because it lets her see if time is slipping through the cracks.

“Some weeks and months I notice that my time is going more to working on brand deals and emails. And that’s okay every now and then. But if it was every month, that would be a problem. So, it’s good to have that and just check yourself to make sure you’re on track.”

Feature #2: Tags and categories 

Taz appreciates that Clockify allows her to go as detailed as she wants with regard to her most daunting objectives. But her favorite is probably the feature to label projects and tasks.

“I use tags to specify what goals I’m working towards. So, we set 3 major goals every year, and I’ve got those 3 goals in tags. [For] every task I work on, I’m always thinking: ‘How does this relate to our major goals of the year?’ And if it relates to 1, I’ll tick 1, but sometimes it’s all 3.”

The powerful feature to tag and categorize entries lets Taz and her team become more intentional about how they spend their work time. But she puts it so much better — with emphasis on being mindful.

“If I find I’m working on things that don’t relate to the goals, I’m super aware of that while I’m doing the task. I won’t spend too long on it. So, it’s very helpful.”

In Clockify, you can use 4 levels by which to analyze and categorize time entries:

• Descriptions, 
• Tasks, 
• Projects, and 
• Clients.

But every step of the way, you can go even further and use tags that work regardless of the 4-level hierarchy above. In other words, Clockify lets you customize and tinker with your entire workload.

Feature #3: Time tracker 

Before she came across Clockify, Taz didn’t take tracking productivity seriously.

“I love to track my workouts. I track when I do intermittent fasting. [Also] I track a lot of different things in my life, but never did I track my productivity and my workload.”

Today, however, Taz uses Clockify to up her time-tracking game in every aspect of her work life.

“Since [we started] using it, I’m way more productive. We were able to achieve all of our financial goals last year. I think a big part of that is just being able to focus. You can implement [time-tracking] for different things, but for a work sense, it’s just so beneficial. It’s almost silly not to track it because then you don’t know what you’re working on.”

Apart from that, Taz is a sports enthusiast — so she also uses Clockify for this purpose.

“I have some personal goals this year, like running a marathon. And I was wondering, what if I track every run I go on and things like that.”

In fact, Taz agrees that people can track their time in Clockify for pretty much anything and everything. 

Simply put, you select a project, mark it as billable or non-billable, and press the start button. Finally, Clockify lets you manually create time entries after the fact.

Feature #4: Dashboard

Clockify’s time tracker works best when paired with the dashboard. On the dashboard, users get a clear snapshot of where they spend their time. This view helps people choose the day, week, month, or year they want to explore. 

Of course, it’s all neatly presented with metrics and charts like:

• Percentages, 
• Hours, 
• Projects, 
• Billability, and others.

Who would Taz recommend Clockify to and why?

We saw Taz’s post praising Clockify on the social media network for professionals — LinkedIn. Above all, it was interesting to us how she collected all her data, amounting to 1,347 hours tracked in total over a year — that’s Clockify in action!

Taz thinks that people in her niche would benefit from using Clockify.

“I’m a creator, so I would recommend it to social media creators, but it really could be for any industry because you can track anything. Creators often get caught in that scroll. So you think you’re working, but you’re actually just watching TikToks.”

In contrast, Clockify lets all its users snap out of it and laser focus on what truly matters. In her own words, Taz has seen a profound difference in where and how she spends her energy and time bit by bit.

Wrapping up: Be yourself in the social media business and track your progress

Millions of videos are posted on social media sites and other platforms every single day. As a result, the content creation business is booming and becoming increasingly competitive. Today, people need to invest plenty of time and effort to stand out from the crowd.

It looks like Taz and Alessia have found a recipe for success to help them on this journey. So, let’s look at a few nuggets of wisdom that Taz shared with us in this insightful interview:

• Find the social platform that works for you and lets you grow your business, 
• Get your content out there ASAP if you want to succeed,
• Avoid overthinking about the content — better done than perfect,
• Measure and track your personal and professional hours every day, and
• Show a vulnerable side of yourself instead of only your greatest qualities.

In the end, Taz said it best.

“Our space is that positive light where people can come and feel.”

So, let’s create an environment where people can come together and feel good about themselves!

Do you have a success story about time tracking you’d like to share? Drop us a line at blogfeedback@clockify.me, and you’ll get a chance to be featured in one of our future articles. And, if you liked this post and found it helpful, share it with someone you think would benefit from it.

Yet, some bright minds have a knack for crunching numbers and immersing themselves in all things finance. Ben Cole, the president of ERP Connect Consulting, is one of those folks.

You may wonder how we came across this topic and Ben in particular. Well, he recently mentioned Clockify in one of his social media posts. 

In turn, this made us curious to discover what he does to get organized amid the time-consuming, never-ending to-do lists in his sector. Especially considering that he left a huge, well-established firm to launch his own company. 

So, we did what we always do — we collected all our hows and whys and sat down with the man himself to ask all these questions:

• Why Ben chose to become his own boss,
• How he tackles his daily workload,
• What is time blocking to Ben in his work, and
• Why he has been using Clockify for 2 years.

Let’s jump right in!

Ben Cole: a sneak peek into the life of a financial executive

Ben likes to describe himself as a busy, busy, busy financial professional. And that isn’t him exaggerating about his workload. On the contrary, he runs a successful company with almost a dozen employees and needs to attend to many clients. 

In a nutshell, Ben Cole is president at ERP Connect Consulting, where ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. ERP is a platform that allows businesses to manage all the money that comes in and out of the business. In other words, ERP helps companies maintain their financial health by:

• Gathering daily inputs for expense and sales, and
• Tracking inventory and cash flow.

Today, Ben works and lives in Dallas, Texas. Yet, he has had a rich career. So, let’s take a quick look at what preceded his current endeavors.

Ben graduated from Drake University with a Finance and Information Systems Double Major. Since then, he’s been immersed in the financial world.

“I got my start in the ERP space in 2016. I worked at a large public accounting firm for 5 years, then worked for a smaller startup in Austin, Texas.”

But Ben isn’t your typical financial techie who barely maintains a work-life balance. In fact, he has a stable relationship with his soon-to-be wife, who he’s getting married to in a few months.

Equally important, unlike in his previous jobs, he now gets to decide the values he wants to instill in his work environment. According to Ben, the most important company values include:

• Quality,
• Transparency, and
• Efficiency.

But in any case, you may wonder why else he decided to quit his job at a big company, become his own boss, and establish a business of his making.

Let’s find out!

Why Ben became self-employed

Unlike some of his peers, Ben thought he could grow a lot faster on his own — as opposed to being part of a well-known company. And it was this belief that set him off to a different course.

“What mainly led me to make the jump was the environment that I was in. With all the corporate-type deals, there’s all the checks and balances; you got to wait your turn to get the promotion or the raise that you want.”

In contrast, Ben’s company uses a direct compensation model. Simply put, this model means that employees get paid based on what they produce — i.e., they earn their remuneration depending on what they bring into the firm. But, even more notably, Ben is confident this approach helps grow a team to achieve its full potential and develop lasting skills — skills that will future-proof everyone’s job prospects:

“If it all goes south and [a company business] doesn’t work out, I’ve still got the skills and the technical knowledge to go work for any type of company that I was working at before.” 

How Ben tackles his daily workload

Most successful people have a system in place that, well, makes them successful. 

Likewise, Ben is a busy financial professional and needs to juggle multiple tasks and projects every day. But no two days are the same.

“Honestly, every day is a little bit different. This morning I woke up, got a quick workout in just to get the blood flowing; and had an internal call to go over some development pieces for our applications.”

But what happens after he gets all this morning recap and energizing activities out of the way?

“Later this afternoon, I’ve got a few customer calls and another project kicking off this week. I think the biggest thing is rolling with the changes and being flexible to tend to the highest priority items.”

With so much on his plate, we were eager to learn about Ben’s most prominent stumbling blocks in his workday.

“I think the biggest obstacle is the unexpected. So, right now, I’ve got 6 or 7 more meetings today. But you never know when somebody’s gonna call and need something.”

Apart from the endless stream of incoming requests, Ben still has to make do with the limited resource we call time. Thus, he makes it essential to set apart what matters from everything else.

“Time is always your biggest asset. You’re not getting more of it; and really being able to prioritize those items and look at what you need to do right now versus what can wait and really trying not to get derailed.” 

That sets the stage for the next question we sent Ben’s way. You guessed it: priorities!

Ben’s thoughts on setting priorities

To get him started on the arguably most important thing in his industry — and any other industry, really — we spoke about telling priorities from non-priorities.

“I’m a big to-do list guy. And sometimes, to-do lists even can get out of hand. My to-do list usually has 20 or 30 things on it.”

But Ben has a solution to the ever-increasing demands on his time.

“I always try to use [a concept] called ‘today’s top 3.’ I literally write the 3 things down that I want to get done today. At the end of the day, I look [and ask myself]: Is my day successful? It’s successful if I got those 3 things done. I don’t know what’s coming [but I’m always] hyper-focusing and prioritizing those top 3.”

Ben says he’s happy when he knocks out those most important tasks, creating a feedback loop. Interestingly, however, he prefers to jot down his critical items on a physical post-it note. 

“I’m a big proponent of writing down on a piece of paper because it really forces you to do it — whether it be your top 3 or your top 5. I think it’s like setting goals. If you set your goals so big that you know you can never reach them, they’re not really goals, right?”

He believes professionals need to be realistic about their objectives because doing something without getting anywhere… What’s the point of that again?

For our final chapter in Ben’s story, we nerd out about a few time-tested productivity techniques and how Clockify fits in.

Tracking time: The game-changer in Ben’s work life

The life of a financial expert and a president of a growing company can be taxing. Go figure!

But seriously, Ben has to schedule time for what’s essential and address the small, less important items too. All day long, every day.To stay productive throughout, Ben needs to approach his workload efficiently and effectively. And he doesn’t claim that juggling his personal and professional ambitions is a walk in the park either. It’s quite the opposite.

“’I’d say the biggest thing that overlaps in both [my personal and professional life] is that I’m extremely busy. Whether it’s trying to create new products or bring on new clients, or just trying to keep up with my personal life, as I have a fiancée and we’ve got a cat and a dog; [and] I love to go golf and I love to go skiing.”

The cure for so much stress and mess? Along with other platforms, Ben has found Clockify to be a practical tool that helps him get to the end of his days feeling like he has accomplished plenty. 

Anyway, here’s a preview of the LinkedIn post that sparked our interest to interview Ben.

Unsurprisingly, we were curious about how Ben ran into Clockify and the benefits his team reaped from using our time-blocking app for the past 2 years.

How Ben came across Clockify 

Ben’s been thriving in the financial sector for almost a decade, using many powerful tools to improve workflows along the way. But he says he’s embarrassed to mention his platform of choice for tracking time before settling on Clockify. Spoiler alert — it was Excel.

“We started using Clockify probably 3 months in after I started my business. One of my colleagues, Stefan Maron, introduced me to the tool. He had a prototype of a Clockify integration with Business Central.”

Above all, the useful integration (between Clockify and Business Central) led Ben to realize that Clockify could be a game-changer in his work.

Why Ben thinks Clockify is a huge time saver

Ben feels he adopted Clockify quickly because he was a one-person team at the time. But he believes it’s also quite easy for any large workforce to embrace the tool — as long as you start the onboarding process sooner rather than later.

“My big thing is implementing the tools before you need them because it’s so much easier to onboard others. If you’ve got 10 employees all working in Excel and then you try to get them to go to Clockify — it’s still possible and probably not too difficult — but it’s a lot easier [to do it beforehand].”

With over 80 integrations, Clockify works seamlessly with a diverse set of apps. Ben says he’s very happy with how the integration with Business Central saves him hours every week.

“It works seamlessly and it probably saves me 4 hours per week now. [With the current size of our team], it would probably take me an entire day [to do it manually]. I know it would take 4 hours because it used to take me 2 when it was just me doing it in Excel. And we’ve 10 Xed since then.”

Apart from saving Ben a bunch of time, Clockify makes it easy for him to create invoices inside the platform and send them to customers.

“I couldn’t imagine our organization without Clockify, as it takes all the time entries and puts them directly into an invoice in my financial system. Then I just click a button and it emails all of my invoices to my clients.”

Clockify features that Ben likes best

With dozens of handy features for individuals and businesses, Clockify can easily improve processes at work. From tracking time to reporting and exporting data, Clockify lets you manage your time more efficiently.

So, let’s see which features Ben finds most helpful when it comes to working with clients and team members.

Feature #1: Time blocking + calendar integration

Ben says that calendar blocking is a nice touch to his busy schedule.

“I’ve got this meeting that I can tag as administrative, and then the next meeting I might have is a billable client meeting. So, [it’s helpful to be able] to use that and at the end of the day — go into Clockify and literally just click each calendar event.”

What’s more, the calendar view feature allows Ben’s team to work transparently and get a crystal-clear image of their tasks, activities, and events. Apart from that, Clockify lets his company get paid more quickly and easily — zero friction involved. 

“Basically, transition it into a billable client time entry or an administrative entry — and Clockify tracks how much time everybody’s working. So the calendar is absolutely the #1 thing that I use.”

Yet, the visually appealing layout of activities isn’t the only thing Ben loves about Clockify. He also uses the calendar as a time-blocking planner and a productivity powerhouse. 

Interestingly, Ben quickly stores upcoming events or tasks by creating 30-minute blocks on his calendar. He uses simple descriptions like X, Y, Z client. And that works wonders for him!

What’s more, Ben uses the calendar view as a second brain, as it allows him and his team to keep track of as many different things as they need.

“On a crazy day, it’s going to be hard to remember 15 different meetings you had. Rather, they’re already on my calendar. I just go click them.”

Overall, Ben’s happy with Clockify because it saves him and his business dozens of hours every month.

Feature #2: Clocking in/out

Clockify allows Ben’s team to avoid doing one of the most tiresome things — clocking time. So, we asked him to give us his two cents on this in a real-life scenario.

“For anybody that works in professional service, your least favorite thing is entering time whenever it might be. The last thing you want to do is spend 15 minutes entering all your time manually. So, Clockify makes it very easy to streamline that, both from my end and from the user’s end.”

With this feature, Ben can easily track employee attendance and get clock-in and clock-out reports. But most importantly, his team can conveniently clock their time on any device, either online or offline.

Feature #3: Automatic reminders

Instead of chasing his team members to make time entries, Ben can do other, more important things. How? Well, Clockify does the job for him and sends out automatic reminders to team members.

“Clockify has great features to remind people to submit their time. So, I don’t have to follow up with anyone. Clockify does that for me, which I’ve seen really good returns on in terms of how quickly people are putting their time in.”

To set reminders like Ben does every day, all you need to do is choose your:

• Working hours and working days, and
• The time after which you want Clockify to send you a reminder.

That’s it!

Feature #4: Reports

Another neat feature Ben happily talks about are Clockify reports. This addition helps his team to manage projects and learn what everyone’s been up to lately. 

Apart from avoiding to waste time, the unique Clockify reporting feature lets Ben see where and how his team spends time by getting a full summary of tracked hours — and even billable hours — in neatly packed reports. All your team needs to do is record time using a real-time tracker or manually clocking in hours in the timesheet. 

Ben explains how the reports allow him to remain atop of his company’s massive workload.

“If somebody doesn’t have any hours [clocked] on Monday, I can see that; it helps me from a project management standpoint to say ‘you’re not as heavily utilized anymore.”

On Tuesday morning, Ben can take a look at a report from Monday to check who worked on what and for how long. If he notices that some employees are underperforming in some tasks, he can switch gears and assign different items.

Wrapping up: Use tools to hyperfocus on the most important tasks

It was a blast to interview Ben! And if you look closely, you’ll see a few themes and bite-sized lessons that he shared from his rich experience.

So, here are a few takeaways that you can probably use in your life and work:

• Quit a company if you think it prevents your growth,
• Perfect your skills on the fly to future-proof your job prospects,
• Establish values to drive employee behavior and performance,
• Track the time employees spend on tasks for the greatest benefits,
• Rely on tools instead of depending on people to remember things, and
• Automate workflows for long-term success.

In any case, we’re glad Clockify helped Ben and his team skyrocket their productivity.

Do you have a success story about time tracking you’d like to share? Drop us a line at blogfeedback@clockify.me, and you’ll get a chance to be featured in one of our future articles. And, if you liked this post and found it helpful, share it with someone you think would benefit from it.

Likewise, deadlines and client satisfaction become the only things that matter throughout the workweek. At the same time, employees neglect their own preferences and workplace improvements. 

Anyway, are people going back to the office despite the decrease in the number of registered Covid cases?

Well, the Conference Board research organization published that only 2% of CEOs in Europe and 5% in the United States cited returning to the physical space as a 2023 priority.

But, still, some employees are getting back to their office desks nonetheless (or haven’t left them in the first place). 

In this guide to office productivity, we explore the following manager essentials:

• Why should people return to the office (or not),
• What are the main impediments to superb productivity, and
• How simple tips can vastly increase efficiency.

Let’s get right to it!

Back to the office for increased productivity (or not?)

In a 2022 study by ADP Research Institute, as many as 64% of employees would consider switching jobs if their employers would have them return to the office. In fact, the most reluctant category of the workforce to go back are those aged 18 to 24.

One thing’s for sure — according to the study, most employees don’t want to return to the corporate environment due to personal preferences and a drop in their office productivity. Or, at the very least, they want a hybrid work model. In this case, employees get to work remotely on most days and go to the office occasionally.

Anyway, what is it that office workers think benefits their productivity the most? Here’s a short list:

• Autonomy in where, how, and what they work on,
• Flexibility to run quick errands, enjoy async communication, and
• Freedom to not overhear office chatter and the constant rough and tumble.

Apart from that, employees don’t want to be on video calls 4 hours a day.

With that in mind, office work isn’t all bad! A 2022 survey by the HR platform Eden proves that. According to Eden, an astounding 44% of tech workers said they miss community and companionship if they’re away from the office too long. The same report cites areas that suffer under remote work, including:

• Mentorship, 
• Collaboration, and 
• Career growth.

As with most things in life, it’s not a black-or-white issue. So, we encourage you to try different approaches and see what works for your team and you as a manager. 

Now, let’s get to those office productivity tips!

Physical space productivity boosters

A 2022 study by researchers at the University of Auckland investigated the topic of office productivity and how the corporate setup works in favor or against your bottom line. The study’s scientists found that the following aspects affect the productivity of workers in office buildings:

• Noise, 
• Lighting, 
• Temperature, and 
• Air quality.

Likewise, people in the productivity arena have known for long that how you design your work environment makes all the difference. 

In this section, we’ll outline a few productivity boosters you can implement the next time you get to your office. As a manager, you can radically increase the efficiency of your workforce if you only consider the following suggestions!

Productivity booster #1: Allow employees to decorate their space

Suppose you have an open-plan office or you have designated office spaces for different teams. In both cases, we suggest giving each employee a chance to express themselves. 

Simply put, you should encourage them to personalize the space as much as they like. In turn, this helps them feel greater relaxation. But, some workers will choose not to tinker with the work setting, as it reinforces their feeling of being at an office. And yes, this is also fine!

Yet, for others, a few desk plants, photos, a pinboard, figurines, or as little as their personal mug can go a long way. In fact, these items are also great conversation starters in case you want more of those (which you may not — more on that a bit later).

Finally, decor brings some color to a person’s desk. Apart from that, employees get to personalize their productive workspace, making them feel more valued, comfortable, and a vital part of the company.

Productivity booster #2: Let in plenty of natural light

When productivity authors write about ways to increase productivity in the office, they often overlook how sheer nature contributes to your well-being and efficiency. 

One study with respondents from South Korea and the United States confirmed that office employees who worked under daylight conditions reaped numerous benefits. Some of these include heightened well-being and better health in the study’s respondents compared to employees not working under daylight.

As far as office productivity goes, remind your employees that the corporate space isn’t a prison. Just letting daylight in instead of neon lights reminds them of their workday progression — and when it draws to a close. 

