This question was posed to 800 experts at the World Economic Forum in 2017. They came up with a list of seven technologies to watch over the next decade. Vala Afshar, Chief Digital Evangelist at Salesforce, added three more in his retweet of the list.

Vala Afshar

10 Technologies of the Next Decade

1. #AI (Machine learning, NLP)
2. #IoT
3. smart robotics
4. 3D print
5. mobile
6. autonomous cars
7. mobile internet
8. blockchain
9. mixed reality VR/AR
10. wireless power

Here’s a look at the top 10 technologies of the next decade. Get ready for some big changes.

AI (Machine Learning, NLP)

We’re in the midst of an artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. AI is already here, and it’s getting smarter by the day. This technology is to the optimization of human thought what the industrial revolution was to human labour.

Just like the human mind, AI can learn from its mistakes and master increasingly complex tasks. By 2026, AI thinking is predicted to be advanced enough that AI could sit on a corporate board of directors.

The Many Parts of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

IoT

This is also known as the “Internet of Things.” Get ready for smart sidewalks, smart clothing, and an ever-expanding array of smart appliances and wearables.

Sensors are going to be everywhere, synergizing our day-to-day lives. Some of this will be new tech, connecting things that have never been “smart,” but there will also be a much wider adoption of existing technologies, including smart homes and biohacking devices.

As with many of the next decade’s big tech leaps, niche tech is going to become mainstream in this area. To see instances where this has already happened, just look at the Apple Watch or Nike+. It’s en vogue for people to monitor their running and walking habits. A few years ago, this sort of thing was reserved for tech-savvy triathletes.

Smart Robotics

The next decade will be a time of great social mobility… for robots. Having already disrupted blue collar jobs such as auto manufacturing, advanced robots will begin to augment and improve human labour in more sophisticated fields. In fact, robots have been alleviating pharmacists’ workloads in multiple facilities.

3D Printing

Some of the most exciting uses for 3D printing could be in medicine, where it has already been used to repair a ribcage. In fact, research shows “the 3D bioprinting market will reach $6 billion by 2024.”

If you have any doubts that this is the most exciting time in history to be alive, just ask the recipient of the world’s first 3D printed kidney transplant.

Beyond the medical field, consumers can look forward to increasingly affordable 3D printers they can use at home. This technology will allow them to print products purchased online.

The Basics of How 3D Printing Works

1. Take an original object.
2. Use CAD software to digitize the object. CAD stands for computer-aided design and drafting.
3. The 3D printing software digitally slices the object into layers. If the object needs to be detailed, thinner layers must be used.
4. For metal objects, the printer deposits a powder layer by layer. A laser is used to melt the powder together and form a solid.
5. The 3D printed model is put in a bath to dissolve any extra materials.
6. The product is sanded, painted, or otherwise finished.

Mobile

One obvious prediction is that mobile devices and their components will probably keep getting smaller and more efficient and more powerful.

But are you ready for implanted phones? The experts say they’re coming in the next five or six years. It might sound like the stuff of science fiction, but we could soon have chips implanted in our heads that allow us to communicate by using brain waves, rather than talking.

Even though you may not want phone calls and DMs literally in your head, implanted technology has the potential to revolutionize medical care, giving doctors real-time access to information like glucose levels, blood pressure, and heart function.

Autonomous Cars

The movement toward self-driving cars is coming on the heels of the enormous disruption of transportation and car ownership we’re already seeing with ridesharing. Sixty-seven per cent of the World Economic Forum’s experts believe the number of shared rides will overtake travel in privately owned vehicles by 2026.

When it comes to self-driving cars, Alex Davies in WIRED puts it this way: “In the past five years, autonomous driving has gone from ‘maybe possible’ to ‘definitely possible’ to ‘inevitable’ to ‘how did anyone ever think this wasn’t inevitable?’”

Investment in self-driving car technology is coming from a variety of sources, including the big automakers, Tesla, tech companies (particularly ones already invested in mapping and satellite technology, such as Google), and ride-sharing services. The obvious military applications mean there will likely be serious funding from governments as well, and the U.S. military has already started experimenting.

