Your work performance plays a critical role in your everyday life. If it takes you longer to complete a project that another person finishes in a couple of hours, you might want to look at different ways to improve your performance.

If you only think about your performance before your annual performance evaluation, you are doing it wrong. Many people completely forget to evaluate their performance, and this makes it difficult for them to analyze what they are doing wrong.

By the time annual evaluations come along, it’s quite late as it is. Here are some simple ways to improve work performance.

Set Your Milestones Clearly

One of the first things that you need to do is create clear milestones for your work. Setting milestones is one of the best habits that isn’t just going to benefit you in your professional life, but will also take you a long way in your personal life.

Human beings have a habit of often setting lofty goals. That’s a common mistake. Instead of just writing “I’ll complete all my work today,” you should highlight all the projects that need to be done, and then divide your day.

Set clear milestones throughout the day for the completion of different targets. It’s important that you define the deadlines for each of your milestones, as they are going to play an important role in keeping you on track.

Once you are done with a project, you need to evaluate yourself. Decide whether you are doing it right or if there are a few changes that you would like to make.

Set Priorities

Once you have defined your milestones clearly, the next step is to set your priorities. In this section, you need to organize and plan out your daily routine at work. How are you going to manage your time? When are you going to take a break?

In the previous section, you already created deadlines for making sure that projects are delivered before they are due. In this section, you have to decide which one to tackle first. You also need to differentiate between “important” and “urgent” projects, because both will require your attention almost immediately.

Remember, uncertainty is common, and you will face lots of it during the course of your professional career. You need to become comfortable with it, and the best way to do that is by setting your priorities and making sure that you meet your targets.

Plan Your Meetings in Advance

The importance of meetings in the office cannot be understated. However, in most cases, meetings are badly misunderstood. In fact, you will find plenty of people talking about just how ineffective meetings are in getting things done or achieving targets.

However, if you plan them well, you will be surprised at just how effective meetings can be. Before you get started with your meetings, you need to have a defined agenda.

Invites should be sent to all of your employees, and you need to communicate the agenda to each participant. It’s important that everyone comes prepared for the meeting.

You also need to make sure that you select a suitable time for the meeting so that everyone is at the ready. If you have any details available for your meeting, you should provide them beforehand. This will save you from a lot of trouble.

Tackle the Difficult Tasks First

This point links directly with the one about priorities. It’s important to understand your own limitations. You won’t be able to complete every activity or task that you add on your list, so it’s important that you prioritize the difficult ones first.

When you rank all of your tasks in order of difficulty, you will be able to figure out which ones are urgent and which ones need to go first. Make sure you tackle the difficult ones first so that you will be done with most of the work before midday rolls around.

Maintain Your Focus

Interruptions in the workplace are a common problem and can prevent you from achieving your targets. The nature of interruptions can vary, but it’s important that you know how to maintain your focus.

One of the most effective methods for maintaining your focus is the Pomodoro Technique. This is a great way to maintain your focus in the long run and will ensure that you maintain your focus for an extended period of time.

It’s also going to help you save a great deal of time and it will prevent disruptions with work management. Learning how to maintain your focus is important. It will require a bit of effort, but once you learn to stick to it, you will notice a major improvement in your work ethic.

Keep Your Phone Away

We have an innate desire to check our phone and email multiple times during the day. It’s a common habit. Most people pick up their phone thinking that they are only going to check it for a minute or so.

Eventually, this turns into a half hour of browsing on social media platforms. That’s a terrible mistake that you need to learn how to avoid. When you are working, you need to keep your phone away. Make sure to avoid checking your messages and focus on the work at hand.

Set specific times during the day when you can check your phone, and then keep it on the side.

Give Yourself a Break

It’s even more important to give yourself a break from time to time. If you have done a good job, give yourself a pat on the break and treat yourself to good food. Learn to give yourself a bit of a break every now and then to recover your energy before you get started again.

It’ll help you increase your motivation as well.