I Done This Blog

Work From Home: How to Create a Home Office That Works for You

July 18, 2017 by Loni Klara Leave a Comment

If you’re one of the lucky software engineers working at Google, you get to design your own workspace. And since everything the company does is done to increase productivity, you can bet this freedom to dictate how and where you work isn’t all just for fun.

You may not be a Googler, but if you’re lucky enough to work from home, you have the ability to customize your office and then some. Everything is in your hands, and you can set things up for maximum personal productivity.

While this degree of freedom can be empowering, it can also be overwhelming, especially when you consider that your performance depends on it. So here are some steps to help you out when customizing your home office to suit your style.

Use Your Home’s Limitations to Your Advantage

Unless you’re in the market for a new house, you’ll be limited by the square meters and style of your home. However, working within certain confinements can lead to surprising results.

Can Gaming at Work Increase Productivity?

July 11, 2017 by Kathryn Vandervalk Leave a Comment

I Done This helps you and your team increase productivity

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Games tap into our inner desire to challenge ourselves. We love the thrill of scoring points and getting to the next level.

But games don’t always have to be a distraction from our everyday lives—they can actually make us more productive when used properly. Using a gamification strategy, you can help your employees get more done at work.

We’ve used psychologist Victor Vroom’s Expectancy Theory to explain how games can help your employees perform better. The theory includes three variables—expectancy, instrumentality, and valence—that describe how motivated employees are to do their job.

We broke down these three variables to help you design a gamification strategy that helps motivate your employees—instead of distracting them.

When Is It Time to Move to a Co-Working Space

July 4, 2017 by Jonas Fischer Leave a Comment

Google, Mattel, Apple, Disney and Harley-Davidson all have something in common: they started in someone’s garage.

Today, technology disguises the fact that your startup is operating out of your house, which buys you time before you need to start thinking about office space. You can hire a virtual receptionist, employ a remote workforce and implement enterprise-powered tools to run your business like an established company.

This is an amazing time for startups to grow without worrying about burning through cash for rent and equipment. But for many, there comes a point when the work-from-home lifestyle begins to stunt progress. There is no formula based on headcount or revenue to determine when you should consider a change, but there are a few telltale signs.

Here are three indications that it’s time to consider moving your team into a co-working space.

When Notifications in the Workplace Can Increase Productivity

June 27, 2017 by James Marlow 2 Comments

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A few years ago you might have been scolded by your boss for goofing off at work. Nowadays smartphone usage seems to have become an accepted practice in the always-connected workplace. Whether it’s through two-factor authentication verification codes or JIRA SMS notifications, texts and push notifications have become a standard part of your workflow.

Even with the broadening acceptance of messaging and smartphone usage at work, the impact of this shift on one’s productivity is still unclear. Constant pings may offer essential info, or they can overwhelm you and reduce your efficiency. These outcomes surely differ by industry and personal preference, but it is up to you to figure out if this new notification paradigm is truly helping you get more done.

In this article we’ll examine how a notification-heavy workflow can impact and increase productivity, as well as learn about some of the most innovative implementations of text-improved workflows from platforms such as JIRA and RingCaptcha.

4 Subtle Signs Your Employee is Looking for a New Job

June 20, 2017 by Sasha Rezvina Leave a Comment

You come into work, thinking it’s going to be just another day in the office. You have a friendly chat about your weekend with the office manager while pouring yourself a hot cup of coffee. You make your way over to your desk, and just as you start looking through your email, a nervous employee pops their head in and asks for a minute of your time.

At this point, the next sentence comes as no surprise: “I’m giving my two-weeks notice.”

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Job-hopping has become the norm. While fifty years ago, people held positions for ten or more years, today, workers only average about four years at each job. And the stigma associated with switching jobs has also decreased. Employees that spent less than a few years at a job used to be considered flighty—now they’re considered ambitious and ahead of the curve.

The odds are stacked against you, but all hope isn’t lost when it comes to employee retention.