Mobile Internet

Once upon a time (just two decades ago), you had to be at home to make a phone call — that is, unless you were cool enough to have one of those clunky wireless phones connected to your car. We now take it for granted that there’s mobile phone coverage almost everywhere.

The same is happening with mobile internet, and inflight WiFi is just the beginning. The dominance of mobile devices is fueling a demand for fast and free internet everywhere on the planet.

At the same time, the laws governing access to the internet are expected to change. Seventy-nine per cent of those polled by the World Economic Forum believe internet access will be considered a basic right by 2024.

Until that happens, the manufacturers of mobile devices, as well as the platforms they connect to, will continue to invest in and acquire networks and means of accessing the internet.

Blockchain

The history of innovation is marked by tech developed for one thing and used for another. The microwave, sticky notes, and x-rays were all discovered accidentally or in the search for something else. A book called Brilliant Blunders chronicles the history of these accidental discoveries.

Right now, many people think of blockchain as synonymous with cryptocurrency, but it may have some powerful other uses that haven’t yet been discovered. It has already shown promise as a means of identification, a way to guarantee privacy, and even as a form of tamper-resistant digital voting. In spring of 2018, Sierra Leone held the first blockchain-based election.

That’s not to say cryptocurrency itself isn’t a big deal. In a matter of just a few years, the cryptocoin gold rush has minted many new millionaires and has forced us to reimagine how markets work. Bitcoin and its competitors could be to central banks and treasuries what ride-sharing has been to the taxi business.

Of all the blockchain projects in the works, one of the most “out there” is Sweatcoin. They’re monetizing the healthcare and productivity savings of exercise by paying people to walk every day. The steps users take — recorded by their smartphones — can be converted into credits for online shopping.

How Does Blockchain Work?

Mixed Reality VR/AR

We already have a number of novelty applications of virtual reality (VR): video games, social media filters, or the man in Australia who used VR to propose to his girlfriend. But there’s a big shift happening toward more practical, everyday uses of VR and augmented reality (AR).

One example is a newly designed smart construction helmet that can take in information from a construction site and relay instructions in real-time to the worker who’s wearing it. Imagine it as sort of like a fighter pilot’s head-up display.

Augmented reality may soon give us the ultimate wearables, with no helmet required. In 2016, Samsung filed a patent for contact lenses that contain a camera and project images onto the wearer’s field of vision. They are controlled by blinking.

This is the first step toward a world where we live our lives in a “mixed reality” of VR, AR, and real life. Someday soon, AR contacts might be able to do everything a phone does, revolutionizing commerce and communication.

Wireless Power

Chargers may soon be going the way of wired headphones. Last year, the FCC approved the first “power at a distance” charging system, which can charge a device from up to three feet away using radio waves. Once the charger goes to market, it’s expected to be universal and allow you to charge multiple devices from a single base.

Furthermore, engineers at the University of Washington have developed a phone that doesn’t need to be charged. It draws its power from ambient radio waves and light. And by 2029, we could see batteries that charge by “breathing” in carbon dioxide. Wireless power may not seem as exciting as AI, but it may be just as powerful.

Closing Thoughts

We are living in one of the most exciting and dynamic times in human history, and these tech trends confirm it.

The big theme that all these innovations have in common is their transition from niche tech to unlocking new eras of human progress, comfort, and happiness. The next 10 years are going to bring us tech that will seem like magic, but be a basic part of our lives at the same time.

Tech geeks everywhere can rejoice, too, that these technologies are developing so quickly that we won’t have to wait long to see the future we’re building for ourselves.

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The data and variables behind a sale have never been so numerous and complex. Fortunately, tools, including configure, price, quote (CPQ) software and customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, make it possible to take a data-driven approach to every aspect of the sales process, from client-facing pricing and quoting to the hiring considerations and training that go into assembling an effective sales team.

This technology, paired with savvy sales management and a knowledge of the variables at work, can help take your sales team’s effectiveness to new levels. Here are a few tricks to get the most out of your sales data and technology.