Allowing daylight to peer through the office windows pushes them to finish things on time. In contrast, closed-off spaces skew the perception of time, potentially leading to more overtime and eventual burnout. 

To get to the bottom of things, we asked Dr. Rosmy Barrios, MD, a medical advisor for the Health Reporter, to share her take on the matter. She said that:

“Natural light makes you feel closer to nature, channeling good feelings. In fact, a Future Workplace survey suggests most employees value outdoor views and access to natural light more than anything else in the workplace. Exposure to outdoor views allows them to get access to greenery, giving them a much-needed break from screens.”

Then, we asked her about LED lighting. Somewhat expectedly, Dr. Barrios said: 

“Considering most people work at least 8 hours per day, working in LED light can cause issues such as headaches, eye strain, and increased fatigue.” 

Productivity booster #3: Stimulate the senses

Before you jump to conclusions, we’re not going to talk about filling the space with scented candles or oils, turning the offices into miniature jungles, or creating a Zen-like workplace. Okay, you got us — we might do some of that!

But first, it’s about simple tricks and improvements that enrich the space. In turn, this boosts efficiency through comfort and creates a productive office space.

To start, we’ll tackle 3 things people often forget about when looking for ways to increase their office productivity: 

• Sight, 
• Sound, and 
• Smell.

Let’s get started with the first one!

Sight

First things first — analyze the paint job on the company walls. True, there are no best colors for office productivity. And yet, some employees’ attention may crumble under the effects of certain colors. 

For example, one 2021 study conducted by researchers from multiple universities found that the wall type next to the seat of the workspace impacts visual comfort and productivity of the worker.

All that is to say that some colors can produce a warm, stimulating effect, according to a 2020 study fittingly titled Psychology of Color. This piece of research established that it’s preferable to use light or white tones for ceilings. Similarly, colors that supposedly contribute to office productivity include:

• Green, 
• Blue, 
• Beige, 
• Pink, and 
• Yellow.

Interestingly, researchers found that it’s not only how you paint your walls — furniture colors matter, too. For instance, psychology experts who conducted the said 2020 study asserted that you need to treat each color as a surface to reflect the light (natural and otherwise) and distribute it evenly.

Another useful thing to consider sight-wise is decluttering. To that effect, one 2021 study out of DePaul University in the US found that office clutter severely impacts the job satisfaction levels of onsite workers. 

The study reports that a cluttered office or desk can lead to burnout more quickly. By “clutter,” the researchers meant things like:

• Paper, 
• Office supplies, 
• Used mugs, and 
• Everything else in between.

To improve office efficiency even more, rearrange the space if needed — move around shelves, printers, and even desks if they’re in the way. The same goes for any wall decor. Clutter is both distracting and overwhelming.

Sound

Open-plan offices can be a huge detractor when it comes to office productivity. 

Curiously, a 2021 research paper on open-plan office noise found that abrupt office sounds, including ringing tones, pull your attention away from the task at hand. In turn, the researchers argue, this leads to lapses in performance in all assignments that require concentrated attention during the day. 

Apart from that, the study found that coworker chatter or overhead phone calls produce the most disturbing form of noise in the open-plan office.

From our experience, there’s nothing worse than a noisy environment. Yes, even when people are trying to work quietly! After a while, those expensive noise-canceling headphones aren’t helping because your ears start hurting due to overuse.

As a remedy, designate spaces for verbal discussions. This discourages desk visits from one coworker to another. Thus, everyone can focus on their work. At the same time, employees can have discussions and brainstorming sessions outside of their work stations.

But to get the biggest benefits for your workforce, give teams that need the most focus separate offices or more quiet spaces of the open plan.

Smell/Air

Many employers tend to neglect that smells play a role in the well-being and mood of their workforce. However, a growing body of research implies a potentially positive impact of pleasant ambient scents on emotional, social, and cognitive well-being. 

For illustration, one 2020 article that reviewed the relevant data talks about making your employees more alert and productive during the workday. In a nutshell, the author lists scents associated with:

• Herbs, 
• Flowers,
• Spices, and
• Other plants.

In the same fashion, the above 2020 review article suggests these scents help workers relax and sleep better after work.

Surprisingly, however, the exact effects of each scent differ depending on the sociocultural context of smell, as one 2022 research article found. 

The latter study’s anthropologists and other scientists involved in the research explain that an individual’s language — as well as their historical and cultural backgrounds — often inform the person’s unique experiences scent-wise. Simply put, what works for Germany’s labor force may not work so well for Indian office employees.

Apart from that, air fresheners aren’t a must since many people find their scents too strong or invasive. What’s important here is also fairly simple — invest in quality air conditioning and ventilation. 

Expectedly, lack of clean air leads to drowsiness and lowering of blood pressure. In turn, this speeds up fatigue during work.

Tips to regain office productivity

To avoid productivity falling by the wayside, managers need to urgently motivate their staff by creating a satisfying, positive workplace. 

Aside from keeping the office an overall friendly space to work in, other factors also contribute to — or detract from — people’s productivity. These can range from how you manage the staff to the types of tools you use.

To improve your office day, let’s look at some powerful tips to maintain office productivity!

Tip #1: Choose the perfect software 

Depending on your industry, you probably use all kinds of applications and programs. Usually, the most basic ones people need include:

• Time trackers,
• Project management tools,
• Image processing software, and
• Cloud-based services.

So, how can you harness the power of these tools to boost office productivity? 

Well, you start by making some well-thought-out choices. Namely, you find software that is easy to pick up and use — but also provides the features that employees need in their everyday work.

Equally important, your software should attune to you, not the other way around. Finally, it would be wise to launch a learning program to help the less tech-savvy employees get on board.

Tip #2: Use brainstorming sessions 

Corporate environments are known to quickly slip into “grind mode.” Everyone needs to come and do their work to meet the deadline. As a result, communication degrades to team chat messages, emails, and one-sided meetings that go on for hours.

But sometimes, people just need to slow down and make their daily interactions more human and humane.

In other words, boosting large office productivity means engaging teams into working person-to-person. Here’s how it can happen:

• Firstly, find out what parts of work can be done via brainstorming sessions, and
• Secondly, ensure there are enough empty offices — or other rooms — to facilitate that.

You can prevent a lot of miscommunication and speed up the process by implementing these two tactics. At the same time, you boost motivation by encouraging people to work together more often. 

Additionally, if you have corporate-wide meetings (or emails), openly praise or thank teams that use this joint-work method. It serves as a good example for others and an extra positive push in that direction.

You can also lead by example — and have meetings and brainstorming sessions in the same offices.

Tip #3: Conduct regular check-ins

When your workforce counts dozens, if not hundreds of employees, it’s crucial to keep a regular “pulse check” on their satisfaction at the office. 

Maybe they’re unhappy with their career progression, experience struggles with the workload, or have issues with other employees. And all of this is another factor that affects productivity in large and mid-size companies.

Sadly, most people will avoid coming forward about their gripes. They even let them fester until it causes them to take days off work or succumb to energy depletion. In turn, their health suffers greatly and so does their office productivity. So, approaching them first helps a lot — it’s a step towards improving efficiency and health.

To institute regular check-ins in your policies, here are some starting points:

• Introduce bimonthly or monthly anonymous surveys with generalized questions about employee satisfaction.
• Plan out 1:1 sessions for a more personal approach — let people voice their opinions, but don’t force them to, as some have a hard time opening up.
• Organize educational meetings and trainings on burnout and assertiveness — treat it as a public forum to drive the conversation forward.

The more you help people understand and be open about the issues they have, the less energy they spend worrying over their work issues.

Tip #4: Give meaningful, in-depth feedback

Besides regular check-ins, your employees need deeper connections to feel heard and appreciated. Well, go figure, right?! 

Humor aside, a 2022 Gallup research found that workforce stress is worryingly prevalent. In fact, employees in Canada and the US were among the most stressed workers worldwide. 

Luckily, the above Gallup research suggests that regular conversations with employees on personal and professional development can help improve employee engagement long-term.

But to provide in-depth feedback via regular conversations, you first need to learn how to track employee performance. Enter performance reports.

Along with the help of team leads and HR, you can use performance reports to get a good snapshot of how each department works. Apart from that, you can find out which employees need additional learning, more challenges, and the like.

Performance reports also allow you to accurately set performance standards and manage your expectations on future projects.

Tip #5: Encourage transparency

Act like you didn’t see this one coming: Timesheets that list who is working on what. 

But seriously, timesheets provide a shortcut by making it clear when some coworkers can contact their teammates. Above all, this eliminates the need for updates.

For example, in Clockify, you can enable employees to see the collective timesheet and make them aware of what their coworkers are up to.

From this, we can see that Katie is currently working on bug fixing. Since we know she needs extra focus, we can contact her in an hour or so. On the other hand, John completed a time audit. This means we can hear how it went as we can see it’s no longer marked as In progress.

Overall, timesheets are a great way to establish mutual respect for work hours. What’s more, people will waste less time waiting on a response from someone and opt to work on a different task.

Tip #6: Ditch micromanaging 

If you need more office efficiency ideas, there’s always one you can abandon to instantly create a more productive environment. We’re speaking about the annoying practice of micromanagement. It only serves to frustrate employees and make them trust their higher-ups much less.

Unsurprisingly, the harmful implications of micromanagement include:

• Reducing employee office productivity,
• Impacting retention of the workforce, and
• Decreasing job satisfaction among workers.

As a remedy, work on keeping a loose reign on what goes on at any moment. Delegate whatever you can to those directly under your supervision. Yet, also ask them not to hover over everyone’s shoulder. Apart from that, here are other things you can do:

• Hold fewer meetings! Filter out the unimportant ones and limit them to once a week or even once a month for updates.
• Don’t be a chat or email spammer! You probably don’t like it either, so why make everyone’s life more difficult than it needs to be?
• Avoid contacting employees outside work hours! And try to relax on your own time as much as you can. Remember that others have different workloads and they aren’t available 24/7. A well-rested employee is a productive one.
• Learn to trust others’ judgment! You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room, nor the individual with the best solution. 

In other words, give up some of that control, brainstorm solutions with others, and leave the decision-making to yourself. That way, you include others in important matters and build their trust. But also, you lift some of the weight off your shoulders.

Tip #7: Provide conditions for career improvement

One of the biggest productivity killers is the sense you lack progression. That you’re standing in place while everyone around you is moving forward. Especially at work, this contributes to greater unhappiness. 

But don’t take our word for it!

A 2022 report by McKinsey suggests that the same number of employees are still unhappy with their jobs as in 2021. In fact, most of them are looking for new work opportunities at the same time. Interestingly, the report found that the main reason for leaving their jobs is the lack of opportunity to progress in their career.

Out of the study’s 12,000 respondents from the UK, US, Canada, India, Singapore, and Australia, researchers found that most would enjoy their work vastly more if they had:

• Career advancement opportunities,
• Flexible hours,
• Hybrid work, and other perks.

To top it off, LinkedIn’s Workplace Confidence Survey arrived at similar conclusions. For example, they found that 40% of Gen Z workers stated they would accept a 5% pay cut if somebody offered them a job with substantial career growth opportunities.

So, it would be in your and your company’s best interest to arrange some career improvement options, like:

• Conferences, 
• Online courses, 
• In-office education, etc. 

See to it that each grants some kind of certificate afterward — employees can put these in their CV. Not only is it a great motivator, but physical proof of another skill they’ve gained or perfected.

Summing up: Office productivity is all about physical setup and meaningful connections 

Drops in productivity cost a lot, we know that. And we also know that it’s a sneaky thing that creeps into an office from multiple sides. Therefore, it’s vital to find out where your workforce productivity sinks and address it in time. 

As we explained in this article, you can always find more ways to upgrade your office productivity. However, suppose you use at least a few of the office tips for efficiency we laid out for you here. In this case, you’ll skyrocket your productivity and improve the bottom line.

To conclude, we touched on the following changes that make a tremendous impact:

• Sight, sound, and smell,
• Software choice,
• Regular check-ins,
• Meaningful feedback, and
• Career growth!

A lack or poor implementation of these can cause a decrease in output. On the other side, miscommunication and micromanagement can create their own category of suffering for employees. 

When you improve little by little on each of these fronts, you are bound to see some big changes over time. You’re welcome!

Have a question for us? Is there a particular practice you’ve found to be fruitful for your employees and company? Let us know at blogfeedback@clockify.me — and we may feature you in one of our future articles.

To get there, you first have to find ways to improve work performance — and impress your boss and coworkers in the process.

Yet, this endeavor seems impossible with all those attention-suckers getting in the way, including: 

• Meetings, 
• Minutiae, 
• Rings, pings, dings, and the like.

So, how do you make it all go away and focus on your job performance? The honest answer is: you don’t!

But here I’ll show you a few ways to improve work performance by not being a jerk or missing out on what’s important, including how to:

• Increase performance despite obstacles,
• Learn to seek and give feedback, and
• Adapt to massive change.

Let’s rock’n’roll to see how you can become better at your job!

Why is improving work performance important?

Work performance refers to the sum of behaviors of an employee in an organization, big or small. These behaviors can be:

• Positive, 
• Negative, or 
• A mix of both. 

In any case, each behavior either contributes to or hinders the progress of company goals. 

The way you behave and perform at work can lead you to:

• Get a promotion more quickly,
• Earn a bonus or a salary increase, or
• Gain anything else that you value.

Apart from the obvious, what other results can you achieve if you perform better at work? 

Let’s dive right in!

Benefit #1: Better quality of work

An interesting 2023 research article by a group of researchers has found that you need to perform in a superior way to get a competitive advantage over other employees.

In fact, the same paper cites that work discipline and work motivation greatly influence employee productivity. We know, shocker! 

Simply put, if you’re motivated, you’ll produce more high-quality work.

In turn, this process acts as a feedback loop — a cycle that feeds itself by repetition. In any case, one of the expected consequences of this behavior is the reduction of work-related errors. And who wouldn’t want that?

In a nutshell, when you address professional areas of improvement, you make everyone happier in the process, including:

• Your boss, 
• Yourself, and 
• Your clients.

If you adopt ways to improve work performance, you can even boost your sense of value. Let’s see how.

Benefit #2: Boost in sense of value

A Harvard Business Review article states that employees feel genuinely valued when they receive recognition from their boss. Still, plenty of bosses fail to deliver on this front for various reasons. 

Today, more than ever, employees want to feel valued and appreciated at work. In other words, workers want to find out what satisfies them and makes them happy. 

When employees perform at a top level, they get a boost in productivity and experience an enhanced sense of value. Simply put, they start to believe that their work truly matters.

Benefit #3: Increase in employee well-being

Employee health and work performance are intertwined.

Interestingly, a 2021 study found that how employees perceive the value of their work greatly influences their mental health and physical well-being. 

Moreover, the authors of the said study wrote that how people perceive the value of their work “significantly affects the physical and mental health of female, male, married, unmarried, religious, and nonreligious workers.”

So, everybody seems to benefit from the meaning they find in their work.

—

Now you understand the greatest benefits you can reap if you adopt some ways to improve work performance. But what are these ways? Stay tuned!

What are the top 3 ways to improve performance at work? 

In creating this article, we talked to dozens of productivity and time management experts. Most of them agreed that we should all focus on 3 top ways to improve work performance. These 3 make up the most practical advice with a wide range of applications in real life — and you can implement them no matter your sector or workload.

So, excited to read the experts’ words of wisdom on how to improve yourself professionally? 

Let’s dive right in!

Tip #1: Prioritize self-care

The first one’s easy! Just take care of yourself, your physical and mental well-being.

Let’s begin with the most underrated performance enhancer — sleep! Holistic productivity coach Jenna Piché says that your productive work depends on how much sleep you get:

“Sleep-deprived people come up with fewer original ideas and tend to stick with old strategies that may not continue to be effective. Keep yourself sharp by getting at least 7 hours of sleep each night. You can start this tonight by choosing a consistent bedtime and setting an alarm to remind you when it’s time to wind down.”

Furthermore, an expert in the field of hypnotherapy and neuro-linguistic programming, William Lam, says that mental health is part of the self-care puzzle. William claims you can refine how your brain operates with the help of advanced techniques:

“First, visualize tasks as opportunities instead of burdens. Second, consciously ‘unplug’ from work — a mental detox that refreshes and revitalizes cognitive abilities.”

Likewise, the communications manager at the non-profit organization United Planet, Mohammad Hijazi, says that neglecting breaks leads to poor results:

“Taking regular breaks is crucial for maintaining productivity. Pushing yourself without breaks leads to mental fatigue, diminishing creativity and productivity. Incorporate short breaks throughout the day to recharge and re-energize. Use these moments to relax, stretch, or engage in activities that help clear your mind.”

Tip #2: Stay organized

You want to get as much done as possible. But you need to know that not all tasks are created equal — sorry to break it to you!

Chief Human Resources Officer at Management.org, Steven Mostyn, thinks one of the best ways to improve work performance is to use the 80/20 rule:

“The 80/20 rule states that roughly 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. First, you have to identify the tasks or activities that contribute the most to your desired outcomes and prioritize them. Then, focus your energy and time on the most impactful tasks to maximize your productivity.”

For maximum performance improvement and staying organized, project manager Jared Hill says that you should ditch busywork at all costs:

“Avoid it like the plague. If it’s not impacting an area of importance for your leadership — ignore it. You get to focus on the stuff that matters and free up time and energy in the process.”

But knowing what tasks you need to get done is only one side of the coin. To that effect, the founder of Jotform, Aytekin Tank, thinks that automation is the secret sauce for staying organized:

“Years ago, I was drowning in work. I had just started my company and was in charge of HR, accounting, and even buying office supplies. So, I went on an automation rampage and started automating everything, from HR to emails. Learning how to automate my busywork took a long time but the amount of time it saved me in the long run was invaluable.”

Tip #3: Eliminate distractions

A 2022 Gallup report suggests that 60% of people feel emotionally detached at their job, negatively impacting workplace efficiency. In fact, as many as 19% reported being miserable. 

One of the reasons why people are scattered at work is the never-ending storm of distractions — digital and otherwise.

We asked productivity and e-learning consultant Janifer Wheeler what employees can do to improve work performance in this area. To answer our question, Janifer speaks to the importance of enjoying what you do as one of the best ways to improve work performance:

“Joy is the constant. If there is no joy in your work, why are you doing it?”

But what can you actually do to feel more upbeat? 

For starters, another expert we talked to suggests eliminating distractions to improve the quality of work and cheer you up. Kenny Kline, president of the sports media agency BarBend, told us that we should all cap the number of intrusions on our time and attention:

“It’s impossible to get rid of distractions all the time. Instead, try setting up time in your calendar for focused work instead. Concentrate on the task at hand as you put your phone on silent, switch off any email alerts, and — if you have an office door — close it. You’re going to be shocked by how much you get done.”

12 Tips on how to improve at work

When you look for ways to improve work performance, start small. Specifically, don’t try to do everything at once.

And if you’re interested to go all in on improving your work performance, you can implement the following pieces of sound advice. 

Ready, set, go!

Tip #1: Develop a professional attitude

The first and one of the primary ways to improve work performance is to be professional. When you act professionally, others treat you with respect. Professional behavior can have a great influence on how your career develops.

But what does being professional entail? Here’s a shortlist:

• You’re polite and respectful — but assertive,
• You are dependable and your coworkers can rely on you,
• You are punctual and don’t miss deadlines,
• You are competent with your skill set,
• You ooze honesty and accountability,
• You respect the dress code, and
• You are aware of your company’s policies, visions, and values.

Try integrating these simple tips into your routine, and your coworkers will take you more seriously in the workplace. This is an easy step everyone can master and boost their productivity as a result.

We asked Jonathan Elster, the CEO of a company that provides logistics solutions to the e-commerce industry, to give us his 2 cents. Jonathan says that negativity can slip into your everyday work and affect your professionalism:

“It can be easy to get drawn into office gossip and before we know it, we are talking about someone, or adopting a negative attitude to the job. Allowing negativity to creep in will only allow it to take over so try to maintain positivity with those around you and focus on building strong communicative and collaborative relationships.”