While some clues will tip you off right away—such as too many “doctor’s” appointments, or employees coming in dressed suspiciously well—most of the time, the signs that your employees are job-hunting are considerably more discreet. If you learn how to pick up on these subtle cues, you can nip this problem in the bud and retain some of your most valuable employees.

Here’s how to spot when employees are looking for a new job (and what you can do about it).

Humor in the Workplace: What’s Funny or Not?

June 12, 2017 by Kathryn Vandervalk Leave a Comment

Sending great gifs to your co-workers gives you more than just a laugh.

Humor in the workplace benefits:

Productivity. Humor replenishes your employees and makes them more productive.
Group Cohesion. Humor can increase a sense of belonging.
Stress Management. Humor is known for its “cathartic” emotional benefits that release stress.

Creating an office culture of humor can help you cultivate all these benefits. Keep in mind that humor can also go sideways fairly quickly, too. The wrong type of funny can lead to serious HR problems—there’s a thin line between goofy and unprofessional or between delightful and inappropriate.

Humor in the Workplace

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You want your company to be a fun place to work, but you also want to make sure that it’s fun for everyone.

Here’s our guide on how to improve office humor that makes everyone feel included and unified.

3 Stages of Successful Team Bonding

May 8, 2017 by Jonathan Figliolino Leave a Comment

Your team won’t stay together just because they work together. If you don’t give your team a chance to bond, you’ll spend more time handling workplace drama and politics instead of getting work done. You can use team bonding activities to encourage cooperation outside of the office and strengthen workplace bonds.

Team building helps everyone get to know and trust their fellow coworkers, but you don’t build trust overnight. Your team goes through gradual stages as they grow from a collection of strangers to efficient collaborators. Psychologist Bruce Tuckman’s team building model describes three stages — forming, norming, and performing—to show how teams can become more united over time.

The Five Questions That Might Bug You the Most as a Manager

May 2, 2017 by Jason Evanish Leave a Comment

“I need to give my notice. I’ve found another job I’ll be starting soon.”

Stunned, my coworker sat not sure what to say. Julia was one of his best team members, and he thought she was valued and appreciated. Yet, here she was moving on to another role somewhere else.

What happened? Unfortunately, what was satisfying for someone a year or two ago, may not be so today. Fresh, exciting challenges from their early days on the job can grow to become stale, and boring once mastered.

Does Working in Pajamas Affect Productivity?

April 21, 2017 by Jackie Cohen Leave a Comment

Work remotely and people might ask you if you report for duty in your pajamas every day.

People who don’t work remotely think that those of us who do sleep in and then enjoy a few hours of gleeful twirling in an office chair while wearing boxer shorts.

Not Mutually Exclusive: Small, Secure and Productive

April 17, 2017 by Kathryn Vandervalk Leave a Comment

Don't let security worries interfere with your productivity use RingCaptcha

Time is in short supply at every startup. Everyone wears at least four different hats, and you need every second you can get to make sure things get done.

You have to be as productive as possible—which is why it’s tempting for your business to neglect security concerns, or make them an afterthought. But at the same time, all your hard work can go away in an instant if you let yourself be vulnerable to a cyber threat.

This is the phenomenon known as the security paradox: you need time to create work worth protecting, but you also need time to protect that work. But in the growing software-as-a-service (SaaS) economy, security and productivity don’t have to be a tradeoff. You don’t need to hire an IT team or develop complicated code to keep your data safe—external services can do it for you.

Work From Home: How to Create a Home Office That Works for You

Use Your Home’s Limitations to Your Advantage

Can Gaming at Work Increase Productivity?

When Is It Time to Move to a Co-Working Space

When Notifications in the Workplace Can Increase Productivity

4 Subtle Signs Your Employee is Looking for a New Job

Humor in the Workplace: What’s Funny or Not?

3 Stages of Successful Team Bonding

The Five Questions That Might Bug You the Most as a Manager

Does Working in Pajamas Affect Productivity?

Not Mutually Exclusive: Small, Secure and Productive

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