Mind Your Metrics

The best tech in the world is difficult to use effectively if you can’t interoperate the data it gives you. Furthermore, you need to know how to prioritize your key performance indicators (KPIs). By understanding the most important metrics that go into a sale, you’ll know where to improve and troubleshoot. It’s now possible to isolate nearly every aspect of the sales process and measure the relationship of each part to the end result.

A Quick Guide to 4 Sales Metrics

• Sales Cycle Length: Average time in days between the creation of an opportunity and the close date for all closed opportunities
  • Knowing your sales cycle can help with:
    • Sales forecasting
    • Performance measurement
    • Needs assessment
    • Allocations of resources
    • Barrier identification
  • Look at individual salespeople and identify where the majority of their prospects get stuck.
  • CRM reports can show where prospects are in the sales cycle and the length of time the prospect has been lingering in a stage.
• Percent Achieving Quota
  • What are some of the reasons why salespeople miss their quota?
    • Not enough qualified leads (SQL)
    • Lack of sales training
    • No formal sales process in place
    • Managers can’t effectively coach reps
    • Ramping up reps is too slow
    • Lost opportunities to no decision
    • Competition beating us on price
    • Sales burdened with administrative tasks
    • Sales team not properly led
    • Reps assigned unrealistic quotes
    • Deals not closed, but still in pipeline
    • Salespeople not properly hired
• Opportunity Win Rate
  • By Count Percentage: The percentage of deals that have been won in terms of the number of the opportunities
  • By Value Percentage: The percentage of deals that have been won in terms of the value of the opportunities
• Average New Deal Size
  • To increase this metric:
    • Create obvious upsells
    • Explain the opportunity cost of low-priced packages
    • Lock in fixed prices
    • Swap discounts for value-added extras

By looking at your sales cycle length, you can spot bottlenecks and inefficiencies.

Your percent achieving quota lends insight into why your salespeople are underperforming. If a number of your sales staff consistently miss their quotas, this could be a symptom of problems with expectations, management, training, or even hiring practices, all of which are more closely related to sales performance than you may think.

Beyond that, your opportunity win rate is a way of calculating the human element that makes each salesperson different in their strengths and weaknesses. With this data point, you can analyze who’s best at each stage of the sales process. From there, you can target individuals for retraining in specific areas, such as closing or pitching.

While it’s not news that the ability to close can be measured, revenue numbers also have their own story to tell. However, that story often has a surprise ending.

Take, for example, average new deal size. You’d think it’s a good thing for a salesperson to close a lot of deals. But how big are those deals?

Is there a real return, or are salespeople incentivized to focus their time on small, easy-to-close deals?

And what about the customer’s point of view: Does your pricing encourage a certain type or level of purchasing?

A salesperson may believe their job is all about finesse and personal connections, but it must be more than that. The numbers that answer these questions will have a real impact on how they develop and capitalize on those connections.

Furthermore, metrics help sales managers mold their team into A players. They learn what works, what needs to change, and how to train lower performers to achieve at the same level as high performers.

Make Friends with Marketing

Sales managers potentially leave money on the table when they can’t clearly see how other departments within the organization affect their positions or departments. Just as your sales management platform can help you pinpoint an actionable link between hiring practices and sales quota performance, your metrics can also highlight an opportunity where sales and marketing overlap and work together to help leads progress through your funnel.

According Elisabeth Sullivan in an article for the American Marketing Association, the vast majority of marketing content goes unused by sales departments. Marketing platforms provide lead and performance data, as well as important information about each customer’s journey. Sales and marketing must work together at every stage in the sales process.

Fix the Funnel

Where are sales and marketing working together to find the leads who become customers? How can you reach more of this type of lead? You need to monitor this data.

Do you know how many leads are marketing qualified leads (MQL) versus sales qualified leads (SQL)? How many SQLs do your sales team follow up with? You need to know and monitor these numbers, too.