Tip #2: Find (creative) solutions to difficulties

When I read job openings, I often come across requirements such as “possessing problem-solving skills” and similar. In all truth, your job won’t run as smoothly as butter all the time, and the road to a successful career often gets bumpy. 

So, among the critical things to improve on at work is — strong problem-solving skills, including how to deal with:

• Deadlines, 
• Order changes, and
• Customer requirements.

Simply put, problem-solving is the ability to find the most effective and fruitful solutions to unexpected problems. 

Newsflash: Your work quality will inevitably decline if you don’t laser-focus on this theme in your everyday performance.

For a more practical perspective, we talked to Ben Tibbits, Managing Director at a UK broadband comparison site. Ben said that you can add modern AI tools to your list of ways to improve work performance:

“Research can take endless hours, but by using ChatGPT you are able to gather insightful information that can be used as a base. The output can give you an overview of a subject, enabling you to delve further into a certain aspect or develop into your own content.”

Tip #3: Seek feedback

Feedback is the information we receive about ourselves to help us understand what we do well or poorly. Feedback can be direct such as “I was really impressed how you handled the issue X. You showed how you work under the pressure of deadlines and a lack of resources.” Or it can be indirect, as in non-verbal. 

For example, suppose your supervisor or manager maintains little eye contact with you and keeps their arms folded, with eyes downcast. In this case, they are likely to be unsatisfied with your work or even not interested in your proposal. 

On the other hand, here are a few non-verbal signs that you’re doing a good job:

• Firm handshake, 
• Moderately pleased face, and 
• Direct eye contact.

Digital PR Specialist at CAKE.com, Dunja Bošković, thinks it’s wise to let your manager or team leader know in advance that you want to request feedback, so both you and them can thoroughly prepare:

“Schedule a meeting with your supervisor. If you work remotely, you can first check your boss’s Google Calendar to see when they are available for a meeting. You can include a short description in the event to let them know what you want to get out of the meeting. But if you’re working in an office, you can get together with your manager one-on-one.”

I would add that it’s not always the most pleasant thing to ask for feedback, but you can reap notable benefits from requesting feedback at work. 

In a nutshell, here are a few questions to politely ask to get feedback:

• What are the things you liked about my article/presentation/project?
• Would you be so kind as to elaborate on how I can improve my performance?

Tip #4: Learn to communicate better

Effective communication is crucial in every aspect of your life — and the workplace is no exception. So, another of the many ways to improve work performance is to learn how to communicate effortlessly. 

On a business level, it’s the company’s job to:

• Encourage workplace communication using team collaboration apps, and
• Organize different events for team building, etc. 

However, as an individual, you should be aware of the company’s policies and also do your best to:

• Communicate clearly and concisely. This includes real-time communication and answering phone calls and emails in a professional manner. 
• Adjust your tone and communication to your company’s policies. For example, suppose your company encourages a more informal way of communication. That doesn’t mean you should persistently address people with “sir” or “madam” or go to the other extreme of “What’s up dude?”

Talent Acquisition Specialist at CAKE.com, Simo Jokić, argues that 2-directional communication is the path to success:

“We have to hear each other out if we want to foster successful communication. Ask questions if something is unclear, emphasize what’s important, highlight expectations, and be concise. Assertiveness is one of the critical preconditions for successful communication. When you transparently convey your needs, emotions and intentions, you create a healthy environment.”

Tip #5: Keep up with the news in your industry and company

This is one of the most underrated work skills to improve — you need to stay up to date with the latest trends in your niche. 

For practicality’s sake, here are some of the ways to improve work performance in this area:

• Subscribe to blogs, YouTube channels, podcasts, and magazines where you can read and listen about the topics relevant to your industry.
• Network with your peers and mentors – know what others are up to by checking in with people relevant to your niche, preferably in person.
• Socialize – social media are a resource for real-time news. If there’s something important going on and you’re not there in person, social media is the next best thing.
  Check in on what’s new once or twice a day. 
• Update your knowledge by attending seminars or webinars. They are one of the most effective and time-saving ways to keep up with the latest news and build knowledge.

We sat down with Peter Zendzian of IT company Zzservers to discuss how to improve the quality of work by choosing the frequency at which you want to stay on top of things:

“Be updated. This could be every week, month, or every day. This doesn’t mean I upgrade myself to bigger things, but it could be smaller changes as well. Suppose, following the latest business news and discussing it in daily meetings. This will help you analyze your firm’s take, the current rate of growth, and potential aspects in the future.”

So, stay on top of industry trends. Build your knowledge to be able to maintain meaningful conversations with your coworkers and boost your reputation. All this helps you perfect ways to improve work performance in a jiffy — we promise!

Tip #6: Track your time

Whether you are a working parent or you often feel overwhelmed and anxious about the workload, simple time tracking is coming to your rescue. 

In a real-world scenario, tracking time helps you:

• Be more productive and overcome procrastination,
• Get a clear overview of how you spend time and make optimal schedules,
• Gather the data you need to make better time estimates,
• Learn what areas of your workflows need improvement, and
• Keep track of your work hours and avoid ending up overworked. 

This is where technology comes in handy. You should opt for a reliable and easy-to-use application that doesn’t picture time tracking as an annoyance but as a process that bears fruit.

Talent Acquisition Specialist at CAKE.com, Milica Vuletić, says that time-tracking practices can be highly beneficial for enhancing your quality of work:

“Tracking time helps us become more conscious of how we allocate our time, allowing us to identify areas where we waste time and avoid them. Tracking time enables us to monitor our productivity, providing us with the opportunity to manage tasks and deadlines effectively, leading to better results in the end.”

To that effect, Clockify is a time-tracking tool that offers basic time-tracking features for unlimited users and projects.

When you track time regularly, you get a better sense of how much time you need for certain tasks. That way, you can learn when you’re most productive.

Tip #7: Set milestones

Long and complicated projects are often overwhelming. They can make you lose track of your progress or make it seem like you haven’t achieved anything important despite your hard work. 

As a cure, try to set milestones to create attainable project plans that better monitor the project’s progress.

But what are milestones?

Milestones are significant events or moments in a project that serve as reminders of all past achievements. Imagine a ladder where its rungs represent milestones.

In real life, important milestones during a person’s life include:

• Starting school, 
• Finishing university, 
• Getting a new job, 
• Becoming a parent, etc. 

We spoke to Marnix Broer, CEO of an educational tech company Studocu, to weigh in. He says that one of the best ways to improve work performance is to build a day-to-day inventory of the most critical items:

“Rather than starting multiple tasks, build a daily priority list and work through each task until completion. If a task can’t be completed in one day, set a specific milestone to hit before you set it aside and move on down your list.”

For illustration, here are some advantages of setting milestones at work as they:

• Give you a closer insight into your project’s progress,
• Highlight the end of key activities during a project,
• Serve as a great indicator of project success,
• Shift your attention to significant events or deliverables during a project, and
• Remind you of critical events or failures during a project.

Finally, you can supercharge your productivity by creating project timelines. This way, you get a visual breakdown of all elements during a project, including milestones. With a project timeline, you can easily track and record data in one place.

Tip #8: Learn something new every day

“I am still learning.” – Michelangelo, at the age of 87.

When he said this, Michelangelo was probably pondering ways to improve work performance.

But learning doesn’t have to be something related to your job per se — it can reflect your interests or even something about yourself. The thought behind learning is to keep expanding your mind and make you more confident. 

The founder of an award-winning advertising services company, Erik Huberman, says that you can always learn from the latest trends or views from experts:

“Be a sponge. Soak up every piece of knowledge from people who have done more than you. I’ve always loved the quote, ‘If you are the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.’ I don’t know who that quote is attributed to, but doesn’t it motivate you?”

Starting today, you can learn a myriad of skills to improve on at work. Most importantly, find something that makes you feel motivated and boosts work performance, such as:

• Learning a new language or a software program, 
• Improving your communication skills, and 
• Enhancing your time management skill set. 

In other words, improving job performance doesn’t have to be a hassle. In the end, you won’t be the only person to benefit — you’ll also gain a high reputation and respect from others.

So, next time you ask yourself, “How can I improve my work performance?”, note that learning something new every day is the fastest way to become a better employee.

Tip #9: Embrace new opportunities

One of the most underrated ways to improve work performance is this: Welcome every opportunity like your long-lost friend who just won the lottery.

Some people believe that their personal attributes can change and develop if they make an effort. A 2022 research article suggests that people with a growth mindset tend to be more open-minded and adaptable to change. Specifically, individuals who believe their mindset is malleable can better adjust to their environment and make better decisions.

If you have a growth mindset, it means that you:

• Embrace challenges and see them as an opportunity to grow,
• Find inspiration and learn from the successes of others,
• Don’t let obstacles stop you from achieving goals,
• See effort as a path to mastery,
• Love learning new things, and
• Learn from criticism.

Having a malleable brain doesn’t come naturally but with hard work, education, and constantly adapting to changes.

For work purposes, an expert we mentioned earlier, Jared Hill, says that you need to immerse yourself in your manager’s problems and opportunities:

“A-players don’t need detailed instructions. They need clear objectives. Find out your boss’s pain points and biggest opportunities and help get positive results in those areas.”

Tip #10: Abandon your comfort zone

The authors of the book Limitless give extra attention to reality-altering. They believe it plays an important role in exiting your comfort zone.

Many people aren’t aware of their potential and live in a “mental prison.” Therefore, they choose to aim low due to their insecurities and fear of failure. Their low self-esteem makes them believe they’ll fail if they leave their comfort zone and try something new.

In contrast, altering your reality means you:

• Aim for higher goals, 
• Embrace new opportunities with an open mind, and 
• Don’t settle for average. 

Success is not something that you can stumble upon. Bear in mind that the most successful people gained their success and wealth because they stepped out of their comfort zone.

We spoke to Gauri Manglik of Instrumentl, a grant-seekers organization, about this topic. She told us that you must challenge yourself from time to time:

“Don’t let yourself get too comfortable with the status quo. Always strive for growth, both personally and professionally — even if it means taking risks or challenging yourself outside of your comfort zone!”

If you don’t leave your comfort zone, you will fail and you can’t grow. 

Tip #11: Acknowledge (and work on) your weak spots

“Inspiration is a guest that doesn’t willingly visit the lazy.” – Tchaikovsky

One of the surprising ways to improve work performance is to become aware of everything you’re doing wrong. The next step is to make an effort to improve yourself in the areas you’re weak in. We know, we don’t like it either.

Jokes aside — growth is uncomfortable.

But here’s some insightful advice from Milica Vuletić at CAKE.com. She thinks that your work improvement and personal development can skyrocket if you recognize your weak spots:

“Steps you can take to enhance work performance include setting clear and specific goals with defined deadlines for completing specific tasks, avoiding multitasking, and actively seeking constructive feedback from colleagues to improve skills.”

If you can’t seem to finish everything on time and miss deadlines regularly, it’s time to think about your actions and turn your weaknesses into strengths.

Laura Vanderkam, the author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, writes that thriving individuals score gains early while everyone else struggles to catch up:

“Before the rest of the world is eating breakfast, the most successful people have already scored daily victories that are advancing them toward the lives they want.”

So, maybe the problem why you don’t perform better lies in the fact that you don’t know your productive time and can’t seem to set your daily targets. 

For example, some people — aka morning larks — perform better in the morning. Yet, others perform better at night — aka night owls. 

So, discover your biological prime time to get the most out of your workday.

Tip #12: Adapt to change

“The only constant in life is change.” – Heraclitus

A “well, that’s the way I’ve always done it” mentality won’t get you far in a competitive workplace, especially in industries like IT, where things constantly ebb and flow. 

Instead, implement tried-and-tested ways to improve work performance, like adapting to the never-ending changes in your environment.

On the top of your head, you can probably think of many businesses that had to close their doors because they failed to adapt. 

For example, the video rental giant Blockbuster was a provider of home movie and video game services. They had an impressive number of movies and games, which made them better than their competition — until the market changed, and their business model didn’t.

In fact, on-demand streaming services such as Netflix were on the rise, but they refused to go digital — which resulted in slowly going out of business.

Another example is Polaroid and its instant film and cameras. They held the patent to their instant photography process, which was one of the contributing factors to their huge success. However, just like Blockbuster, they didn’t think that going digital was the right move, and Polaroid Corporation declared bankruptcy in 2001.

Whether you have your own business or you work in a company, keeping up with current technology trends and being open to change is essential. Not everyone can stay flexible and adaptable without losing their essence. But those who succeed in doing so make history.

Congrats, you’ve made it — that wraps up our 12 ways to improve work performance!

3 Things to avoid to stay productive

Now you’re equipped to impress your boss and coworkers since you know all the ways to improve work performance! 

But what are some areas of improvement that you can benefit from if you — and get this — refrain from certain actions? Specifically, what can you stop doing to become more productive?

Like always, I’m so glad you asked — I’ll reveal 3 critical things you should avoid at all costs.

Let’s jump right in!

#1 Avoid switch-tasking 

Multitasking, switch-tasking, context-switching — it goes by many names, but it’s more or less the same thing — switching between demanding tasks or trying to do them at the same time.

The short advice goes something like this — don’t.

William Lam says that multitasking can create poorer results overall:

“Do not over-rely on multitasking. Despite its popularity, it often leads to mistakes and hinders deep work.”

Likewise, a 2023 article by Saudi Arabian researchers highlights that many modern workers see multitasking as indispensable and as negatively impacting their well-being. The study included participants from a vast array of sectors, including teachers, project managers, and the army.

#2 Ban perfectionism

Perfectionism equals your best work, right? Wrong! 

Perfectionism often stifles creativity and nips your productivity in the bud, so to speak.

A recent 2022 article published by a group of Polish researchers suggests that a perfectionistic work style often leads to burnout. In fact, the authors argue that a myriad of factors may influence perfectionistic tendencies, including economic, family, social, and others.

But what can you realistically do about it?

The founder of the Australian digital marketing agency CJ&CO, Casey Jones, emphasizes that striving to make everything flawless can result in subpar performance:

“Avoid over-the-top perfectionism to increase productivity and job performance. Although it’s great that perfectionists try to do things perfectly to the dot, it can also take too much time away.”

When on the lookout for ways to improve work performance, experts unanimously agree that perfectionism makes your life harder — not easier.

#3 Skip wall-to-wall meetings

Studies have shown over and over again that meetings aren’t the best use of your valuable time. And you know it in your gut that’s true. 

But if your gut feeling doesn’t suffice, a 2021 Microsoft study found that constant meetings cause enormous stress. In fact, the authors of the study note that back-to-back meetings aren’t sustainable in the long run — and decrease your ability to engage and focus.

Likewise, an expert we mentioned earlier, Jenna Piché, suggests that all-day meetings are the main culprit preventing you to become your most productive self:

“Evaluate which meetings you need to be in and which you might be able to send a proxy to. You could also try cutting the frequency of standing meetings and the time in each, i.e. 45 minutes instead of 60. Finally, you might cut update meetings by having team members send a video update that you can watch when you decide.”

Final words: Enhance communication and organization to achieve optimal performance

The exact set of steps for excelling at work differs from job to job, even from industry to industry. 

In a nutshell, we present you the most critical ways to improve work performance now:

• Be professional and find creative solutions,
• Enhance your communication skills,
• Get out of your comfort zone, and
• Adapt to changes quickly.

All these skills will pay off in the end.

Finally, bear in mind that even the smallest changes in your work routine can make a big difference in your life.

Which pieces of advice will you use to up your productivity? Are there any other ways to improve work performance that we missed? Write to us at blogfeedback@clockify.me for a chance to be included in this or one of our future blog posts. Also, if you liked this blog post, share it with someone you think might be interested in reading it.

In this article, you’ll find out:

• What the best project management techniques are,
• How to use project management tools,
• When to adopt a certain project management technique or tool, and
• The examples of project management tools and techniques.

To learn all that and more, read on.

What are project management techniques?

Project management techniques are specific approaches to applying your skills, your experience, and the right tools to carry out the specific set of operations needed to meet the project’s requirements.

Simply put, the main difference between project management techniques and project management is specificity.  In other words, project management techniques are specific approaches, while project management is a wider term that encompasses many different things, like planning, execution, and monitoring projects.

To explore further, let’s get going with the top 3 project management techniques. 

Top 3 project management techniques for project managers

We’ll briefly cover our top 3 picks for project management techniques, including: 

1. The Classic Project Management Technique,
2. Kanban Project Management Methodology, and
3. Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT).

Try using these project management techniques — also known as project management methods — to improve your knowledge and achieve amazing results in managing your projects.

Classic Project Management Technique

The Classic Project Management Technique is one of the simplest, most popular techniques in project management. It includes a detailed plan with all the tasks and activities that should be performed. Things to be done are arranged based on their urgency and dependency.

How to use the Classic Project Management technique?

To apply this project management method successfully, follow these steps:

1. Make a plan for your project for the upcoming week,
2. Estimate the number and type of tasks you’ll need to work on,
3. Allocate the resources effectively,
4. Monitor the quality of your team’s work throughout the project,
5. Monitor the team’s deadline throughout the project, and
6. Provide feedback to the team throughout the project.

What is the Classic Project Management Technique best for?

The Classic Project Management Technique is best for small teams and straightforward projects that don’t require complex workflows.

Visual representation of the Classic Project Management Technique

Below you’ll find a visual representation of the stages that need to be followed in the Classic Project Management Technique, including Project plan, Resource allocation, all the way to Team feedback.

Kanban Project Management Methodology

Kanban is a popular subtype of the agile project management methodology that helps you visualize your project and then track progress on it. One of its main perks is that it facilitates work transparency.

How to use Kanban?

A simple Kanban board consists of 3 distinct columns. You move your tasks across 3 columns to signal the progress and current status of a task:

1. “To Do” column — when you first define a task you need to work on in the future, you place it here,
2. “Doing” column — when you start working on a task, you place it here, 
3. “Done” column — when you finish work on a task, you place it in this column, and
4. “Backlog” column — if necessary, you can introduce the fourth column. Backlog is the place where your tasks await to be taken over.

Different modern software often delivers Kanban templates to elaborate on this simple framework.

What is the Kanban Project Management Methodology best for?

The Kanban Project Management Methodology is best for:

• Software development projects, 
• HR projects that focus on recruiting, interviewing, and hiring new employees, and
• Any type of project with a well-established workflow and deadlines.

Even if you’re new to this project management methodology, you should know it’s easy to set up and use.

Visual representation of Kanban

In the image below, you can see 3 columns in the board we previously mentioned, together with the Backlog column. Backlog is where your tasks are awaiting to be taken over. Finally, you can track the sequence and implementation of tasks from left to right: from Backlog to Done.

Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)

The Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) in project management entails visual tracking of complex, detailedly planned projects in specialized PERT charts. The emphasis of this technique is on constant task analysis, estimating the time and budget needed to successfully finish a project.

How to use the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)?

To create a PERT chart, follow these steps (you can use software or draw it yourself):

1. Make a thorough list of your project’s activities, tasks, or milestones (you need to identify all the tasks that you need to complete to achieve milestones, i.e. deliverables),
2. Create a sequence of tasks — which tasks go first — based on their dependencies,
3. Make time estimates for your tasks, such as the earliest start and finish date/time, and the amount of time needed to complete each task within a project, and
4. Identify your project’s critical path that covers the most important (not all) steps to help you estimate the minimum amount of time required to complete the project.

What is the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) best for?

The Program Evaluation and Review Technique is best for:

• Complex projects with a large number of non-routine tasks, and
• Large projects with complex requirements.

If you’re new to project management, PERT may not be your best shot at implementing your project due to its complexity. 

Visual representation of the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)

In this PERT chart, you can see blue circles, i.e. nodes, which represent important milestones or events. 

