By Murray Newlands, from Inc.com – http://bit.ly/1xDaadd

One of the best things that you can do in order to make your business better as a whole is to increase your productivity. When your business is able to get more done, you are able to make more profits and hire more workers, improving your growth and overall future as a business. There are many ways that you can increase your productivity, however, the five steps outlined below are the easiest ways to do so.

Eliminate Many of Your Distractions

Television and social media accounts take up a large chunk of everybody’s time–being always connected has become the norm nowadays, and you may think that being reachable, personable, and always connected will be good for your business. However, the truth is as far away from this as possible. While it is good for your business to have presences on these distractions, putting your own time and energy into it will suck time out of your own schedule and the time that you are spending trying to grow.

Make Sure Your Goals Are Realistic

While you are not going to be able to accomplish much with smaller goals, if they are ambitious but reachable, then you have hit the mark with what you need to do. People will work harder and faster when a goal is in sight, and you can use this to your advantage within your business in order to drive growth and productivity through the roof.

Set Up Time To Handle Your Email

While it is tempting to answer emails as they come in for a multitude of reasons such as not forgetting about them or appearing to be always reachable, answering them as they come in is actually a very ineffective way to handle these communications. Instead, you should set up a few times a day to handle the emails that come to you; this way, you will not have to stop what you are working on multiple times in order to address email concerns, and you will make sure that all emails are handled and none of them slip through the cracks.

Set Up A Rewards System

Both you and your employees are likely to work faster and harder when there are rewards in sight for doing so. After all, it is hard to keep up motivation when there is no tangible payoff for extra work, especially in the long term. Having milestones set up and motivators for your employees to pull through and achieve at a higher caliber will boost your productivity more than many other tactics ever will.

Make Sure That Everybody Has Time To Take Care of Themselves

As tempting as it might be to make longer working hours mandatory in order to get more done, your employees will not achieve much if they are fatigued. Productivity is always higher when people have had enough sleep and enough time away from a task in order to come into it refreshed during their prime working hours. Give your employees enough breaks during the day and enough time to get amply rested for the next day if you want to see your productivity soar; in addition to just feeling better in general, your employees are liable to work harder for you for the simple fact of being treated like a person instead of a working machine.