Define Your Funnel and Understand Where Your MQLs and SQLs Are

• Just a name
• Engaged
• Prospect
• MQL
• SQL
• Opportunity
• Customer

Your customer relationship management (CRM) platform can help you learn where your top leads come from. It can also A/B test different marketing, sales, and social media strategies, manage your sales funnel, and find inefficiencies that can be addressed through a holistic sales and marketing partnership.

Tie your marketing, sales, and social media strategies together to learn even more about your customers. Social media platforms offer an unparalleled ability to engage with customers and potential customers and help them transition from MQLs to SQLs. It’s vital that salespeople treat those communications with the same sense of purpose as calls and emails. Your sales people should work with social media in mind.

One of the most important stages in the buyer journey, especially for the customer, is after the sale. The customer experience, and corresponding loyalty to your company, have a major impact on your bottom line. Furthermore, this is part of the most effective form of marketing: word of mouth.

What percentage of your clients have turned into enthusiastic advocates for your brand thanks to their encounters with your sales department and interactions with your brand?

How many are willing to leave a review or give a testimonial?

How many new customers were referred to you by existing ones?

These numbers and data points, tracked in your CRM platform, can lead to sales magic. Anyone can eventually make a sale, and if “make sales” is your sole metric, your salespeople will probably succeed. But when you reach a little higher with more defined goals, such as “increase referrals” or “create super fans,” you may do something extraordinary.

Trust Your Tools

Configure Price Quote (CPQ) Software

With CPQ software you can automate quotes, control pricing, and close deals faster and with more accuracy. It helps maximize profit — and minimize headaches and errors — by automating pricing. In short, CPQ software simplifies the sales quoting process.

The automation and accuracy provided by this tool frees your salespeople from the grunt work of manual price quoting, cuts down on the bottleneck of managerial approval, and reduces errors.

Salespeople can focus on selling and managers can invest their time in the big picture, rather than getting bogged down in glorified price checking. CPQ training is an investment in your sales team and a multiplier of their effectiveness.

Most importantly, like many of your most important sales and business tools, CPQ software is available on the cloud. This means it scales to suit your organization’s changing needs, stays up to date, and is available anytime and anywhere you need it.

The 7 Steps in Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ)

1. Configure products and services
2. Price
3. Quote
4. General Proposal
5. Negotiate
6. Approve and finalize
7. Order

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Platform

You understand the value of tracking your metrics and sales data. You know sales and marketing should work together. You want to close more deals and faster. A CRM platform helps your team stay organized, updated, and prepared to do all that and more.

Your CRM software manages workflow, interdepartmental synergy, and collaboration efforts. This is where you can harness social media data, as well as marketing, customer service, and sales metrics. It’s a one-stop shop where your entire company stays on top of the customer journey, and all of these features are fully mobile supported because of the cloud.

Your customers receive a personalized sales and service experience, and you collect valuable data-driven insights into customer behaviours and organizational efficiency.

Essentially, the CRM platform is your sales team’s Swiss Army knife.

Do Your Homework

Sales is part science, part art. It includes psychology and scientific calculations. Fifty years ago, we’d be talking about the importance of firm handshakes, not five-star reviews. While body language is still important, we now live in a time when artificial intelligence and software can tell you what price to quote a customer, where and how to engage with those customers, and why they failed to convert or give you repeat business.

Data has largely taken the place of gut instinct and oversimplified numbers when evaluating salespeople. With that information, you can measure strengths and weaknesses, as well as intervene and improve with training or new hiring practices.

That said, tools are only as good as your knowledge of how to implement and use them. There is still no technology that can act as a substitute for a knowledgeable team. Continue your team’s sales education in order to continue your company’s success.

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Service Cloud by Salesforce turns your contact center into an engagement center. It gives your agents the tools they need to provide world-class service across a range of devices. Here are six ways Service Cloud makes life easier for your customers, your service team, and your business in general.

Close Cases Faster

The Lightning Service Console is all about speed and efficiency. From the moment a case is created, the console puts all relevant customer info in front of the agent handling the case. In fact, the system operates in order to save time — down to the second — with predictive text and macros for FAQs and follow-up options.