Arrows stand for dependent tasks that need to be completed in that order together with their durations (also shown on the arrows). Lastly, you can see diverging arrows (8-7 and 8-11), representing tasks happening at the same time.

Best project management techniques for simple projects

Moving on from project management strategies for any type of project, we have project management methods for simple projects.

You’ll recognize a simple project based on the following project parameters:

• It is expected to take less than 6 months to complete,
• It only requires part-time effort,
• It involves 10 team members or fewer,
• It is expected to cost less than $75,000,
• It has the expected cost amount readily available from the start,
• It has a single goal,
• It has a straightforward solution, and
• It has a narrow project scope.

—

To tackle your simple projects, let’s look at 5 other project management methods.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) requires you to break down your project into its parts — i.e. smaller and more manageable pieces. According to A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, work decomposition needs to be done “to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables.” 

Within the Work Breakdown Structure, you need to properly: 

• Identify, 
• Estimate, 
• Budget, and 
• Schedule your work.

How to use the Work Breakdown Structure?

Use WBS to break down complex project tasks into smaller tasks until you can no longer subdivide these tasks. Smaller tasks are easier to work with since it’s easier to estimate the time requirements and the cost to complete them.

When you decompose your project to the lowest levels in WBS, those levels are called work packages. When you identify them, you can easily and safely estimate costs and time for the work together with controlling and managing them efficiently.

Most projects have a similar life cycle. So, you can use standard WBS templates to modify them to fit your projects.

What is the Work Breakdown Structure best for?

Work Breakdown Structure is best for simple projects that mostly focus on the task dependencies within the scope of the project.

Visual representation of the Work Breakdown Structure

Here, you can see all the tasks and subtasks that make up a project. You can break the project tasks down as far as you need to properly manage them.

Gantt chart 

A Gantt chart is one of the oldest project management techniques. It’s a horizontal bar chart that illustrates a project’s schedule. Each activity in the project is represented by a bar, and its length represents the duration of each task — its start and finish dates. 

The position of the bar is also important since it stands for the scheduling of the task. If one task follows another, it means the task is dependent upon the completion of the predecessor task to get started. 

You may also see other geometrical signs within the chart, such as a diamond or triangle-shaped symbol that represents an important milestone during a project. The Gantt chart is widely known for its simplicity and low cost.

How to use a Gantt chart?

Gantt charts are most useful for simple projects. You can implement your Gantt chart by:

• Setting up details of your project,
• Adding and scheduling project tasks,
• Inserting important milestones, and
• Establishing task dependencies.

Finally, you need to invite colleagues and assign them to different tasks.

What is a Gantt chart best for?

Gantt charts are best for teams who need project complexity across industries like:

• Software development, 
• Design, 
• Manufacturing, 
• Marketing, and others.

If you’re looking for a scalable project management method, the Gantt chart offers a chance to start small and grow in complexity over time.

Visual representation of a Gantt chart

As you can see below, the bars represent tasks and the duration needed to complete each one. The length of a bar is proportional to the time it takes to complete the task. Below is a representation of 2 sets of different tasks conducted simultaneously:

Project Network Diagrams

Among the most useful project management techniques are Project Network Diagrams, representing graphically what a project looks like. In short, Project Network Diagrams show a string of arrows that connect different boxes, illustrating how project activities interact with each other.

Here are the 2 aspects of Project Network Diagrams to grasp:

1. Boxes are called nodes, representing project activities, and
2. Arrows describe the relationship between project activities.

Most importantly, Project Network Diagrams must have a starting point and an endpoint.

How to use Project Network Diagrams? 

To make the best use of Project Network Diagrams, we recommend using one start point and one endpoint. If you have more than one, the diagram will become confusing.

Next, it’s crucial not to overlap arrows, as this will also cause confusion. Finally, stay consistent with the same nodes and arrows. Also, keep them linear and straightforward and aim to organize them from left to right.

What are Project Network Diagrams best for?

Project Network Diagrams are best for teams who need frequent communication and information sharing.

Visual representation of Project Network Diagrams

In the graph below, you’ll see how Project Network Diagrams appear on a project, including boxes and arrows that represent project activities and the relationship between them. Depending on the scope of the project, each task could take more than one day to complete.

Earned Value Management (EVM)

Earned Value Management is one of the most useful project management strategies, as it neatly integrates:

• Costs,
• Scope, and
• Schedules.

As a result, Earned Value Management helps project managers measure project performance and helps predict future outcomes — also known as project forecasting. For example, a project manager can compare projects against project baselines. In other words, thanks to EVM, project managers can tell if a project is taking longer than expected.

How to use Earned Value Management (EVM)? 

As the name suggests, you can calculate the costs of a project by multiplying the completed percentage (of a project) by the amount of the project budget. For example, suppose you are implementing a project that’s just 40% done. If your total project budget amounts to $100,000 — it means that your earned value is $40,000.

What is Earned Value Management best for?

Earned Value Management is best for mid-to-large companies that need to urgently reduce or control project costs.

Visual representation of Earned Value Management

In the graph below, you can compare the planned value, earned value, and actual cost of a project.

Stakeholder Mapping

Stakeholder Mapping is one of the simplest project management methods, as it allows you to get information on the individuals and companies (also called interested parties) you want support from or want to influence. Stakeholder mapping lays the foundation for dealing with stakeholders who may need to be kept informed, monitored, or satisfied.

Stakeholders may include consumers, customers, or users of a product or service. Yet, they can also entail whole markets, industries, suppliers, or investors. In other words, anyone or anything that can influence your project.

How to use Stakeholder Mapping? 

Using Stakeholder Mapping is easy and straightforward. You just have to split a blank document into 4 equally sized squares. Also, consider what you want from your stakeholders or interested parties. For example, whether you want to:

1. Keep them satisfied,
2. Manage them closely,
3. Monitor them, or
4. Keep them informed.

Each of your 4 equally sized squares should be titled according to the 4 points above.

Next, simply insert the names of your stakeholders into the appropriate square.

What is Stakeholder Mapping best for?

Stakeholder Mapping is best for companies that want to keep track of their stakeholders’ influence, level of interest, and other information.

Visual representation of Stakeholder Mapping

Below you’ll find a visual representation of Stakeholder Mapping with the required fields, including mentions of Power, Influence, and Level of interest. 

Power and Influence (on the Y axis) means the leverage and capacity of the stakeholder to make the project successful or a failure. Level of interest (on the X axis) simply suggests how interested the stakeholder is in impacting the project positively or negatively.

Best project management techniques for complex projects 

Next up, we have complex projects and their specific project management techniques.

You’ll recognize a complex project because it is challenging to:

• Anticipate project outcomes,
• Predict project behaviors,
• Standardize the roles in your team,
• Estimate the number of elements in the project,
• Grasp the dependencies between project elements, and
• Anticipate project profitability.

So, let’s explore the best project management techniques to use with complex projects.

Critical Path Method (CPM)

The Critical Path Method is a scheduling algorithm for identifying critical tasks within the longest sequence of tasks in a project. These tasks are crucial for beating the project deadline and as such demand the team’s sharpest focus.

How to use the Critical Path Method (CPM)?

Here is a step-by-step guide that you need to follow to find your project’s critical path:

1. Identify and categorize all project tasks,
2. Define the expected duration for each task, and
3. Specify the dependencies between tasks.

After that, determine the type of dependencies between tasks in the following sequence:

• Work on Task 1 and Task 2 simultaneously,
• Finish Task 1 before you can start working on Task 2, and
• Finish work on Task 1 to finish work on Task 2.

Last, schedule and work on your tasks in the order dictated by their task dependencies type.

What is the Critical Path Method (CPM) best for?

The Critical Path Method is best for projects with several interdependent tasks and projects with repetitive tasks.

In any case, the Critical Path Method is best suited for projects that have strict deadlines and timelines — e.g. software development or construction projects.

Visual representation of the Critical Path Method (CPM)

In this visual representation, you can see what needs to be done to complete Project X. Tasks A, B, and C are non-critical, and you can complete the project if you don’t tackle these tasks.

Therefore, these are optional tasks. On the other hand, tasks D, E, and F are considered “critical,” and you must tackle them to complete the project.

Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM)

Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) is essentially a scheduling algorithm that places great emphasis on:

• Resources needed to carry out the project, 
• Dependencies that exist between tasks, and 
• Buffers you need to account for to complete the project on time.

The purpose of this project management method is to help you manage your resources better, minimize the time you lose on various aspects of the project, and distribute your workload evenly.

You can use 4 types of buffers associated with CCPM:

1. Project buffer is the one that makes sure the project is completed before its expected end date,
2. Feeding buffer is the one that is positioned between the last task on a non-critical chain and the last task on a critical chain,
3. Resource buffer is the one that makes sure the right resources are available to carry out the project processes throughout the project development, and
4. Capacity buffer is the one that ensures additional resources are available in the case of unexpected issues with the budget.

How to use the Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM)?

Take the following tips into consideration when creating a critical chain project process:

• Identify the most important tasks which will later become your critical path,
• Bear in mind to allocate resources accordingly (time, budget, people),
• Make sure your team functions as a well-oiled machine and focus their attention on individual tasks,
• Assign one task at a time to prevent multitasking (CCPM and multitasking don’t go hand in hand),
• Reduce the time estimates for project completion in half as this way, you can overcome procrastination within your team and avoid time wastage, and 
• Create a project model with time estimates, a list of resources, buffers, and finish dates. 

What is the Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) technique best for?

The Critical Chain Project Management technique is best for:

• Companies where each team works on one project only, without any overlaps in resources, and
• Teams who have trouble keeping up with deadlines.

Finally, complex projects with limited resources can benefit the most from this project management method.

Visual representation of the Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) technique

The CCPM technique proposes adding buffers as a type of airbag that can be used in unexpected situations. 

As you can see from the picture below, each task (marked as circles in the diagram) is given a buffer that protects the project’s deadlines or any other change during a project.

Extreme Project Management (XPM)

Extreme Project Management (XPM), as its name suggests, is a project management technique made for complex and fluctuating projects that frequently change and require an extreme approach.

This technique focuses on the human side of the project — it makes use of the known principles of how people interact with each other to properly tackle and arrange collaboration.

How to use Extreme Project Management (XPM)?

In his book Extreme Project Management, Doug DeCarlo differentiates between 4 phases of Extreme Project Management: 

• INitiate — in this phase, you gather your team, brainstorm, think about possible approaches, and build a strong relationship within the team. Remember that in XPM, you don’t define your project goal at the beginning but along the way. It’s not something that you can plan. Since the goal is flexible, so are the time estimates and cost of the project.
• SPeculate — this is the time for deep thinking and prioritization of deliverables. “I wonder if this would work?” is a question that you’ll be asking yourself in this phase.
• Incubate — even though you now have a list of prioritized deliverables in this phase, they aren’t fixed. In this phase, you are still going to explore and make corrections together with the client. This may result in new ideas and goal clarification. In this phase, you need to distribute work across your team. 
• REview — the last phase of the XPM, where team members should attend a meeting and talk about achievements in the Incubate phase. They discuss the things they learned, revise the goal, whether the project meets client expectations, and whether it should be continued or not.

What is Extreme Project Management (XPM) best for?

The Extreme Project Management technique is best for:

• Projects with a low possibility for failure,
• Projects with short deadlines,
• Projects that aim for innovation,
• Projects with factors that are difficult to control, and
• Projects characterized by sudden, spontaneous changes.

You can unmistakably use this project management method for complex projects in most industries.

Visual representation of Extreme Project Management (XPM)

From this visual representation, you can get a better insight into XPM’s flexibility and freedom when it comes to making decisions about the approach, cost, timeframe, and scope. To fit the changing needs of a project, XPM can alter the budget, the final outcome, the overall plan, and more. 

We suggest not to adapt the project to a fixed set of rules and approaches, but rather adapt the rules and approaches to the project itself until you achieve the desired result.

Projects IN Controlled Environments (PRINCE2)

Projects IN Controlled Environments (PRINCE2) is a structured project management technique that provides a framework to help divide the project into stages. It’s a project management method that consists of 7 principles, 7 themes, and 7 phases each project needs to go through.

PRINCE2 principles represent underlying rules that every project needs to stick to:

• Continued Business Justification — the business case is regularly updated to make sure that the project is still usable.
• Learning from experience — each project has a lesson log you can reference to avoid remaking already established workflows from scratch.
• Defining roles and responsibilities — team members may have several roles in a project, or share their roles with other team members. Roles are structured into 4 different levels:
  • The corporate management/program management level,
  • The project board level,
  • The project manager level, and
  • The team level.
• Managing by stages — you manage each stage of project development differently, by updating the business case, risks, and project plan.
• Managing by exception — when a specific project element (such as the project scope or project costs) changes, the question of how to continue moves to a higher level of management.
• Product focus — focus is placed on the quality and delivery of the developing product.
• Tailoring to suit the project environment — this technique is meant to fit the project environment, i.e. the size, complexity, risk estimation, and overall importance of the developing project.

How to use PRINCE2?

If you want to manage a project using PRINCE2, you need to be aware of the 7 phases each project needs to go through, including:

• Starting up a project — appointing the project manager, together with other stakeholders, preparing the business case, choosing an approach, and assembling the project brief.
• Directing a project — reviewing the project brief, confirming the approach with the rest of the stakeholders, and thinking about the risk and resource requirements.
• Initiating a project — the project manager assembles the Project Initiation Document, listing who needs to take on responsibility, why these individuals have to do it, where the project takes place, how will the project team implement the project, and when is it going to happen.
• Controlling a stage — the project manager gives authorization for any activity to be commenced or continued; the project manager also breaks down the project into smaller chunks — work packages — to avoid chaos. Each work package must go through control after completion or change. 
• Managing product delivery — ensuring that all stakeholders agree on what is to be produced, its cost, and timescales — together with meeting the quality criteria. Later, they can approve them or demand changes.
• Managing a stage boundary — reviewing and approving each stage to be able to move forward. The project board must be informed of the strategic points of the project, and they are the ones who make a final decision on whether to stop or continue to the next stage.
• Closing a project — the final stage of managing a project where acceptance of the product is being confirmed and whether objectives are achieved. 

What is PRINCE2 best for?

PRINCE2 is best for complex projects that have a fixed set of requirements and a complex environment.

Visual representation of PRINCE2

From the visual representation below, you can see that PRINCE2 is built on its principles, i.e. guides and rules that you need to follow to successfully carry out a project. Then, PRINCE2 themes show you how to manage the project, i.e. how to put principles into practice.

Best project management techniques for software engineering

A typical software engineering project involves:

• Gathering requirements, 
• Developing and testing the software, and 
• Performing regular maintenance on the software product.

So, let’s examine the best project management techniques to use with software engineering projects.

Rational Unified Process (RUP)

The Rational Unified Process (RUP) is an agile management structure for software development teams that makes a project unfold over time in 4 distinct phases: 

• Inception, 
• Elaboration, 
• Construction, and 
• Transition.

Each of the 4 stages has a main objective and involves 6 development disciplines: 

• Business Modeling, 
• Requirements, 
• Analysis and Design, 
• Implementation, 
• Testing, and 
• Deployment. 

Unless you successfully reach the main objective of the previous stage, you won’t be able to move on to the next stage.

How to use Rational Unified Process (RUP)?

To use the RUP technique efficiently, the software project must go through 4 phases of development:

1. Inception is where you must create a business case that includes a project plan with its description, risk management assessments, business environment, and success factors. The inception stage is also the first milestone in the project. In case the project fails to pass this stage, it can be canceled or redesigned.
2. Elaboration is when you should consider the project’s technical risks, i.e. whether you are able to build a workable system. This is the second milestone in the process, and it’s critical because it holds high risks, and it’s hard to induce changes later on.
3. Construction is where major components and features are developed together with coding and testing. This stage results in user manuals and a beta version of the system that needs to be evaluated. If the product fails the testing, the next stage needs to be postponed.
4. Transition is when the product is released successfully, and this is the last milestone in this process.

What is Rational Unified Process (RUP) best for?

Rational Unified Process is best for software development projects with a predictable time frame for completion and a predictable end budget.

Visual representation of Rational Unified Process (RUP)

In the graph below, you can see all 4 phases of the project development in RUP. You can also notice that some phases (Elaboration, Construction, and Transition) have more iterations that focus on producing technical deliverables to achieve each phase goal.

Agile Project Management

Agile Project Management is a project management method for software development that emphasizes self-organization and cross-functionality in a team — as well as customer satisfaction.

How to use Agile Management?

You need to follow several principles to successfully use Agile Project Management:

• Instead of implementing specific processes and tools, this technique emphasizes interactions between individuals in a team,
• Instead of compiling comprehensive documentation for the product, this technique emphasizes creating fully-working software,
• Instead of focusing on contract negotiations, this technique emphasizes utilizing client collaboration to facilitate the development procedure, and
• Instead of following a strict project plan, this technique emphasizes the best ways the team can respond to changes in the project.

For better understanding, follow the steps:

1. Divide projects into short sprints,
2. Adapt your project plans as you work and aim for constant improvement,
3. Encourage the team to be self-organized, and
4. Produce maximum value and functionality from the service/product.

What is Agile Project Management best for?

Agile Project Management is best for:

• Projects without strict deadlines but with a general idea of the final outcome/product,
• Projects that imply unexpected changes, and
• Projects that depend on efficient team collaboration rather than efficient project planning.

Visual representation of Agile Management

As you can see, Agile Project Management is an iterative process whose ultimate goal is to respond to changes. For example, each project is made of planning, creating, reviewing, and releasing products. When a project fails, the same process starts from scratch, from planning to creating, reviewing, and releasing.

Scrum Methodology

Just like Kanban, Scrum is another popular subtype of the agile project management methodology. The aim of the Scrum Methodology is to help software development teams deliver working software more frequently, with the help of incremental and iterative practices.

Project progress is measured by following the sequence of short, time–boxed periods named sprints. The end of each sprint suggests the completion of one scheduled amount of work.

How to use Scrum Methodology?

Here are 6 steps to running a project using the Scrum Methodology:

• Assign your team who will develop, produce, or perform any other responsibilities to create an end product (a Scrum master, a product owner).
• Create a product backlog by making a list of the tasks that need to be done, also known as stories.
• Create sprints or designate a short period where the work is broken down into more manageable components. Also, add stories from the backlog here.
• Host a daily meeting called a daily scrum or stand-up meeting. The whole team talks about the progress and tackles issues.
• Host a sprint review meeting that takes place at the end of a sprint. All critical stakeholders need to be present to discuss results, gather data, and make plans for improvements or changes.
• Repeat the 2 previous steps until you complete the final sprint and create deliverables.

What is Scrum Methodology best for?

The Scrum Methodology is best for complex and ambiguous projects. Traditionally, these are software development projects, but the Scrum Methodology can also be an efficient approach for marketing projects and leadership teams.

Visual representation of Scrum Methodology

The steps to running a successful Scrum project are presented in the following image, together with other activities needed to complete the project. 

With Scrum Methodology, you start by looking at the scope, product backlog, and design. The next step entails getting into sprint mode, automating and reviewing your sprints. Finally, everything ends with software that users can benefit from.

Extreme Programming (XP)

Extreme Programming (XP) is a specific agile software development framework. The main aim of XP is to help the team produce higher-quality software while using less time to manage project releases and satisfy customers’ needs.

Extreme Programming mandates the following project-related activities and principles:

• Maintain constant communication with an emphasis on face-to-face discussions, coupled with whiteboard drawing.
• Do the simplest thing that works with a focus on doing only what’s necessary and addressing only the current project requirements.
• Provide regular feedback with an emphasis on the build-gather-adjust work cycle. The team builds a feature, gathers feedback about the feature, and adjusts the feature based on the feedback.
• Act with courage with a focus on accepting difficulties, acting on feedback, reacting quickly, and asking controversial questions when needed.
• Promote respect with an emphasis on providing respectful feedback to others and accepting respectful feedback from others.

How to use Extreme Programming (XP)?

