Competition often helps increase our productivity. The absence of it, however, does not give us the big picture and we fail to see how our peers are doing. Working as a home-based medical transcriptionist makes us unaware of other people’s productivity. Now, how would you know how you are doing? It may sound bookish but you can keep on improving your performance by competing with yourself. Keep making an effort towards beating yourself in terms of your earlier turnarounds and you will keep growing.

Let me share with you some simple steps for increasing your productivity.

Learn to avoid distractions. Yeah, this is difficult. Distractions wouldn’t be called so if they didn’t distract. So what I essentially mean is, avoid making everything a distraction. Close your e-mail clients once you have started your work. Don’t access social networking sites while working, and keep the television off. Easier said than done, right? But if you want to deliver good work and rise in the medical transcription industry, you have to do all this. And I am not asking you to ban the Internet and the television from your life. Just don’t access them during your work hours.

Start saying ‘no’. You cannot keep heaping your plate with work in the hope that your income will increase. You need to draw the line, or else the quality of your work will suffer. You have to learn to say ‘no’ when you have your hands full.

Productivity is not just about delivering work on or before time but also about delivering quality work. Strive for excellence in your work and keep everything else on side during your working hours, and soon you’ll realize you have become your clients’ favorite medical transcriptionist.