Boost Efficiency and Reduce Friction

There are many ways to quantify customer service and break down the customer’s experience into metrics and data points. But there’s only one metric that makes it to the boardroom: customer satisfaction. On average, customers who use Service Cloud report 45 per cent higher satisfaction, and it’s been the leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for customer engagement six years running.

What’s driving these numbers isn’t how fast agents respond (although Service Cloud is fast) or even that they solve a problem (even though it’s a powerful problem-solving tool). It turns out that the primary cause of customer dissatisfaction and disloyalty is the amount of effort it takes to solve a service inquiry. With this in mind, ease of use is embedded in the Service Cloud platform.

Provide Smarter Self Service

Self-service, which is the option of allowing customers to find answers and solutions to their customer service inquiries without interacting with an agent, has major advantages. It decreases case volume and increases customer action and engagement. Customers with basic questions can find answers quickly on their own, which frees agents to focus on more complex cases. Social features like forums and knowledge bases give valuable insight into community trends and customer behaviour.

Personalize Customer Care

One of the truths of the internet is that no one has to do anything they don’t want to do. Convenience is no longer a plus: It’s a must.

Service Cloud allows customers to connect with your team on their mobile devices. The platform is enabled with two-way audio and video, if that’s how the customer would prefer to engage, and the app runs without interrupting your customer’s web browsing. Your customer service agents can help your customers without disrupting their day. Furthermore, with the integration of Amazon Connect with Service Cloud Einstein,

“Companies will be able to easily set up and manage a customer contact center in minutes and then fully connect it to service case histories and CRM data across sales, commerce, marketing and more. Now every service employee will get smarter and have access to the insights needed to resolve any service issue quickly and efficiently to deliver a connected, personalized customer experience.”

That’s effortless service.

Get to Know Your Customers on a New Level

The console puts everything an agent needs to know right in front of him or her. It provides previous cases, past purchases, and context for the current case, which reduces instances of the inconvenience of customers being forced to explain their case to each new representative.

All of this is integrated with social media platforms, your chosen key performance indicators (KPIs), and team channels to keep managers, sales teams, and service representatives on the same page. Additionally, agents can use this information to create articles for your company’s public-facing knowledge base in order to help future customers with similar queries.

Deliver Support Everywhere and Dispatch Help in Real Time

By embedding service in a mobile app, you’ll be doing better than the 90 per cent of apps that have inadequate service options.

Service Cloud not only connects your agents with customers, but with the entire workforce. From the platform you can dispatch field service technicians in real time, and those technicians will receive all relevant background information instantly — before they reach the job site. An algorithm makes accurate time recommendations based on existing field schedules, travel times between tasks, and other considerations, and assigns work to the right field technician based on skills and availability.

Dispatchers can also access a Gantt chart and map view to monitor field work. This system scales for organizations from three to 30,000 or more employees.

Service Cloud delivers solutions for the realities of customer service in the digital age. It is proactive — rather than reactive — so your team can focus on delivering unequaled service rather than putting out fires all day. These features would have been unattainable for even the largest organizations just a few years ago. Now, Salesforce has embedded them in a powerful tool that delivers results at any scale.

For more ways to enhance your customers’ experience with your customer service, check out our eBook: “5 Ways to Make Service Easy for Today’s Customers.”

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Then Salesforce introduced Service Cloud. It brought all of this together in a single customer service platform, and it not only streamlines existing elements of your business but, when used to maximum effect, allows you to connect more broadly and deeply with customers. With Service Cloud, your company can make an impact that would have been unimaginable in the pre-Cloud world.

Here are a few best practices to get the most out of Service Cloud.

Integrate the Platform in Everything You Do

Integration is the cloud’s greatest strength. The same features, such as knowledge bases, FAQs pages, and forums, that save customers time also relay important data back to your service and sales teams in your customer relationship management (CRM) platform. Companies need cloud-based customer service software, especially one that integrates with their CRM and other platforms, to be competitive.