To make sure you are using Extreme Programming correctly, follow the steps:

1. Plan — this is where a customer writes user stories, which is a brief explanation of customer requirements for particular features.
2. Communicate — since project management is mostly about communication, the next step is where the project manager builds a smooth-running team.
3. Restructure and iterate — start from the easiest design first and move on to the complex ones. Create smaller and more manageable components to keep your code brief but comprehensive. 
4. Code — now is the time to implement code. Since XP uses the Collective Ownership model, it’s not dependent on individual developers, and the code is owned collectively. 
5. Review and test — finally, every step of the process must go through thorough and repetitive testing prior to code release. This is where pair negotiation and pair programming are essential.

What is Extreme Programming (XP) best for?

Extreme Programming is best for:

• Dynamic, ever-changing software development projects,
• Co-located development teams, and
• Risky projects with fixed time frames.

Visual representation of Extreme Programming (XP)

You can see the steps explained below, including the last stage — pair programming. Pair programming allows team members to work in pairs on a single computer. This strengthens collective ownership, helping team members learn from each other.

The Waterfall Technique

Among the most beneficial project management techniques is the Waterfall Technique, which entails a sequential execution of tasks. In other words, you can only move on to the next step if you’ve finished with the previous one.

This project management technique mandates that you have a clear idea of what the project requires and how it will unfold before you start working on it. Once you’ve moved on to the next step, you can’t go back to the previous and make corrections.

How to use the Waterfall Technique?

The concrete steps will depend on the type of project but usually involve:

• Analyzing and identifying software requirements,
• Designing the best approach to develop the software according to the requirements,
• Implementing suitable solutions to problems by writing appropriate code,
• Testing out the code and verifying that it works the way you intended, and
• Carrying out regular maintenance to make sure the code keeps working the way it was intended.

What is the Waterfall Technique best for?

The Waterfall Technique is best for: 

• Short software development projects,
• Software development projects that have predetermined requirements, and
• Creative project management.

Finally, you can use the Waterfall Technique for any project with a strict work structure.

Visual representation of the Waterfall Technique

The visual representation below shows that the Waterfall Technique only allows you to go forward and not to a previous phase. It respects strict order and includes Requirements, Design, Implementation, Verification, and Maintenance. 

The Waterfall Technique has an approach that starts from the requirements and works towards design, implementation, verification, and maintenance. If requirements aren’t met, design can’t start, and so on.

Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is one of the most useful project management techniques for implementing agile projects at scale. SAFe is a set of workflow and organization patterns meant for facilitating software development.

Scaled Agile Framework takes into account the size and requirements of each project. In short, SAFe contains 3 organizational levels, including:

1. Portfolio — where management provides clear objectives and goals for the whole project at hand,
2. Program — where up to 10 members are selected as those responsible for project deliverables, and
3. Team — where the 10 team members use iterative methods and split their work into 2-week sprints.

As companies grow, they can use the Scaled Agile Framework to productively and efficiently adopt new technologies, respond to market changes, and address customers’ needs.

How to use Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)?

To implement the Scaled Agile Framework, follow the steps below:

1. Reach the tipping point in your organization,
2. Train lean-agile employees who will implement the methodology (also called change agents),
3. Educate managers and leaders,
4. Establish a lean-agile center of excellence in the company,
5. Specify value streams and Agile Release Trains (also called ARTs),
6. Create a plan for implementation,
7. Get ready for the launch of ARTs,
8. Educate teams and launch ARTs,
9. Monitor the execution of ARTs,
10. Launch more value streams and ARTs,
11. Spread to the portfolio, and
12. Maintain and enhance.

What is Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) best for?

Scaled Agile Framework is best for companies that want to scale their operations and grow in time — no matter their current size.

Visual representation of Scaled Agile Framework

In the graph below, you can see how SAFe’s 3 organizational levels work jointly, one after another. You need all 3 levels working together to make SAFe efficient, including Portfolio, Program, and Team:

Project management tools 

Regardless of the specific project management technique you’re using and the type of project you’re working on, you’ll still need to tackle and carry out certain general tasks and processes. 

Namely, you’ll have to:

• Organize and plan the project workflow,
• Schedule the project in some capacity,
• Manage your time properly,
• Communicate and collaborate with your team, and
• Handle the accounting and finance aspects of the project.

Now, the best way to do all that is to use tried-and-tested tools in project management.

According to project management statistics on PM features, the set of tools you use should offer functionalities like: 

• Communication capabilities, 
• Progress tracking, 
• Organization capabilities,
• Scheduling,
• Reporting,
• Resource management,
• Budgeting, 
• Integration,
• Customization, and 
• Support.

For a beautiful illustration, look at the table below:

So, let’s cover the best tools for project planning with the said features, including:

• Project management planning tool,
• Project scheduling tool,
• Project tracking tool,
• Team collaboration tool,
• Project collaboration tool, and
• Project finance and accounting tool.

Plaky — best for project management planning

To organize and plan your workflow, you can use Plaky, an intuitive and colorful task management tool.

Personally speaking, Plaky allows me to organize and plan my tasks and track their progress across aptly named columns.

With Plaky, I can see who works on what, which things are in progress, and where they are in the process. The app keeps me connected with my team, and everyone is informed about the status of tasks. For example, a Plaky card may have the following groups of tasks:

• To do,
• Doing,
• Review, and
• Ready to publish.

The amazing thing about Plaky is that it can be applied to various industries, and you can make custom columns that suit your projects.

Apart from that, I benefited from Plaky’s flexibility, as it helped me design my work with filters, boards, tags, and due dates sections. It’s an all-in-one task management tool.

Google Calendar — best for project scheduling 

To schedule your workflow, you can use Google Calendar, a simple scheduling calendar that comes with your Gmail account. 

Speaking as a frequent user of Google Calendar, the app lets me schedule video calls and communicate with my team with the goal of successfully finishing any project.

With Google Calendar, I never miss an appointment since I receive reminders about upcoming activities. Apart from the said features, this planning tool allows me to:

• Create to-do lists, 
• Customize my calendar with add-ons, 
• Tailor events to my liking, and more.

Another thing I enjoy about Google Calendar is that the app never has any glitches and I can mark my events as Personal, Work, or any other tag I choose. 

Finally, Google Calendar allows me to have a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly view of my events.

Clockify — best for tracking time spent on projects

To properly manage and track your time spent on projects, you can use Clockify, a time tracking tool that lets you have unlimited users and projects. With the free version of the app, you get plenty of powerful features, such as project status, project access, import projects, and more.

When I started using Clockify a while back, I was surprised by how easily I could manage and track projects in a convenient, transparent, and user-friendly way. What’s more, I was able to track my team’s time and progress, and also:

• Set budgeting, and 
• Make precise time estimates for projects.

Today, Clockify allows my team to track the time we spend on project-related tasks as we work (or after we’re done working) and generate reports of our time use. Finally, I can employ the reports to identify where we could make improvements in our workflow.

For even more insights, Clockify gives me the opportunity to export projects into Excel and CSV formats. This capability is especially useful for the times when I need to compare the performance of one project to another. With this Clockify feature, I can get data like names, status, visibility, tasks, project manager, and many more.

Pumble — best for team communication

Pumble is an efficient team communication and collaboration tool. It also has a free version which is available for an unlimited number of users and with free message history. When I need to tie my projects to my business communication, I can give my colleagues a quick call or attach project-relevant files in a flash. 

Personally speaking, Pumble allows me to have private 1-on-1 conversations with my team members using:

• Private channels, 
• Group chats, 
• User groups, or 
• Public conversations. 

I can simply create a channel, add members, and customize it to my liking.

With Pumble, I can centralize all communication with my team in one place — and easily refer to past conversations, links, files, and filter by channel or person. I can also customize my personal profile information and turn notifications off, which I mostly need for deep work sessions.

Finally, Pumble lets me send voice messages, and the Google add-on allows me to schedule Pumble video calls in Google Calendar.

Smartsheet — best for data entry and analysis

To collaborate with your team on data entry and statistical analysis, you can use Smartsheet, an online spreadsheet with many capabilities. I’ve been using Smartsheet for a little while, but I have noticed that it’s very useful to:

• Add and calculate data, 
• Create charts, 
• Share data with collaborators, and 
• Analyze project statistics.

In the app, multiple team members can manipulate data simultaneously — and all my changes are saved instantly and automatically.

What’s more, Smartsheet is a bit more intuitive and user-friendly than Google Sheets. Another interesting aspect of Smartsheet is that it lets me automate workflows for repetitive tasks.

Finally, I can also see how the app helps me better collaborate on sorting data and reporting on project budgets.

Xero — best for accounting and finance tasks

To handle your project-related finance and accounting tasks, you can use Xero, a piece of software. I’ve been exploring Xero for a short time, but I’ve found that it allows me to:

• Track income and expenses, 
• Manage invoices and inventory, and
• Analyze finances.

Xero also comes with other useful features that help me to produce in-depth financial reports and forecast cash flow. These are beneficial when I want to see when money is flowing in and out.

Apart from that, the app offers handy categories for Taxes and balances, Projects, Financial Performance, and others. 

Finally, Xero is a great way to compare months, quarters, and years — and see which projects have performed well. 

In any case, the app seems quite intuitive and easy to use, although I’m not a finance person per se.

Wrapping up: Use the right project management tools and techniques for the best outcomes

Before you start working on a project, think about the best project management strategies you can use for your work. Then, combine your chosen project management techniques with the right tools — for enhanced results.

If you follow the prescribed principles, you’ll:

• Speed up your workflow, 
• Maintain control over project procedures, and 
• Streamline your management process. 

As a result, you’ll finish faster and turn over a high-quality end product.

How do you want to proceed with implementing these project management tools and techniques? Drop us an email at blogfeedback@clockify.me for a chance to have your questions answered or your suggestions and tips featured in future updates of the post. Also, if you liked this blog post, share it with someone who might benefit from reading it.

• Forming, 
• Storming, 
• Norming, 
• Performing, and 
• Adjourning.

In fact, your team could consist of the best talent in the world. But, this means little if they don’t have a framework for working together — and that’s where the 5 stages of group development come into play.

In this blog post, you’ll learn everything you need to know about creating a high-performing team, including:

• What group development stages are,
• How this team development model increases cohesion,
• Which illustrative examples you can use every day, and more!

Without further ado, let’s get rolling!

What are the 5 stages of group development?

The stages of group development in organizational behavior and management comprise the theory of team development. In other words, it’s a group-forming model that consists of 5 distinct phases.

According to these stages of group development model, each group or team is likely to go through the following interconnected 5 phases during their joint work, including:

1. The Forming Stage — characterized by team orientation,
2. The Storming Stage — characterized by a power struggle,
3. The Norming Stage — characterized by cooperation, integration, and unity,
4. The Performing Stage — characterized by overall synergy, and
5. The Adjourning Stage — characterized by a sense of closure.

Now, these 5 stages are vital to help you anticipate your team effectiveness. Simply put, that’s your ability to be efficient and productive with your work, both as individuals and as a group.

The diagram shows that the effectiveness of a team or group fluctuates over time. 

In other words, the energy levels reach their ultimate low in the Storming Stage because the struggle to find the leader and build some structure creates frustration and mood fluctuations. That’s why this stage is often called The Power Struggle Stage. 

In turn, the level of effectiveness reaches its peak in the Performing Stage, when team members use well-oiled workflows and communicate feedback effectively to make the project smooth sailing. This stage is sometimes dubbed The Synergy Stage.

Who invented stages of group development?

The renowned Bruce W. Tuckman — a researcher at the American Psychological Association — established a 4-step model in 1965 in his landmark paper titled Developmental sequence in small groups.

In Tuckman’s words, the listed stages are obligatory for a team to:

• Grow and progress,
• Face challenges and problems,
• Find solutions for challenges and problems,
• Plan and tweak their individual and group workflows, and
• Reach their expected project goals.

Yet, this model was initially known as the “Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing Model.” Experts often refer to this original model as the 4 stages of group development.

In fact, Tuckman only added the fifth, Adjourning Stage, together with another expert, Mary Ann C. Jensen, in 1977. The newly crafted review paper was titled Stages of Small Group Development, Revisited — and it became what we today refer to as the Tuckman model of team development.

What industries benefit from Tuckman’s model

Anyone can harness the power of the 5 stages of group development in pretty much every scenario, including:

• Tech companies, 
• University projects, and
• Home refurbishment.

Interestingly, the 5 stages of group development model can even be useful in the theater. 

For example, a 2019 paper by an adjunct assistant professor at Queen’s University, Rebecca Stroud Stasel, found that some people feel a strong attachment to leadership. In fact, she argues that theater team members can “discover facets of themselves through leadership processes.”

Furthermore, Rebecca Stroud Stasel cites that people have natural, deeply seated tendencies for either leadership or following leaders.

In other words, any team setting that requires high performance can benefit from using this model.

As a result, we can conclude that the Tuckman model spans culture, politics, and any other social sphere of our lives. 

The stages of group development with examples, explained

By implementing the 5 stages of group development, teams can reap vast benefits due to the clear-cut structure and step-by-step approach.

In fact, each phase plays a critical role in the team’s progress — whether in short, medium, or long-term goals. That’s where Tuckman’s stages of group development yield immense results.

Here, I’ll provide plenty of helpful examples for each of the 5 stages of group development, including:

• Forming,
• Storming,
• Norming,
• Performing, and
• Adjourning.

Let’s get going with the Forming stage.

Stage #1 — The Forming Stage

The Forming Stage is about team orientation. 

Everyone is just getting to know one another. Likewise, they are overly polite to each other because they are looking to be accepted among this new group of people.

For the same reasons, they may also be a bit uncertain and anxious.

They are also overly positive about the project because it’s new — and new is always exciting.

At this initial stage, a glimpse of a future project leader may emerge. For illustration, the person with the largest knowledge about the project’s subject takes unofficial charge.

Yet, the position of this unofficial leader may also be occupied by the strongest authority figure in the team.

So, here are a few signs your team has entered the Forming Stage:

• You understand the purpose of the group,
• You understand the project goals,
• You’re talking about team members’ skills,
• You’re assigning tasks, responsibilities, and individual roles,
• You’re laying down ground rules about team management,
• You’re laying down some ground rules about team workflow, and
• You’re discussing team time management and project timelines.

In fact, a 2022 article published in the International Journal of Technology and Design Education has uncovered a few interesting aspects that can help any team on their journey from the Forming Stage to the Performing Stage.

For example, the same article’s author — Pınar Kaygan from the Art Academy of Latvia — has found that positive social relations and humor can play a major role in team success during all stages of group development. 

Similarly, she has established that teams should use warm-up activities — like physical exercise and mind games — to ensure a smooth transition from the Forming Stage to the Norming Stage.

Now, let’s explore an example of a Forming Stage.

Example for Stage #1 — Forming 

To illustrate the 5 stages of team development, let’s look at the example of Daisy, Adam, Daniel, and Stella. The 4 comprise a group of marketing-savvy professionals assigned to tackle a content production project. They have to write, edit, optimize, and publish 10 long-form articles on the topics that matter to the company’s bottom line.

The deadline? 3 months! 

Daisy is an experienced SEO specialist, Adam and Daniel work as longtime writers, and Stella brings to the table her editing skills. 

The group — not yet a team — needs to work together to make their content rank high on the first page of Google. It’s part of an attempt to draw thousands of new readers to the company’s website. 

At the start, SEO specialist Daisy is unsure if she needs to ask editor Stella about the keywords she wants to suggest for the content. But Stella gives direct guidance about the direction the team needs to go — and she sticks to it.

Due to her rank as the editor, Stella takes the lead and suggests the outline for the content plan. Yet, writers Adam and Daniel think they should take a different angle. At this point, Adam and Daniel form a clique against Stella — although everyone’s excessive politeness makes it seem as though nothing’s wrong.

At the same time, SEO specialist Daisy takes the backseat as she thinks it’s unnecessary for her to get involved in this discussion.

Everybody on the team is all ears, and they exchange opinions — but do their best to avoid direct confrontation.

Overview of the Forming Stage 

To make things more tangible, here’s a brief overview of the behaviors, feelings, group needs, and leadership needs in the Forming Stage.

Stage #2 — The Storming Stage

The Storming Stage brings about a power struggle.

So, team orientation is over — and team members are likely to forgo the politeness they exercised in the first stage.

Instead, they adopt an open exchange of ideas and opinions and learn about what it’s like to work together. This can lead to conflict, disputes, and competition, depending on their:

• Expectations, 
• Workflows, 
• Ideas, and 
• Opinions.

Sometimes, subgroups may form around particular opinions or authority figures. In fact, all these are clear signs that team cohesion has not happened yet. Unless the team is patient and tolerant of these differences, the team and project can’t succeed.

Now, here’s where you may wonder — well, if it’s such an unpleasant affair, can the Storming Stage of group development ever be avoided?

In all honesty, some teams may skip this step altogether, hoping to avoid unpleasant conflict and the clash of ideas.

However, you won’t get far with your project by sweeping vital questions and potential problems under the rug.

So, let’s list a few signs that suggest your team has entered the Storming stage:

• Dominant team members emerge,
• Less dominant team members find their way to the background,
• Questions about leadership and authority emerge,
• Concerns about rules, policies, and norms emerge, and
• Questions about evaluation and review emerge.

With that in mind, this is probably one of the most unstable of the 5 stages of group development.

To clarify how this step could develop, let’s explore a real-life example of the Storming Stage.

Example for Stage #2 — Storming

Now, this is where things get tense for Adam, Daisy, Daniel, and Stella as they set their plan into motion — and find their opinions and personalities are at odds with each other.

Writers Adam and Daniel confront the editor Stella head-on, expressing their frustration with the way she handled their ideas in the previous stage. Luckily, Stella sees she has taken unnecessary control over the process and tries to course-correct by establishing clearer expectations.

At this point, everyone agrees on the direction articles need to go to better resonate with a larger audience.

SEO specialist Daisy waits for the first drafts written by Adam and Daniel to check them against SEO rules. 

Once the first drafts arrive, problems arise once again.

Editor Stella expresses her frustration because she thinks the content is far from what the audience expects to read. The comments section of the first drafts gets lengthy, as Adam and Daniel get defensive because of some of Stella’s suggestions — they go back and forth a couple of rounds, leaving Daisy with nothing to do for a whole day.

Eventually, Adam and Daniel agree to accept most of Stella’s suggestions — and they continue writing.

Once the first articles are finished, the review process brings a couple of more disagreements. Daisy has a couple of notes on the sources and anchors used — this time, Adam agrees, but Daniel gets defensive again.

Finally, revisions are made, and Stella is happy with the first articles — she tells the writers to continue along similar lines in the future. Yet, she also asks them to try to be less witty as they are writing for a serious B2B audience.

Sure, moods ebb and flow, but everyone is slowly getting on the same page.

Overview of the Storming Stage

To make the story more concrete, here’s a brief overview of the behaviors, feelings, group needs, and leadership needs in the Storming Stage.

Stage #3 — The Norming Stage

The Norming Stage brings about a sense of cooperation, integration, and unity.

Of course, you can only move on to this more pleasant stage if you’ve addressed and answered all the vital questions from the previous, Storming Stage.

The team is already used to each other’s workflows, and most future disputes and conflicts generally become easier to overcome. The official (or unofficial) team leader takes a back seat much more than in the previous stages. As a result, the individual team members are given their chance to shine.

In some cases, the Norming Stage may often be intersected by the Storming Stage. It may even revert to it unless the team makes the effort to communicate problems — and then learn from these interactions.

Here are a few signs that show your team has entered the Norming stage:

• Group interaction becomes easier,
• The team becomes more cooperative on the whole, and
• Team productivity and group performance increase.

Example for Stage #3 — Norming

Adam, Daisy, Daniel, and Stella are now mostly satisfied with where things are headed.

The team — no longer just a group — learns about each other’s strengths and weaknesses. More importantly, they realize how to harness their strengths and work arround their weaknesses.

