The new year is when many people make personal resolutions to improve their health, finances, and relationships. Making these improvements in your life can give you satisfaction and joy. They can also reduce your stress level and even help you live longer.

However, some people forget that they can also make resolutions that help their careers. For instance you might resolve to increase sales in your business. Or, maybe working fewer hours is a resolution you wish to make.

If so, perhaps you could make some New Year’s resolutions that help you become more productive and use your time better.

Review What is and Isn’t Working

One of the New Year’s resolutions that help you become more productive is to review what is and isn’t currently working. That could include more than one area.

For example, perhaps your physical work environment is large enough but cluttered. Or, maybe your work area is noisy and you need to find a different place to set up your work space.

You could also have work flow issues. Maybe you could cut out a step or two and save some time in some of your processes.

The first of the year is a good time to take a look at these issues and decide if changes need to be made that can help you work more productively.

Eliminate Time Wasters

There are plenty of ways you can add some time to your day by eliminating time wasters. Do you spend a lot of time each day rolling through Facebook posts or Pinterest?

These activities can be a time suck and many people don’t even realize just how much time they waste with social media. Eliminate these time wasters if you can.

But if you feel you can’t do away with them completely, limit the time you spend on them. Set a timer for 15 minutes and only allow yourself one time per day, as a break, to look at social media. This will help you get more done in your day.

Don’t Replay the Drama

Another of the New Year’s resolutions that help you become more productive is to stop replaying workplace drama. If you got yelled at on the phone or in person by a customer or co-worker, you don’t have to tell everyone about it all day long.

Of course it can be hard not to let those types of events ruin your entire day. But if you want to increase productivity, quit going on and on about it.

Instead, take a couple of deep breaths or get away from your desk for a two minute break. Then, put the incident behind you and move on to your next task.

Create Scheduled Email Breaks

Obviously, reading and responding to emails is important when they pertain to your work. Nevertheless, they can also eat up valuable time you could be spending on other important jobs.

Not only that, if you constantly stop to check them every time you get a notification you are allowing them to interrupt your work and reduce your productivity. With each interruption it can take a few minutes to reset yourself and get back on course with what you were doing before the email came.

Personal resolutions are great ways to make needed improvements in our lives. Making New Year’s resolutions that help you become more productive in your work are sometimes needed too.