But that’s just the beginning. The one-touch feature built into products allows customers to instantly trigger a case from the product itself. This is the future of customer service: As shared during the Dreamforce 2015 Salesforce Service Cloud Keynote, by 2020 it’s estimated that the average consumer will own 58 connected products.

Be Social

It’s been said that Twitter is the water cooler of the 21st century. For businesses, it’s also the suggestion box. Unlike the suggestion box, however, complaints on Twitter are on display for the world to see. While that may sound intimidating or even unfair, Twitter can be viewed as an opportunity to address a customer’s pain point publicly and personally.

The Service Cloud has social integration that can create cases based on social media posts and connect public complaints with powerful service solutions in real time. Listen to and analyze conversations on social media with Social Studio, and use it proactively to find customers who are asking questions. Take common questions and concerns and create articles for your blog, on your website, and within the knowledge base of Service Cloud. By being proactive, you further reduce average case time and case volume.

Be the Hub

The Service Cloud platform empowers your agents to be the most comprehensive source of information and resources about your company. With the Lightning Console, agents maximize their time, your company can provide a great customer experience, and your agents have the most powerful tool available: an integrated customer service platform.

Focus on Experience

Service is a key component of overall customer satisfaction. Studies have shown that customers who use Service Cloud report 45 per cent higher customer satisfaction. The reason for this is simple: It makes problem solving easier for customers. And easy service is quickly becoming an expected part of the customer’s experience. Your customers are more demanding than ever, and rightfully so. They expect a service experience that does everything they need, and meets them wherever they are, on any device, and at any time they need your help. Service Cloud is fast enough to stay one step ahead of this frustration, and offers Live Agent to service your customers more quickly.

Think Big

Use the details of the Service Cloud to generate action on a new level. Take advantage of its powerful integration capabilities and task streamlining to affect change in your industry, your community, or even the world — all while creating an exceptional customer experience.

At the Salesforce Service Cloud keynote at Dreamforce 2015, the audience was told the story of how Service Cloud helped a San Francisco no-kill animal shelter make a much bigger difference than they set out to achieve. With help from Service Cloud, this shelter connected veterinary hospitals, animal control, and education services to address a larger problem in the city. Their mission changed: It expanded from trying to be the best no-kill shelter in San Francisco to working to end animal abandonment in the San Francisco by 2020.

Service Cloud puts a great set of tools and data at your fingertips in industry-leading customer service management software. Its greatest strength, however, is the way these tools deeply and seamlessly integrate to allow you to focus on the big picture.

Learn more about how Service Cloud will transform your customer service department in our eBook, “Personalized, Smarter, Faster: How the Smart Agent Console Can Transform Your Customer Service.”

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There are many factors you and your team are unable to control when it comes to performance. You have economic constraints, each individual has limitations on their skills and brainpower, and there’s no way to guarantee that people in your workplace will always get along.

Productivity, on the other hand, is uniquely hackable. Since there’s so much riding on productivity from a financial standpoint, experts invest in productivity and behavioural science research. This research has evolved into a number of tips anyone can use to improve their efficiency, including the following 10 productivity hacks.

1. Set External Deadlines

To-do lists can help ensure productivity, but without firm deadlines, they can quickly become to-put-off lists. A to-do list tells you what needs to get done, but a deadline moves you toward a definite finish line.

However, not all deadlines are created equally. Research shows that we tend to go easy on ourselves when setting self-imposed deadlines. One MIT study found that real boosts in performance come from external accountability.

Therefore, for best results, set deadlines and tell others about them to hold you accountable.

2. Focus Deeply on One Task

The same tools that allow us to communicate and do business instantaneously also provide distraction on demand. That’s not what your brain needs when you’re working through your to-do list.

The best way to complete a task is to focus deeply on one thing at a time. Author and Georgetown professor Cal Newport says this extreme focus—deep work—is “one of the most valuable skills in our economy.” He explains:

“Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It’s a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time . . . In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy.”

In his book Deep Work, Newport cites a study of knowledge workers in real offices. The study found that all interruptions, even short ones, significantly delayed the total amount of time required to complete tasks.