Writers Adam and Daniel start to feel confident about their work and align well with Stella’s and Daisy’s guidelines for writing SEO-optimized content that resonates with their audience. In turn, the whole team is more open to:

• Feedback, 
• Criticism, 
• Opinions, and 
• Ideas. 

For example, Stella allows the rest of the team to suggest topics and angles for new articles more often. 

At the same time, strict team structure diminishes.

For example, when a few typos emerge, although it’s not her job, Daisy corrects them in WordPress without accusing the writers or the editor of the mistakes. 

Similar problems arise occasionally — but the way the team handles them creates an atmosphere of trust and confidence. It’s no longer a game of cat and mouse where team members try to catch each other’s errors and criticize them.

Everyone starts acting more amicably, as they are now used to each other’s work styles and points of view. 

Their routine now includes a team lunch every day at 2 p.m. During one lunch on an especially productive day, everyone even gets an adorable nickname – for example, Adam becomes the Godly Scribe, and Daisy becomes their SEO Wizard. 

On another occasion, Daniel invents the team’s anthem — which reflects everyone’s tendency to arrive to meetings 2 minutes after the agreed time and then apologize about it too much.

Everything seems to be going well — both with how the team members interact and what they manage to accomplish.

Overview of the Norming Stage

To provide a better summary of the behaviors, feelings, group needs, and leadership needs in the Norming Stage, check out the table below.

Stage #4 — The Performing Stage

The Performing Stage is what your team is after. In this stage, you and your team get to enjoy synergy — a state where work flows smoothly.

If your team has reached this level, you’re on a clear path to success. You have a mature, well-organized group now fully focused on reaching the project goals established in the Forming Stage.

So, team members have grown fully accustomed to each other’s workflows. They respect and acknowledge each other’s skills, talents, and experience. In fact, they trust that everyone involved will do their share of the work.

Bear in mind that not all teams reach this stage. Some may falter at the earlier stages, due to the inability to properly address differences between team members or address problems as they emerge.

Here are some signs that show your team has entered the Performing Stage:

• The organization in your team is now well-established,
• The structure of roles and responsibilities is clear, and
• The team has a tested, mature, and calm way of handling issues.

To get to the bottom of things, I sat down with Brian Townsend, a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent, who was in charge of supervising and overseeing large teams. He claims that psychological safety is the number 1 marker of a group of people who make great things happen: 

“A high-performing team is one where its members feel safe, can freely contribute, share opinions or concerns without judgment or fear of reprisal, can ask for help, report mistakes, and be themselves. Morale is higher, productivity is higher.”

With that said, let’s continue with our story.

Example for Stage #4 — Performing

With everything planned out, Daisy, Adam, Daniel, and Stella get to serious work.

At this stage, the 4-strong team makes things happen with plenty of empathy. 

Adam and Daniel edit each other’s articles, while Stella expresses her want to learn more about SEO best practices from Daisy.

In turn, Daisy helps with content ideas. Her ideas are sometimes different from Stella’s — to everyone’s delight, as this only helps when the writers reach a creative dead end.

Work starts to flow almost seamlessly. Sure, their opinions still clash from time to time, but they appreciate each other too much to let small disagreements get in the way.

Going forward, the team expands on their inside jokes, enjoys long sessions of deep work, and creates the perfect working environment.

Everyone’s pouring their heart and soul into the content production project. 

Yet, sometimes they have trouble tracking who does what — just because everybody is so involved.

At one point, Daisy, Adam, Daniel, and Stella make task tracking with an app an inseparable part of their workflow — they track the time they spend on separate tasks to see how better to organize their time on the project as they near its completion.

Finally, the team reaches the last 2 articles in the 10-piece series. 

The 3-month deadline is quickly approaching. 

The rest of the team gets feedback from SEO Wizard Daisy about the high performance of most articles, helping the company rank for the most relevant keywords. Everybody gets a bonus.

However, something’s not quite right, and everyone can sense it — unexpectedly, tension builds as the final stage looms large.

Overview of the Performing Stage

To make things more tangible, here’s a quick overview of the behaviors, feelings, group needs, and leadership needs in the Performing Stage.

Stage #5 — The Adjourning Stage

The Adjourning Stage triggers a sense of closure.

The project is completed, with most or all project goals reached.

And, it’s probably time for the team members to go their separate ways.

Now, if the team members have grown close and accustomed to working with each other, they may mourn that it’s now time to move on and work with other people.

In fact, they may even mourn the fact that the project is ending and that they need to move on to work on other projects.

The Adjourning Stage is usually associated with short-term projects, where team members are expected to disband over time. However, even “permanent” teams working on long-term projects may get gradually disbanded — as a result of a company’s organizational restructuring.

So, here are a few signs your team has entered the Adjourning stage:

• Workload slowly diminishes,
• Most of the project goals are completed,
• You’re working on leftover tasks, and
• Some team members are gradually allocated to different teams and projects.

Interestingly, a management lecturer at the University of Adelaide, Ankit Agarwal, published a 2022 paper on a phase that precedes the Forming Stage. But how does the Forming Stage relate to the Adjourning Stage?

In a nutshell, the author of the said paper argues that people often harbor negative or positive attitudes toward other group members before even a conversation has started group-wide. In fact, he asserts that the Adjourning Stage from a previous group plays an active role in the Forming Stage of a new group. 

That’s why, he says, managers or team leaders must discover sources of conflict or discomfort at the outset. 

With this interesting detail in mind, let’s continue our real-life example of the Adjourning Stage!

Example for Stage #5 — Adjourning

In this stage, the team feels a dip in productivity — because there isn’t much left to do. 

The 3-month content project is mostly done, and everyone’s focus dissolves. They recently published all 10 articles and received praise from upper management.

With little left to do, Daisy, Adam, Daniel, and Stella decide to throw a party for good times’ sake. They’re all radiantly happy — but also feel sad that their project is ending. 

They also grieve that they won’t get to see each other regularly — because they’ve grown quite close.

As luck would have it, Adam finds a senior writing job abroad, and Daisy’s manager gets her relocated to a different city. So, they both need to move on from their current office.

In the meantime, the team quickly makes a few edits that seem useful for ranking the articles even better. The project is officially completed.In the end, Stella, Adam, Daniel, and Daisy go their separate ways, capping off the project as a complete success in every way. It feels like the end of an era.

Overview of the Adjourning Stage

To sum up, here’s a quick overview of the behaviors, feelings, group needs, and leadership needs in the Adjourning Stage.

Why are the 5 stages of group development important?

Now, what is the importance of group development we just talked about?

Well, Tuckman’s model teaches us that teams are:

• Ever-moving and vibrant, and 
• Governed by unspoken norms and a natural order of events.

At first, people are led by their natural desire to be liked by others and accepted among their peers. After all, when you have to cooperate with someone for a longer period, it’s easier to do it if you get along well — and that’s what the stages of group development get right every single time.

As time goes by, sub-groups form within a team, opinions, and personalities clash somewhat. In fact, some teams may even get stuck in the Storming Stage, unwilling to talk about their problems.

But stagnation is always worse than conflict. Instead of maintaining a facade of politeness, the 5 stages of group development can help you: 

• Identify your problems, 
• Analyze your problems, and 
• Talk about your problems. 

In addition to handling conflicts, thanks to group development, you’ll need to determine workflows, follow them, and constantly tweak and improve them as you go.

As a natural consequence of it all, your project is bound to progress at a steady rate. In contrast, mismatched, uncompromising teams can only produce incomplete, confusing projects — if they produce anything at all.

Speaking of ends, the Adjourning Stage is the bittersweet cherry on top of each team and project, and it will happen whether you want it or not. It’s a great opportunity to reflect on your accomplishments and think about what you learned.

Powerful tips on how to facilitate proper group development

Now that you understand the “What?” and “Why?” behind the stages of group development, here’s the “How?” 

I assembled a list of quick tips of my own and advice from experts that will help managers, leaders, and teams ensure that each stage plays out as it should. 

Forming Stage tips

Let’s start from the beginning! 

Here are a few powerful pieces of advice on how to approach the Forming Stage:

• Clarify the expected stages of group development right from the start. This approach helps you highlight that conflicts and problems throughout the project are normal — not a sign of failure.
• Set clear and attainable objectives for individuals, to help direct them towards their individual goals within a project.
• Establish clear and attainable objectives for the team, to help direct them towards their ultimate project goal.

In fact, the Chief Marketing Officer at SplitMetrics.com, Olga Noha, told me that navigating the 5 stages of group development can pose tremendous challenges. But she said that we should try to be open to whatever’s coming our way.

“Welcome the uncertain. It might be unsettling not to have a clear idea of how the team will evolve, but it’s equally a chance to try out diverse dynamics and roles.”

Storming Stage tips

As soon as you get the basics out of the way, you are entering the Storming Stage. To help you out on this bumpy road, here are some insightful tools to handle this stage:

• Address and resolve conflicts and problems as soon as they arise.
• Coach all team members to be assertive, and stand up for their ideas and opinions in a positive and calm way.
• Provide extra support and guidance to help team members — who are less secure about voicing their opinions and ideas — stand their ground.
• Build trust among team members, by encouraging honesty, transparency, and accountability.

Since the Storming Stage can be infused with power struggles, I sat down with a leadership coach, Alexis Haselberger, to dive deeper. She told me that we must do our best to name the problems and address them properly — especially at this point, where we risk getting stuck in this stage.

“It can be very helpful to simply call out what’s happening. What stage are we in? What does that mean for us? This places the blame for any friction on the stage and not on individuals.”

Norming Stage tips

Next up, the Norming Stage can be a tricky phase as your team could slide into the previous, Storming Stage. So, tread carefully!

On that note, let’s look at a few tried and tested tips to ease your way into the Norming Stage:

• Arrange at least 1 team-building activity per week or month (or whatever works best), to help people grow closer as a team.
• Encourage off-work get-togethers to inspire group cohesion.

The former DEA agent turned team development expert, Brian Townsend, had some nuggets of wisdom to share on this point as well. He said that nothing trumps accountability:

“Everyone should be encouraged to take personal responsibility and ownership — and openly address any concerns they have. By this time, the team leader should have developed this type of safe environment. If mistakes are made, members should be encouraged to report them so solutions can be developed and everyone can benefit from lessons learned.”

Performing Stage tips

The most productive of all, the Performing Stage yields immense benefits for the tasks and goals you established in the first 3 stages. 

In the Performing Stage, your team — well — performs at its optimum level, creating near-unshakable harmony and consistent teamwork.

Now, let’s explore a few tips to skyrocket your Performing Stage:

• Delegate tasks appropriately and in line with the skills, experience, and interests of individual team members.
• Track the time you spend on individual tasks to build daily and weekly reports of the time you spend on the project. You can then further analyze your reports to see how much time you need to finish individual project tasks and whether there is room for improvement in that time.

Surprisingly, leadership coach Alexis Haselberger told me that spending lots of time in this stage is, actually, not an issue.

”There’s no problem getting ‘stuck’ in this stage. If you’re here, that’s great!”

Adjourning Stage tips

Last but not least, the Adjourning Stage — often called the Mourning Stage for obvious reasons — ends the whole project cycle. Depending on the leader of the group, the Adjourning Stage can either be a leeway into future endeavors or it could impact future collaboration. 

In any case, it’s the saddest of all the 5 stages of group development.

With that in mind, here are a few time-tested tips on how to make the Mourning Stage less about mourning and more about optimism toward the future:

• Recognize and celebrate the team’s achievements to make sure your work as a team ends on a positive note. This is important considering that at least some of you may work together in the future once again.
• Share your thoughts and feelings with all team members to make sure no underlying issues remain unresolved. It’s critical to have everyone on the same page at the very end of the project.

Wrapping up: Developing a thriving team requires constant feedback and effective listening 

Working in a team or group is a complex process that takes time and effort — and plenty of patience. 

To develop a thriving, effective team, follow the 5 distinct stages of group development:

• Forming — marked by team orientation,
• Storming — marked by power struggles,
• Norming — marked by cooperation, integration, and unity,
• Performing — marked by synergy or smooth sailing, and
• Adjourning — marked by a sense of closure and dissolution.

The last stage was added only in a later review paper. Still, we can clearly see how the Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing model is deficient without the final, Adjourning Stage.

Anyhow, I recommend that you use each stage to learn and understand something new about your teammates and work on improving your workflows. Finally, use this knowledge to help you overcome problems and reach your project goals with success.

Tuckman’s stages of group development can do wonders for you personally and professionally — I promise!

What are your thoughts on the 5 stages of group development, and do you plan to implement this framework in your work or life? Drop us a line at blogfeedback@clockify.me for a chance to be featured in this or one of our future articles. And, if you liked this blog post, share it with someone who might find it useful.

But how do you stay on top of everyone’s hours worked amid this mess? 

Chasing the bottom line quickly turns into a hurdle if you want to track work hours for dozens or hundreds of staff members.

And that’s probably why you’re here — you need a dedicated clock-in clock-out system to make things run smoothly.

So, this article will give you some potent advice on how to:

• Set up a clock-in clock-out system, 
• Track attendance with a kiosk, timer app, timesheet, or auto-tracker, and
• Make the best use of 5 kinds of clock-in/clock-out reports.

Without further ado, let’s get your time clock system up and running!

What is a clock-in clock-out system?

With a reliable clock-in clock-out system, you get to track attendance with zero friction. For example, you can see when employees checked in and out of work — and the duration of their breaks.

In real life, a clock-in clock-out system can take many shapes, like:

• Time card,
• Manual time clock,
• Time kiosk, and
• Web-based platform (e.g., apps or browsers).

In line with 2023 time-tracking statistics, of all employees who track their time at work, as many as 25% use physical spreadsheets. At best, analog time-tracking is outdated and limited in terms of capabilities. In other words, a physical spreadsheet can only do so much — for example, it can’t track how productive your employees have been.

So, to better track productivity, you probably need a digital clock-in clock-out system. Let’s explore why that’s the case.

Why do you need a clock-in clock-out system?

A well-intentioned but skeptical reader might ask at this point: I’ve been using physical spreadsheets for years. So, do I really need an employee clock now? 

The short answer is: yes, if you’d like to increase productivity and promote accountability.

According to a recent Forbes article, employees who track their hours worked helped reduce payroll errors, costs, and compliance issues. Similarly, one survey found that around 60% of companies with remote employees use apps to track employee productivity.

Based on the research, your team might set itself up for failure without a dedicated employee clock-in system. 

To that effect, a few sectors where clocking systems are exceedingly useful include:

• Advertising and marketing,
• Computer and IT,
• Construction, 
• Business and finance,
• Manufacturing,
• Legal, and plenty of others.

So, you may think: “How do I get started with a clock-in clock-out system right now?” 

Let’s take a closer look!

What is an app where you can clock in and clock out?

An app where you can clock in and clock out allows you to track your employees’ attendance seamlessly. 

Unlike time cards and manual time clocks (solely fit to track attendance), web-based apps are a superior way to track attendance and time because of plenty of additional features.

If your clock-in clock-out system is web-based, you can keep tabs on many items, including:

• Vacations,
• Overtime, 
• Sick leave, 
• Breaks, and more.

However, if you’re about to introduce a digital clock-in clock-out system, you need to make sure it’ll work on all your devices. 

For example, an app like Clockify works on:

• Browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, 
• Desktop apps: Mac, Windows, Linux, and
• Mobile apps: Android and iOS.

In any case, test your app of choice on all platforms before making it a permanent part of your everyday work life.

What are the options for clocking in and out at work?

Most attendance-tracking apps offer a myriad of options for clocking in and out at work. Yet, some lack an intuitive interface, and others make clocking in a clunky process.

On the bright side of things, Clockify lets you see every employee on the clock with a click or two. For illustration, you can choose between 4 options, including:

• Kiosk,
• Timer app, 
• Timesheet, and
• Auto tracker.

So, let’s check out each option for tracking time and attendance.

Option 1: Kiosk

The question as old as time — or at least as old as the digital time clock — how to clock in at work without too much friction? One of the simplest ways is to create a time clock kiosk.

First, you set up a time clock kiosk on any device you want (like a tablet or phone), which people can use to clock time with their PIN code. 

Let’s explore how an admin can set up a time clock kiosk and how employees can use it.

How can admins set up a Clockify time clock kiosk?

As an admin, you need to go through a few simple steps to set up a kiosk, including:

• Creating a free Clockify account,
• Enabling Kiosk mode in Settings,
• Adding employees,
• Creating a kiosk and choosing who can use it,
• Placing any device (like a tablet) at the employee entrance, and
• Launching the kiosk by opening a link to it in a browser.

How can employees use the Clockify time clock kiosk?

As an employee, you go through 4 simple steps to use the time clock kiosk, including:

• Selecting your profile,
• Entering your PIN code,
• Choosing “Clock in” or “Start break,” and
• Tapping “Clock out” or “Finish break” when finished with your work or breaks.

That’s it — that’s the drill.

The kiosk is super simple to set up and use. Also, if you need a kiosk in multiple locations, the upgrade is much more affordable than what other time clock apps charge.

Option 2: Timer app

Apart from using a kiosk for clocking in and out, employees can also track their attendance with the timer app. Here’s how it works:

• Start by creating a free Clockify account, and then
• Invite employees by adding their email.

After that, the employees should:

• Accept the invite,
• Download a mobile app, and
• Log in and start/stop the timer as they work.

This option is great for people who work at a desk or are out on the field. All you have to do is invite them — and they are free to track time as they work without the employer having to set up the equipment.

Finally, the timer app is particularly useful for remote employees, as it lets them enter time on whichever device they prefer and for as many projects as they need.

For the icing on the cake, the Clockify timer even works offline. In fact, you can easily see how your day went and get a glimpse of all your activities in one place.

Option 3: Timesheet

If you don’t need to track productivity in real-time, your employees can simply fill their digital timesheets at the end of the day or week, detailing what they worked on and for how long. Workers can do this in a timesheet app. Simply follow these steps:

• Create a free Clockify account, and
• Invite employees by adding their email.

After that, the employees need to:

• Accept the invite,
• Open the timesheet in a browser, and
• Select what they worked on and enter time under the given day column.

The timesheet method is the simplest of them all. All you have to do is add people, and they log time on their own. Although not as accurate as the timer method, this technique is the easiest for employees to add to their everyday workflow.

You can even set up automatic timesheet reminders if people forget to log their time. Plus, managers can approve timesheets before sending them to payroll.

Interestingly, you can click on Create template to populate your new timesheets with the most common work activities from the past. Finally, you can click on Copy last week to easily copy time and activities from your previous timesheets.

Option 4: Auto tracker

If you like the idea of a timer, but employees find it a hassle, they can turn on the automatic tracker and add their time at the end of the day based on the recorded data. 

To do that, simply follow these steps:

• Create a free Clockify account, and
• Invite employees by adding their email.

After that, the employees should:

• Download and install the desktop app (Mac, Windows, or Linux), and
• Open and enable Auto tracker in the desktop app.

At the end of the day, an employee can create time entries based on tracked activities.

The desktop app and browser extension come with some additional features, such as:

• Automatic time reminders that notify you when you forget to start the timer,
• Idle detection that lets you know when you forget to stop the timer, and
• Automatic start/stop the timer when you turn your computer/browser on and off.

Clock-in and clock-out reporting with Clockify

Reports are everywhere these days. You need to file one for pretty much everything you do during the workday — and clock-in clock-out reports are no different. 

Clock-in-and-out reporting is critical to accurately track work hours, and it benefits: 

• Managers, 
• Employees, and
• Clients.

In other words, everyone stands to profit from a neatly packed set of data about how employees spend their time — no matter the sector they’re in. 

That’s why we’ll explore 5 types of reports in Clockify, including:

• Real-time activity,
• Attendance report,
• Summary report,
• Detailed report, and
• Weekly report.

To be completely honest, a clock-in clock-out system is only as useful as its reports. So, let’s get to a few of those beauties!