3. Put Your Phone Away

The cost of constantly checking your phone goes beyond time management. One study found that college students who spend more time on mobile devices are more impulsive and have a harder time delaying gratification. These two skills play a major part in productivity and work quality.

Instead of checking your phone, do something that’s actually relaxing. Take a short walk or have a face-to-face conversation with someone.

4. Make an Implementation Intention

Your to-do list tells you what you need to do, a firm external deadline tells you when, and an implementation intention tells you how. This is a divide-and-conquer approach that breaks your goals into actionable if-then statements.

An implementation intention automates your behaviour and takes the decision fatigue out of complex tasks. It’s the same reason pilots have checklists.

For example: “At 9:45 on Tuesday, I’ll get a cup of coffee and work on the project. If I get a cup of coffee, then I’ll work,” is much better than, “I’ll work on the project on Tuesday.”

A simple behavioural cue like brewing coffee can keep you moving in the right direction. Psychologist Dr. Timothy Pychyl calls this “predecision.” You already decided fresh coffee means “get to work,” so when the cup is in your hand, you know what to do.

5. Work in 90-Minute Increments

The human attention span has limits—90 minutes, to be exact. After 90 minutes (give or take a few, depending on the task) you start to lose focus and your ability to solve problems suffers.

The 90 minute cycle is the preferred technique of world-class violinists, according to a study cited by Tony Schwartz in Harvard Business Review: “The best of the violinists practiced in sessions no longer than 90 minutes and took a break between each one.”

To maximize efficiency, time your breaks around lunch, meetings, and errands.

6. Take Strategic Breaks

Make the most of those breaks between 90-minute work intervals to further boost performance. Here are a few ideas for a break that will energize, rather than distract you.

Socialize

An MIT study found that call center employees who socialize get through their calls faster and feel better on the job.

Breathe

You may not have time for a long break, but you need to recharge. Try breathing exercises, like this one reported by Jordan Shakeshaft: “With one hand on the chest and the other on the belly, take a deep breath in through the nose, ensuring the diaphragm (not the chest) inflates with enough air to create a stretch in the lungs.”

Move

Sitting for long periods is uncomfortable and takes a toll on your body. Remedy this with stretches. You can also do 10 to 20 repetitions of a moderate strength-building exercise like push-ups or squats.

7. Go for a Walk

A study at Stanford found walking can increase creative thinking by 60 per cent over sitting. Murray Newlands writes that two 15-minute walks per day can shave two days off a task that normally takes seven to complete. Consider this in terms of ROI: 30 minutes of walking a day increases productivity by 30 per cent.

Incorporate walking into the workday with walking meetings, walks after lunch, and moving around the office while on conference calls.

8. Build the Right Support

Productivity is a choice—one you must make every time a distraction pops up. The most productive people are usually the most disciplined. These people understand what psychologists have confirmed: Discipline is more powerful than willpower and motivation. Have the discipline to construct your day around conservation of willpower. Schedule your simplest tasks, like going through your email, at the times when your productivity tends to lag.

9. Listen to Music

Psychologists agree that work is better with tunes. Music releases dopamine, the brain’s pleasure chemical, which makes you feel upbeat and positive. This is especially useful when it comes to repetitive tasks.

But music does more than make boredom pass: That same relaxation effect you get from dopamine is vital when it comes to making decisions. According to Dr. Teresa Lesiuk: “When you’re stressed, you might make a decision more hastily; you have a very narrow focus of attention. When you’re in a positive mood, you’re able to take in more options.”

10. Replace Bad Habits

Bad habits are a slow killer of productivity; an unimportant email here, some social media there, and pretty soon you’re wondering where your afternoon went.

In his book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg developed a system for breaking bad habits based on behavioural science and observations of people with good habits. He recommends four steps to change any habit: identify the habit you want to change, find the “cue” that comes just before the habitual behaviour, experiment with rewards, and have a plan. We all have bad habits, and this system allows you to customize the way you break yours. With these tactics, you and your team can become more productive and better spend the hours in your day.

Ready to learn more of the secrets of the most productive salespeople? Check out our free eBook at the link below.

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