#1: See real-time activity in the Team Dashboard

Whatever your coworkers are up to, you can quickly check their status with a single click in the Team Dashboard. After all, that’s why we call it real-time activity.

You can open Team Dashboard in your browser from anywhere to see:

• Who’s currently working on what,
• What someone’s last activity was,
• Who tracked the most time, and 
• A quick breakdown of each person’s time.

If you enable GPS tracking, you can also see locations when people start and end time — as well as the route they traveled while clocked in.

Also, the location feature is particularly helpful for industries like construction, landscaping, and healthcare. In other words, this functionality is most useful for field workers.

#2: Create an Attendance report to record availability

Attendance reports show you the daily attendance of all your employees, including:

• When they started and ended their workday,
• How much they worked,
• How long they were on break, and
• Whether they had overtime or time off.

You can also use filters and different date ranges to answer specific questions like:

• Who had overtime last week and on which days?
• What did this particular person’s previous month look like, broken down by day?
• Who started working before 9 a.m. and was on a break shorter than 30 minutes?

All this data can help workforce management learn who is working too much and who is underperforming. In turn, employees will be able to stay productive and healthy.

#3: Make a Summary report to look into estimated vs. tracked time 

The Summary report lets you summarize all time cards by:

• User, 
• Project, 
• Location, 
• Time period, or 
• Any other dimension you want.

You can also filter reports and share them with others — as well as export them as PDF, CSV, or Excel and send them to payroll.

For the bull’s eye, Summary reports give you a visual representation of estimated vs. tracked time. In turn, this feature helps you learn how to make better time estimates for future projects.

#4: Produce a Detailed report to get all details on performance

Visit the Detailed report to see all time clocks 1 by 1 — along with their start and end time.

If you’re an admin, you can also:

• Edit people’s time cards, 
• Add time for them, and
• Find uncategorized entries.

Equally useful, you can use one of 80+ Clockify integrations — like QuickBooks — to export data for payroll.

#5: Create a Weekly report to check who hasn’t logged work hours

The Weekly report shows you all time summarized by project and user in a classic timesheet format. For ease of use, you can sort the data by:

• Time, 
• Amount, 
• Cost, or 
• Profit per project or user.

Finally, the Weekly report lets you know about employees who haven’t logged any time in the last 7 days.

—

Now you’re familiar with 5 types of reports in Clockify. Next up, let’s check how to track overtime and breaks like a pro.

FAQ on clocking in and out

Your dedicated clock-in clock-out system shouldn’t be a hassle in your everyday work. In fact, you shouldn’t have to scroll through multiple pages on your app to find the option you need.

For this and other reasons, the next sections cover:

• How to track breaks in 3 simple steps,
• How to track overtime with a single click, and
• What’s the best way to set up your clock-in system.

Let’s get into it.

How to track breaks?

You can account for breaks in 3 ways, including:

• Enable the “Breaks” feature, and people will then have the “Start break” option when they open the kiosk.
• Have a “Break” project so people can create separate time entries for their breaks and associate them with the “Break” project.
• Create a “Break” tag so people can create a time entry and attach the “break” tag. Later, you can group time by tag or filter it out from work time.

Finally, you can differentiate between work and break time in reports — and filter them either by tag, project, or status.

How to track overtime?

If you need to see what time entries were made for overtime work, you can create an “overtime” tag. Once someone’s regular hours are finished, they can attach the “overtime” tag to all of their subsequent time entries.

If people use the timesheet to enter their work, they can switch to the time tracker, and there add tags and notes to the appropriate entries.

Later, you can run a report and group time by User or Tag. That lets you see who has how much overtime. You can also visit the Detailed report to learn which entries were created for overtime work.

If people forget to tag their entries as overtime, you can set up automatic reminders. Simply specify targets (like “8h/day”), and managers get an email when someone logs more time than their target.

What’s the best way to set up the clock-in clock-out system?

If you came to this article with the question “How to clock in and out at work?” — we hope you got everything you needed to set up your own time clock.

Yet, the best way of setting up a check-in check-out system depends on your business needs and your employees.

For example, setting up a clock-in kiosk on your tablet is the best option if you’re in a fast-moving environment and don’t want to bother people with installing an app. 

In fact, a clock-in kiosk is by far the most convenient option for on-site workers since it allows them to log their work hours from a joint device. For example, those who can benefit the most from this tracking option include employees working in:

• Restaurants, 
• Factories, and
• Construction sites.

Still, suppose people come to the workplace every day and perform job duties at their computers. In this case, you can invite them as users in Clockify — and they can personally log their hours at the end of the day by:

• Filling their weekly timesheets, or
• Creating time cards with start/end times.

As you near the end of this article, here are a few practical tips to introduce a sound clock-in clock-out system at work:

1. Specify time-tracking goals to learn why you need a time clock,
2. Pick the software that works best for your team, 
3. Submit timesheets daily or weekly for optimal results, and
4. Introduce an overtime policy to make it official.

With these insights, you’re ready to make your clock-in clock-out system an impenetrable fortress to guard your work productivity.

Wrap-up: Introduce a clock-in clock-out system to skyrocket productivity and accountability

The list of forces that sap work performance of its glory is endless. 

Yet, a dedicated clock-in clock-out system takes care of most unproductive behaviors by offering easy ways to track employee attendance and productivity.

To recap how clock-in systems work and how to integrate them into your daily routine, here are 2 pointers:

• Track work hours, breaks, and overtime with a kiosk, timer app, or timesheet, and
• Keep tabs on productivity with attendance, summary, detailed, and weekly reports.

Whenever you get in a rut with your team’s productivity or accountability, remember that a reliable clock-in clock-out system does wonders for millions of people worldwide — and it can do the same for your team.

Have any clock-in clock-out tips, suggestions, or questions? Drop us an email at blogfeedback@clockify.me for a chance to have your questions answered or your suggestions and tips featured in future updates of the post. Also, if you liked this blog post, share it with someone you think might be interested in reading it.

To find the perfect tools, I examined many of the best productivity apps for Mac and settled on the 15 that I found improved my workflow and productivity the most.

Let’s get started.

Clockify — best for tracking time at work

Clockify is a free time tracker and timesheet app that lets you automatically track time while working on tasks — or manually log the time you’ve spent on tasks using timesheets. It’s perfect if you need an easy way to track billable hours for payroll or find out how productive you really are at work.

Clockify for Mac lets me track the time I spend on my activities directly from my desktop. What’s more, I can associate my time entries with projects, tasks, tags, and billability status — for easier management.

Once I start tracking time with Clockify, I can:

• Run reports based on the time I’ve tracked,
• Manage my projects, and
• Have my tracked billable hours calculated automatically.

Why is Clockify best for tracking time at work?

Clockify is best for tracking time because it lets me easily organize my work hours by allocating enough time to complete all tasks — and take necessary breaks.

As a content writer, Clockify allows me to see how much of my work time is spent on writing, editing, designing, or doing other work-related tasks. For example, if writing 1 article took me 5 hours and another a lot longer, I can easily detect such anomalies and make corrections to my work habits.

The highlights of Clockify’s Mac app include implementing the Pomodoro technique and tracking breaks. Here’s how it works:

• I start the Pomodoro timer when I start working on a task,
• After the time period I’ve set myself passes (like 25 minutes), I get a notification reminding me to take a 5-minute break from work. 

This way, I’m more productive because I let my brain recharge and get back to work refreshed after the break. 

Another handy feature in Clockify’s Mac app is the ability to use the Auto tracker. With this feature, the app starts automatically recording my work hours when:

• The computer wakes up,
• The computer unlocks, or
• The app starts. 

With the Auto tracker, I don’t need to worry about forgetting to start my timer every workday. That way, I can solely focus on my work. Here’s how to set preferences for the Auto tracker and Pomodoro:

What struck me the most about Clockify was that everything is neatly packed, without unnecessary distractions or fluff.

Clockify’s pros

After using the app for a few years, here are the biggest pros of using Clockify I’ve found:

• Free plan with unlimited users and unlimited time tracking,
• Useful dashboards and timesheets to get a glimpse into team productivity, and
• Easy to set up and use immediately.

Clockify’s cons

Now, let’s look at a few cons of using Clockify:

• I would like the Mac app to offer more features, like in the web version,
• The timer keeps going when I forget to stop it manually, and
• Project scheduling is only available on paid plans.

What’s new in Clockify?

In September and October 2023, the team at Clockify enabled users to choose and switch between projects and tasks on time kiosks, track breaks on Android and Mac, and export projects to Excel and CSV format.

Best fit for: Small, medium, and large teams who want to track their time and labor costs

Pumble — best for business communication

Pumble is a free business communication app that helps me collaborate with my colleagues instantly via:

• Direct messages, 
• Channels, and
• Threads.

With Pumble, I can share files with my coworkers, search for documents or messages to find the necessary information — and keep track of all files in the file browser. 

Thanks to its Guest access option, Pumble lets me collaborate with people outside my company.

Finally, I can customize my sidebar in Pumble, so I don’t have to scroll down to find the channels I’m using the most. 

Why is Pumble best for business communication?

Pumble is best for business communication because it’s packed with powerful messaging features and a stunning design.

When I need to get my coworkers on the same page or keep all project-critical information in one place, I only need to click the + sign, add the name and description of the channel I want to create. What’s more, I can even set the channel to private and add as many coworkers as I like.

Unlike many other business chat apps, Pumble offers an unlimited number of users — which is especially useful for larger teams that work remotely.

On a different note, when I want to quickly notify members of a channel about an important announcement, I just have to insert the @ sign and everyone gets a notification. That way, I don’t waste time notifying every team member individually but can let everyone know about the latest updates in 2 clicks.

I particularly like how user-friendly Pumble is, as it has a clean surface. Also, I occasionally pin useful notes if I need to access them later — and Pumble lets me do that as well.

Finally, this piece of productivity software for Mac is incredibly intuitive and easy to use if you don’t want to have friction in how you communicate with others. Unlike other apps, Pumble has boosted my productivity by saving the time I spend on team communication — it almost completely replaced lengthy email back-and-forth.

Pumble’s pros

After using Pumble for a long time, here are the top 3 pros of using the app:

• Import of all your messages and data from other chat apps to Pumble in minutes,
• Lowest cost compared to top competitors, and
• Unlimited chat history for free.

Pumble’s cons

Pumble seems like it doesn’t have many downsides. Still, below I’ll provide my top 3 cons:

• The mobile app sometimes has lags,
• Emojis sometimes look blurry, and
• Video calls don’t have too many visual background effects.

What’s new in Pumble?

Some features added in October and November 2023 are:

• Exporting data from Pumble,
• In-call messages,
• Better data retention,
• Dark and light themes in video calls, and more.

Best fit for: Teams of all sizes, including freelancers and enterprise-level teams who want to enjoy seamless collaboration

Plaky — best for project and task management

Plaky is a free project and task management app that helps me stay productive when working on my Mac. With Plaky, I can manage projects and processes, thus improving my own and my team’s productivity.

Moreover, Plaky lets me add an unlimited number of users and an unlimited number of projects for free. As one of the best task management apps for Mac, Plaky provides me with the ability to:

• Manage all my tasks in one place,
• Collaborate with my team via comments and notifications, and
• Track progress of my assignments, filtering them by priority, due date, and status.

Why is Plaky best for project and task management?

Plaky is best for project management because it has dozens of pre-built, rich, colorful templates. As soon as I picked a few templates with tasks, I would switch the view of my tasks to Kanban. That way, I have a better overview of all the tasks that need to get done, as well as their current status. 

In the screenshot below, you can see the Kanban button. After clicking it, Plaky instantly shows me the Kanban view.

When I want to add a new field to my existing templates, I can select from a rich offering, including:

• Text — when I need to add simple notes,
• Rich text — when I want to have rich formatting options, like bold, italics, emojis, 
• Link — when I want to add links that point to other websites (or other Plaky cards),
• Numbers — when I need to add budget details or just numerals,
• Status — when I want to add the stage in which the task is in, and more.

In the visual below, you can see how I used Plaky’s New field option to create a compelling and rich content calendar for my team.

As a power productivity app for Mac, Plaky allows me to customize my work tasks to great lengths, letting me add as many layers to my work as I like.

As an admin, I can add different items and assign tasks to different team members. 

Plaky’s pros 

After using Plaky for a while, I concluded that the app had the following advantages:

• Beautiful, intuitive user interface,
• Lets me add comments and tag team members, on cards, and
• Affordable paid plans, even for enterprises.

Plaky’s cons

On the other hand, here are the top disadvantages of using Plaky:

• The mobile app user interface needs to be improved to be easier to use,
• Lacks integrations with other apps, and
• Doesn’t offer reports, apart from status reports.

What’s new in Plaky?

In November 2023, Plaky released the Private Board View and desktop notifications for browsers. In September of the same year, Plaky announced its Timeline Field feature, that lets users input and track time periods with the help of 2 date pickers.

Best fit for: Individuals and teams who want to get more tasks done 

Fantastical — best for organizing calendar events

Fantastical is one of the most popular calendar apps for a good reason. It offers powerful integration features and allows users to get a handle on their busy workload.

By using Fantastical’s basic features, I made use of the following:

• Calendar view options for days, weeks, months, quarters, and years,
• Natural language processing when creating new events,
• Ability to add colors and icons to events, and
• Integration with other calendar apps, such as Outlook and Google Calendar.

Just like the competition, Fantastical gives me the opportunity to add attachments and notes to each event.

Why is Fantastical best for organizing calendar events?

Fantastical is best for organizing calendar events because it offers a slick user interface. In fact, I could add events faster than is the case with their competition, like Google Calendar or Outlook. 

Fantastical also lets me use text parsing, a fancy way of saying that I can insert prompts like “repeat this event every day for the next 5 months,” and it would auto-populate the calendar in a few seconds. For the example below, I asked Fantastical to remind me to meditate every day for the next 5 months. Here’s how it automatically filled my calendar:

Of course, I could have easily added any work-related event. For example, I can improve my work productivity by:

• Setting regular reminders,
• Scheduling team meetings, and
• Allocating time for budget reviews.

With so much speed and useful features, Fantastical saves me plenty of time every day, allowing me to focus on what matters — not on the minutiae. 

Another thing I enjoyed doing in Fantastical was trying out their view options. For instance, I mostly liked using the Week view because it fits my work schedule perfectly.

Fantastical’s pros 

As one of the best productivity apps for Mac, Fantastical offers plenty of features. Let’s explore a few pros of using the app:

• Integrates well within the macOS environment,
• Allows me to create quick templates, and
• Has offline access to calendar events.

Fantastical’s cons

Fantastical also has a few prominent restrictions. So, here are a few cons of using Fantastical:

• Takes time for Fantastical to add all events from my other calendars, like Google Calendar,
• Comes with a hefty subscription model, and
• Doesn’t allow me to connect with more than 1 calendar at a time on the free plan.

What’s new in Fantastical?

The Fantastical team has been releasing frequent fixes and no new recent features. In short, the developer team has been paying much more attention to the software’s widgets, templates, and integrations with other apps, like WhatsApp and Zoom.

Best fit for: Large teams who want to have a beautifully designed, AI-powered calendar 

Grammarly — best for proofreading

Grammarly is a grammar and spell checker that you can use as an individual or as a team. It speeds up your writing process with AI and offers plagiarism detection.

If your work requires you to write every day — as it does for me — Grammarly is a game changer. The app has been my trusted companion for many years, and it has consistently enhanced my writing. As a result, my articles leave the impression among readers that I never make spelling and grammatical mistakes.

What’s more, I feel more confident, as Grammarly makes my vocabulary more diverse, offering different suggestions. 

When I want to edit other people’s work, the app also comes in handy in this case, allowing me to make consistent, effective edits. Most importantly for me, Grammarly breaks up hard-to-read sentences into more manageable chunks.

Why is Grammarly best for proofreading?

Grammarly is best for proofreading because even the free version is packed with useful features.

Ironically, unlike some of its competitors, Grammarly rarely makes grammar and spelling errors. Apart from that, the app also provides countless formatting options and writing suggestions such as:

• Correctness,
• Clarity, 
• Engagement,
• Delivery, and others.

To make my writing clearer, Grammarly can spot inconsistencies like in the example below. In this case, the app allows me to update all instances of this inconsistency or dismiss the suggestion altogether.

When I’m in editing mode, I can choose if I want Grammarly to ignore text within quotes and if I want the app to automatically jump to the next suggestion as soon as I’m done with the current one. In the gif below, I’ve demonstrated how it works, saving me lots of clicking time:

Interestingly, Grammarly also lets me choose my writing goals. For example, whether I want to sound creative, casual, or academic — or if I want to address a general, knowledgeable, or expert audience. In a nutshell, the app adjusts to my writing style and improves it.

Overall, Grammarly just takes the pain away from making simple errors and offers handy tips to make my writing more impactful.

Grammarly’s pros 

I’ve been using Grammarly for a few years now.  So, here are the top advantages of using Grammarly:

• Works with British, American, Australian, Canadian, and Indian English,
• Offers a plagiarism checker — even on the free version (but with limited capabilities), and
• Informs me about performance metrics, like word count, readability, and unique words.

Grammarly’s cons

In contrast, I’ve found the following cons to the app:

• Can’t drag and drop or reorder files in the web app,
• Shows glitches on Google Docs, and
• Comes with a hefty subscription fee.

What’s new in Grammarly?

In August 2023, Grammarly introduced GrammarlyGO, its version of artificial intelligence for enhancing your writing skills. Apart from that, other recent upgrades include:

• Higher quality rewrites with Grammarly’s AI,
• Better context recognition for enhanced writing, and
• Removal of team members and easier group management.

In fact, Grammarly now lets users adjust company jargon and industry terminology to their team account.

Best fit for: Individuals who write daily and want to avoid pesky grammatical errors

Canva — best for collaborative design

Canva is a collaborative design app that allows individuals and teams to work together in an intuitive environment. Canva is one of the most popular apps in its industry, with over 150 million users in 2023.

When I started using Canva a few years ago, it offered a series of useful, free features that helped me create simple designs. Today, Canva allows me to do that and:

• Experiment with templates,
• Animate my designs, 
• Create videos, and
• Import and export data.

By using Canva, I’ve realized how many roles could benefit from it, including product managers, developers, writers, and anyone else looking for an all-in-one design tool.

Why is Canva best for collaborative design?

Canva is best for collaborative design because it comes with dozens of powerful features and useful tutorials for new users. 

To me, the handiest Canva feature is Magic Switch, which allows me to customize the size of my design to any platform. Suppose I create a design meant for a Facebook post but I also want to publish the same design on X. Well, pressing the Magic Switch turns the Facebook post-sized design to an X-sized design in 2 seconds:

By doing so, I save plenty of time instead of creating new designs step by step. This way, I’m more productive and leave more headspace for other, more creative things.

On the collaborative side, I can send my designs to coworkers and have them annotate and insert comments wherever they like. I do this very often, like in the image below:

This feature eliminates the unnecessary back-and-forth communication via email, leaving more room for me to be productive in other, mentally demanding tasks.

Canva’s pros 

Based on my experience of using it for a few years, Canva comes with many pros, including the following ones:

• Huge library of elements and templates,
• Rarely has any bugs, and
• Affordable pricing.

Canva’s cons

As for Canva’s disadvantages, here are a few:

• Magic Write feature sometimes shows glitches or stops working suddenly,
• Complex process of connecting Canva to my social media accounts, and
• Doesn’t work without an internet connection.

What’s new in Canva?

In October 2023, Canva rolled out the following big features: 

• Magic Studio, with powerful editing functionalities for videos and images, and
• AI online translator (although I have my doubts about the accuracy of this one).

Best fit for: Individuals and teams looking to design and create images and professional documents

Krisp — best for noise cancellation and meeting transcription

Krisp is one of the simplest-to-use Mac productivity apps on my list that helps you block auditory distractions and focus solely on meetings. 

Personally speaking, Krisp allows me to instantly eliminate noise on my end during meetings and background noise coming from other speakers. Moreover, Krisp eliminates room echo.

Yet, other practical features of Krisp include:

• Talk time — I can find out how much time I spend speaking during meetings, 
• Meeting insights — I can see the overview of my meetings, the total time I attended a certain meeting, or the total talk time, and
• Virtual backgrounds — I can change my meeting background to prevent any visual distractions coming from my end.

Why is Krisp best for noise cancellation and meeting transcription?

Krisp is best for noise cancellation and meeting transcription because it’s easy to use — once I set it up, I didn’t have to do much to benefit from it. For example, as soon as I switched on the toggles for my microphone and speaker, Krisp magically filtered all the noise during meetings. 

For illustration, when I was on a video conference with a colleague whose neighbors were doing noisy renovations, I could barely hear them drilling the walls. 

Apart from that, Krisp offered me the opportunity to store meeting transcripts in the cloud and did so well enough. 

Interestingly, this Mac productivity app allows me to create My Vocabulary, where I can insert a few industry-specific words I use the most often. This feature helps me get more accurate transcripts after each meeting.

With all these useful features, I’ve seen my productivity skyrocket. One of the reasons is that I no longer have to take notes by typing them — all I have to do is let Krisp record my meetings, create transcripts of those meetings, and then present me with action items.

Krisp’s pros

As for the pros of using Krisp, let me list a few, including:

• Ability to share meeting notes,
• Useful AI-powered assistant, and
• Integration with more than 800 communication tools.

Krisp’s cons

To be honest, I had trouble finding big cons of Krisp, but let’s still mention a few things that seemed off to me:

• The short trial period isn’t enough to get a handle on the app,
• Transcriptions are only available in English, and
• Expensive compared to some of its competitors.

What’s new in Krisp?

In July 2023, a new handy feature — the AI Meeting Assistant — was released after the beta was tested. The AI Meeting Assistant allows me to get short and long summaries — and action items from each meeting.

In August 2023, Krisp introduced the latest feature, My Vocabulary, where I store words that might be difficult for Krisp’s AI to detect and understand on its own. 

As of October 2023, Krisp features a new, more user-friendly interface. 

Best fit for: Teams on frequent video calls who need to focus more and eliminate unwanted noise

F.lux — best for adjusting screen brightness

When I work at night, my eyes can get tired from looking at the bright screen. So, when I need to put in extra hours of work, I adjust the brightness of my screen by using f.lux, a screen adjuster app.

In a nutshell, here are some of the best features of f.lux:

• Daytime, Sunset, and Bedtime parameters — f.lux changes screen colors so they fit my room lighting, 
• Sleep in on weekends — I can choose this feature if I need brighter light on Friday and Saturday nights, and
• Expanded daytime settings — I can choose warmer daytime settings if I’d like to match office lighting.

Why is f.lux best for adjusting screen brightness?

F.lux is best for adjusting screen brightness because it’s intuitive and easy to use with a few straightforward features. In fact, f.lux is one of the best productivity apps for Mac if you’re trying to adjust your screen time to your biological clock — your typical wake-sleep cycle.

When I installed f.lux on my Mac, the app automatically recognized my location and usual wake-up time. Then, I noticed 3 different modes this app offers — I can toggle on: 

• Daytime, 
• Sunset, and 
• Bedtime mode with a single click. 

My screen is lighter in the morning, while in the evening, my Mac is as bright as the indoor lights. That way, this app adjusts the lights on my computer to my biological prime time — the time of day when I have the greatest amount of energy.

Also, f.lux lets me customize my screen colors depending on my workday. For example, if I’m working late, I can choose the Working late option, and the app will automatically set its lighting to fit my work schedule. 

In turn, my eyes never suffer from unwanted blue light, preserving the health of my eyes. As a result, I can be more productive and less tired during the following workday.

F.lux’s pros

I have found 3 compelling pros of using f.lux — here they are:

• Switches between screen modes easily,
• Offers completely free functionalities, and
• Starts every time I turn on my Mac, removing unnecessary friction of having to toggle the app on every day.

F.lux’s cons

As for the disadvantages of using f.lux, I managed to spot the following 3:

• Sometimes switches from day mode to nighttime mode and back without any reason,
• Bedtime colors seem to be too uncomfortable for my eyes when working late into the night, and
• Unlike some of its competitors, f.lux doesn’t have eye movement exercises.

What’s new in f.lux?

Not many new things have been going on in f.lux since it was built. The last update was made in September 2023, including minor fixes and adjustments to different devices.

Best fit for: Anyone looking to adapt the lighting on their computer so as to soothe their eyes 

Evernote — best for taking notes

No matter if you need to capture brief notes and ideas or write long essays — Evernote has got you covered. For years now, this Mac productivity app has helped me tackle any writing form and then convert it into PDF or Word documents. 

For illustration, Evernote has many features worth your attention, including:

• Notebooks — I can create a notebook for a specific topic and add notes to the notebook. For example, a notebook I use the most is my Journal to which I attach daily reflections,
• Shortcuts — I can pin the most-used notes to the homepage on my Mac app. That way, I have everything at my fingertips, and
• Tasks — I can create work (and other) tasks in and outside of notes and add due dates, flags, and more.

Why is Evernote best for taking notes?

Evernote is best for taking notes because I can customize it how I like, including widgets, browser extensions, and anywhere else I need to record my notes. As one of the best productivity apps for Mac, the app’s user interface lets me see my recently captured notes, tags, integrated calendars, and more — in one place.

Even if I want to share my notes with somebody outside Evernote, the app offers this option by simply copying and pasting the link to the note. For illustration, I can press the Share button, and choose whether to create a shareable link or invite others by email. Also, I can select if I want the newly added contributors to view or edit the document.

Speaking of collaborative note-taking, this app gives me the opportunity to instantly see what other collaborators within the same notes are doing. For example, if they’re adding new files, documents, photos, or text — all that is shown instantly. 

This way, I have a bird’s-eye view of all the changes and additions others are making in the same document. In other words, my team and myself are more productive if we know who made the changes and when.

Overall, all these features contribute to my productivity tremendously because it bypasses all the back-and-forth and lets me communicate with my team in a flash.

Evernote’s pros 

As a daily user of Evernote, I’ve seen a bunch of pros, including:

• Instant syncing across devices,
• Intuitive reminders and advanced formatting options, and
• Customizable user interface, with many helpful widgets.

Evernote’s cons

But Evernote also has a few pesky cons, such as:

• Occasional glitches, 
• Progressively expensive paid plans, and
• Very slow customer support via chat.

What’s new in Evernote?

In May 2023, Evernote released its AI Cleanup feature that lets me tidy up any chaotic notes. In October and November of the same year, the Evernote Web extension was redesigned to look cleaner and the company introduced a faster, AI-powered search.

To top it off, Evernote has also introduced improvements to its note editor.

Best fit for: Individuals and teams in search of a reliable note-taking app with top-notch search capabilities 

1Password — best for password management

When talking about the best Mac productivity tools, it’s vital to mention some apps focused on your password safety. That’s why the next app on my list is 1Password.

1Password is an app that helps me protect all the passwords I keep on my Mac and elsewhere. The tool only requires me to memorize one master password — my Account password.

Some of the key features that 1Password offers include:

• Watchtower — a place where I can check my overall password strength and review compromised websites and vulnerable passwords, and
• Secret key — apart from my Account password, my Secret key is another level of security. Only I know this key.

Why is 1Password best for password management?

1Password is best for password management because it allows me to control dozens of my passwords in one place. 

The first feature I enjoyed tremendously was Watchtower — a functionality that sends me alerts if any security password-related issues arise. For example, if I have weak passwords, the Watchtower will ask me to strengthen them.

Another feature is the Vaults folder — a place where I can safely store my passwords. For example, I can store personal passwords and call this category Personal. Alternatively, I can store job-related passwords and name this category Professional. Of course, I can add new categories whenever I need them.

If I use some passwords more often than others because they are for my favorite websites, I can simply mark them, and they pop up in my Favorites section on 1Password.

1Password’s pros 

Let me list a few pros of using this Mac productivity app:

• Prevents users from reusing passwords on different websites, offering higher security,
• Seems easy to set up and use, and
• Offers reasonable pricing.

1Password’s cons

As for the disadvantages of 1Password, let’s take a look at a few:

• 1Password freezes my account if no password is inserted for 10 minutes (if the account is freezed, I have to add the app’s Secret Key to unlock it),
• Occasional syncing issues between devices, and
• No free plan, only a 14-day trial.

What’s new in 1Password?

In November 2023, 1Password released the app’s beta version for Android and iOS users. 

Apart from that, the team at 1Password hasn’t introduced other major changes except for the occasional bug fixes.

Best fit for: Individuals and teams looking for advanced password protection and management

Craft — best for storing documentation

Craft is one of the best productivity apps for Mac that allows you to document and share digital processes, like online guides, documents, folders, files, and more. All these are accessible to new employees during the onboarding process or to those who want to learn about other company-critical information.

Craft won’t only improve your effectiveness but also save you precious time at work. With the app, you can:

• Turn your actions into a step-by-step guide, complete with text and screenshots, 
• Make SOPs, onboard clients, and train employees, and
• Customize and share your documents via a link or email.

Why is Craft best for storing documentation?

Craft is best for storing documentation because it features dozens of useful templates. Instead of starting from scratch, Craft gives me the opportunity to search their template library and find anything from client onboarding to employee directory.

Craft adapts to how I work, and I can customize any template by inserting any type of file, like images, videos, GIFs, and more to document any imaginable work-related process. 

With this Mac productivity app, I can easily create guides to reuse for any purpose, like onboarding new employees — saving me time in the long run. 

All I have to do is click the + sign and add as many details as I need, including plenty of formatting options — but also tables, cards, code blocks, etc. 

Here’s how I would use a pre-built template to create an onboarding guide for a new client:

As you can see, I also added background colors to my Craft document to make it more appealing.

Craft’s pros 

Craft is a straightforward app that comes with a few pros, including:

• Has a beautiful, intuitive design,
• Offers numerous useful templates that save me time, and
• Shows an option to integrate your Craft account with external calendars (like Outlook or Google Calendar).

Craft’s cons

As for Craft’s disadvantages, I can think of the following:

• Comes with a higher price tag than its competitors, 
• Has no custom URLs for individual documents, and
• Offers limited collaboration features, unlike some competitors.

What’s new in Craft?

In the second half of 2023, Craft has been big on new features. For example, their team has released smart links that connect Craft documents with Figma, Mixcloud, and Apple Music.

As many others have done, Craft introduced its AI Document Creator at the end of 2023. This feature lets me type in the kind of document I need, and the AI gives me a few suggestions for how the document might look like.

Best fit for: HR teams who want to create guides and other documentation for onboarding and training

Malwarebytes — best for cybersecurity 

Another one on my list of Mac apps for productivity is Malwarebytes — an antivirus tool.

Here are some valuable features that Malwarebytes offers:

• Securing my laptop from hackers and cyber threats,
• Scanning my Mac quickly and regularly, and
• Protecting my laptop from fake websites.

Why is Malwarebytes best for cybersecurity?

Malwarebytes is best for cybersecurity because it blocks malicious apps and software, scanning my Mac regularly during scheduled sessions. 

With Malwarebytes, I can customize my protection to fit my CPU usage needs by choosing between High, Medium, and Low CPU usage. Here’s how I do it:

To be as productive as I can be, I need my Mac to be very fast in switching between apps. Thanks to the ability to optimize my CPU usage, my computer can be fast and efficient. If I’m working on several apps at the same time, choosing Medium or Low CPU usage in Malwarebytes allows me to speed up my Mac’s performance.

More interestingly, the app’s Detection History provides me with an overview of:

• Items quarantined during my last scan, and
• The total number of items in quarantine.

As far as I could tell, quarantine simply means files that can infect my Mac.

Malwarebytes benefits me productivity-wise because if I lost any documents due to a virus infecting my Mac, I would have trouble restoring those files. In turn, this would lead to poorer performance at work and would affect my employer as well.

Malwarebytes’ pros 

I’ll briefly highlight a few of the greatest pros of using Malwarebytes as my dedicated cybersecurity app:

• Clear, concise wording, with no industry jargon,
• User-friendly interface, and
• Advanced VPN capabilities to mask my IP address and hide my Mac’s location from malicious actors.

Malwarebytes’ cons

Now to the cons — here are the major disadvantages of using Malwarebytes:

• Lacks a firewall, compared to many of its competitors,
• Seems to me that Malwarebytes sometimes flags legitimate files as malicious (for example, it would mark a trusted app as potentially dangerous), and
• Appears to be a pricier option than many of its competitors, like Bitdefender.

What’s new in Malwarebytes?

July 2023 — that’s when Malwarebytes introduced their latest update for their Browser Guard. In short, the new feature offers better control over my files, import and export capabilities, and statistics of which harmful files were detected.

As with others on my list of the best productivity apps for Mac, Malwarebytes also continuously presents us with bug fixes and minor improvements.

Best fit for: Teams and individuals looking to protect themselves online

Alfred — best for setting shortcuts 

If you want to engage in deep work, one of the ways is to use Mac shortcuts. To set them up, I use an automation app called Alfred.

Apart from that, Alfred helps me quickly:

• Find apps and files, 
• Create workflows, and 
• Set hotkeys. 

Moreover, this tool integrates well with my 1Password account. As a result, I can search for any password I need in Alfred’s 1Password section.

Why is Alfred best for setting shortcuts?

Alfred is best for setting shortcuts because it offers a wide range of simple-to-use features, like handy shortcuts for accessing different apps.

For example, I can use hotkeys and keywords for the files and tools that I need the most in my daily work. For illustration, I can toggle Alfred on and do a quick search to find my calculator, calendar, or anything else by typing in “Open cal…”

Doing so, Alfred saves me plenty of time. Instead of having to search for each file or app manually, Alfred does it for me — leaving more room for me to focus on mission-critical tasks.

Also, since Alfred has been in the market for many years, it instills in me confidence that the app will respond to my needs as a Mac user — and it does for the most part.

Alfred’s pros 

First, let’s explore the top 3 advantages of using Alfred:

• Offers the ability to search the web instantly or make quick calculations,
• Allows me to customize system commands on my Mac, and
• Helps create powerful snippets, although only on the paid plan.

Alfred’s cons

Although Alfred has been one of the leaders in its industry, it sure has a few cons as well:

• Not as slick of a look as some competitors,
• Asks for a Dropbox account so that users can sync their Macs, and
• Occasionally has bugs that make the experience of using the app less than optimal.

What’s new in Alfred?

In October 2023, Alfred released VoiceOver accessibility for some of its features, as well as new keyboard shortcuts and mouse interactions. 

VoiceOver accessibility lets blind users use Alfred by saying out loud what they would like their Mac to do next.

Best fit for: Mac and iOS users in search of the perfect shortcut solution for their devices

Freedom — best for blocking distracting websites and apps

According to time tracking statistics, we waste about 3 years of our lives on social media alone (not to mention other workplace distractions). If you don’t want to get distracted by your mobile phone or social media, you can use the website and app blocker Freedom. 

Freedom is a focus app that helps me block out time-consuming digital systems that distract me from my work. 

I’ve been using Freedom for many years now, and it has tremendously benefited my productivity at work. In short, I use Freedom to:

• Block websites — I can either block domains, specific URLs, or even the entire Internet, 
• Schedule blocks — if I know I’ll be having a busy day at work, I can schedule blocks of time when particular sites will be unavailable for me, and 
• Listen to sounds — I can supercharge my productivity by listening to sounds from the Focus Sounds section in the app.

Why is Freedom best for blocking distracting websites and apps?

Freedom is best for blocking distracting websites and apps because it’s extremely intuitive and packed with robust features. 

Speaking from many years of experience using Freedom, I mostly benefit from the Locked Mode feature. Locked Mode stops me from toggling Freedom off when I get the urge to check social media. Here’s how it looks in the user interface:

So, suppose I work on a task fervently, but then I feel the need to check a social media site. If I have Locked Mode turned on and the social media blocklist selected, Freedom won’t allow me to visit my Facebook or LinkedIn.

Of all the Mac productivity apps on this list, Freedom has probably contributed the most to my laser-sharp focus and elevated productivity over the years. It simply doesn’t allow me to waste my time on distracting activities.

Freedom’s pros 

Let’s start with the most notable pros of using Freedom:

• Presents a list of preselected websites and apps that I can block in bulk,
• Offers the option to listen to sounds designed to get me into deep work mode, and
• Lets me use Locked Mode, forcing myself not to visit a harmful or distracting app or website.

Freedom’s cons

To be honest, Freedom doesn’t have too many cons, but I can think of the following:

• Logs out on my Mac sometimes, and then I need to sync the device again,
• Has a pretty outdated user interface, and
• Lacks more features, like adding a simple task manager or streaks for the days I used the app.

What’s new in Freedom?

In January 2023, Freedom introduced its new App Blocking feature for iOS 16.0+ users. Apart from that, they have been steadily releasing smaller improvements to their existing features.

Best fit for: Anyone who wants to get rid of digital distractions, block websites and apps, and become more productive at work

Rectangle — best for window management

Another productivity app for Mac on my list is Rectangle — a window manager for my computer. 

If you need to keep multiple windows open at the same time while paying equal attention to all of them, Rectangle can help you out, as it did me.

This tool lets me organize my windows as I wish — horizontally, vertically, or by splitting the screen into 4 or more quadrants.

With Rectangle, I can customize the way my windows align on the screen. This app is handy when I need to compare 2 or more documents or copy and paste data from one document to another. 

Why is Rectangle best for window management?

Rectangle is best for window management because it comes with preset rules for managing my windows. In other words, I don’t have to do anything after installing it to make it work immediately. For example, dragging my window to the bottom left will place that window in the bottom left of my screen.

Also, I can place my windows in 30 different positions. Equally helpful, Rectangle gives me the opportunity to position my windows by using more than 20 useful shortcuts. For example, if I want to drag my window to the top left, I just need to press Control+Option+U. 

In a real-life situation, I often need to split my screens into 2 or more pieces. With Rectangle, I can do that when I’m on team meetings and need to take notes in Evernote. Alternatively, when I need to compare 2 or more documents, I can also snap my windows to any corner of my Mac screen.

Overall, Rectangle benefits my productivity as it allows me to view multiple windows on my screen without any friction.

Rectangle’s pros 

I’ve been using Rectangle for a few days but I wish I had found it earlier. Anyway, here’s a quick list of the top 3 advantages of using Rectangle:

• Free of charge, 
• Intuitive and easy to use, and
• I can set gaps between adjacent windows (any size from 0 to 100 pixels).

Rectangle’s cons

As for the cons, let me present 3 big cons of using Rectangle:

• Doesn’t offer colors for different windows, as some competitors do,
• Fails to set the exact height or width of my windows, just the approximate size, and
• Lacks window tiling (the ability to jointly resize 2 windows at the same time by clicking on the line where they intersect).

What’s new in Rectangle?

In the second half of 2023, Rectangle introduced their German, Spanish, and Norwegian translation of the app. Apart from that, the team at Rectangle has fixed bugs that used to occur when using Stage Manager alongside the app.

Best fit for: Mac users who want to manage multiple windows more efficiently and for free

Final thoughts: Achieve a better workflow with Mac productivity tools

Staying productive and avoiding any distractions that may pop up along the way can be difficult. Luckily, many Mac productivity apps on the market can help you maintain your efficiency for long uninterrupted periods.

In this blog post, I covered the tools that have proven invaluable in my day-to-day effectiveness, including those in the fields of:

• Collaboration and communication,
• Project and task management,
• Productivity and automation,
• Online security, 
• Backup, storage, and other fields.

So, next time you find yourself struggling with productivity, use this article as your guide to achieving a better workflow.

What about you? What productivity apps do you use for Mac? Have you tried any of the apps we listed in this article? Let us know at blogfeedback@clockify.me, and we may include your answers in this or future posts. And if you find this article helpful, feel free to share it with someone struggling with staying productive.