Neuroplasticity, also known as brain or neural plasticity, is the remarkable ability of the brain to reconfigure its neural connections throughout life. This phenomenon underlines the brain's capacity to adapt, learn, and reshape itself in response to experiences and stimuli. It plays a critical role in learning new concepts, honing skills, and recovering from brain injuries, significantly boosting productivity. Let's explore some effective methods for enhancing your brain's neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity Techniques for Everyday Life to Enhance Brain Productivity Juggling as a Brain Exercise Ever tried juggling with balls? It's not just entertaining; it's a brain booster! Juggling engages multiple brain areas, improving multitasking abilities and spatial perception. Regularly practicing juggling, even for just 10 minutes a day, can develop new neural pathways. It's a delightful approach to enhance hand-eye coordination and your brain's flexibility. The Power of Reading Aloud Reading aloud isn't just for kids; it's beneficial for adults too! This activity stimulates the brain's language centers, involving both auditory and speech processing. Regularly reading aloud can strengthen language comprehension and communication abilities. It's an easy yet powerful way to activate and improve your brain's language functions. Read more: 10 Ways to Boost Team Productivity in Workplace Musical Instrument Mastery Ever considered learning an instrument like the guitar? It's a fantastic way to foster creativity and fine motor skills. Research indicates that musicians often have more neuroplastic brains. Playing an instrument enhances memory, coordination, and overall brain adaptability. As you progress, you'll notice improvements in focus, memory, and creative thinking. It's enjoyable and beneficial for your brain. Embracing Mindful Moments Consider incorporating mindful walks in nature or familiar environments into your routine. Mindfulness promotes concentration and mental clarity. Regular mindful breaks, and focusing on breathing with closed eyes, can reduce stress, improve focus, and enhance overall brain function.

Team performance in offices and organisations plays a pivotal role in determining overall productivity. A highly productive team is an asset, and enhancing productivity is an ongoing endeavour. Let’s take a look into some innovative and cost-effective ways to empower your team while maintaining a harmonious and social work environment. How to Increase the Efficiency of Your Team at Workplace Encourage Open Dialogue Open communication acts as a catalyst, driving the team towards greater efficiency, enhanced problem-solving capabilities, and an overall uplift in the working spirit. It is the secret ingredient for a thriving, successful team. Encouraging open dialogue within the team is like infusing life into its veins. It is vital for fostering a truly productive environment. This practice invites team members to express their thoughts and concerns freely, creating a breeding ground for fresh and innovative solutions. It not only bolsters collaboration but also instils unity and belonging.  Read more: Antifragile Career: 10 ways to make your profession sustainable Utilise Communication Tools In today's fast-paced work environment, embracing these digital tools is one of the keys to maintaining seamless communication and fostering effective teamwork. Through these platforms, sharing information, coordinating tasks, and collaborating on projects become simplified and highly efficient.  Depending on the necessity and style of operations, office management can utilise digital platforms such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Trello to enable smooth team communication. These tools can actively create a collaborative work environment by providing a virtual space where team members can interact effortlessly. Thus, team leaders can ensure that team members remain closely connected and well-informed.  Define Clear Goals Clarity takes precedence. It is necessary to define and communicate precise objectives to guarantee that every team member comprehends his or her roles and responsibilities. A team manager can implement SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals to set more attainable and motivating objective.  Read more: 5 Essential Skills to Make Money Online These well-defined goals create a roadmap that guides the team's efforts. It makes the tasks and targets of each team member more accessible to grasp and accomplish. By adhering to SMART criteria, a team manager clarify expectations and also infuse a sense of purpose and direction. This propels the team towards greater accomplishments and motivation.

Ensuring the health and well-being of the workers must be a key priority for building a better and more sustainable readymade garments (RMG) industry, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has said.  "If the workers are healthy, the industry will run well. As we are increasingly focusing on enhancing the industry's capacity and productivity, it's imperative to ensure workers' health because healthy workers are more productive," BGMEA President Faruque Hassan said Tuesday at the global women leaders' organisation G100's first summit in Bangladesh. Read more: BGMEA calls for Italian investment in Bangladesh's emerging industrial sectors Planning Minister MA Mannan attended the event as chief guest. Dutch Ambassador to Bangladesh Anne Gerard van Leeuwen, founder and President of G100 Harbin Arora Rai, and Farzanah Chowdhury, G100 global chair of healthcare and wellness, also spoke at the programme. Faruque said: "We often talk about socio-economic issues like employment, empowerment, environmental sustainability, and workplace safety. But we also have to remember that health is a very important part to keep our workers well, happy and productive." "Most of our factories maintain health care centres, eye care facilities, daycare centres, fair price shops, and so on within the premises. Factories also run schools, hospitals, and other charitable initiatives for the community, and employ physically challenged people," he added. Read more: Bangladesh to stay safe, sustainable apparel sourcing destination: BGMEA Industry stakeholders need to take a more holistic approach to ensure workers' health which would contribute to making the workforce more productive and the industry more competitive, the BGMEA president said.  

BGMEA President Faruque Hassan on Tuesday underscored the need for comprehensive efforts and mass awareness to improve nutritional status of garment workers who are the driving force behind the RMG industry in Bangladesh. “Inadequate nutrition, particularly among women, is one of the main reasons for worker inefficiency. Workers will be able to maintain good health and the energy to be as productive as the job required if nutritious and safe foods are ensured for them,” he said. Faruque Hassan made the observations while speaking at a program organized by Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and Auchan Foundation in Dhaka. Read more: BGMEA chief for intensifying collaboration with S Africa to reap mutual benefits Besides, not always the RMG workers have proper knowledge of which foods are good in terms of nutritional value, so awareness should be raised among them about nutritious foods and their benefits, he added. “In addition to law mandatory CSR activities, many RMG factories in Bangladesh are taking praiseworthy initiatives for workers to ensure their well-being,” Faruque said in his speech. One of such initiatives is fair price shop where daily commodities are sold at affordable prices, he said, adding that if workers could be made aware and encouraged to buy foods having nutritional value would be health beneficial for them. Read more: Technological innovations crucial for competitiveness, sustainability of Bangladesh's industrialisation: BGMEA Apart from initiatives of individual factories, a comprehensive approach needs to be taken by all the stakeholders of the garment sector for ensuring the proper nutrition of garment workers at affordable prices, Faruque remarked. Md. Ehsan-E-Elahi, Secretary, Ministry of Labor and Employee; Khaled Mamun Chowdhury, ndc, Director General, Department of Labour; Mohammad Hatem, Executive President, BKMEA;  Khandoker Rafiqul Islam, Vice President (Finance), BGMEA; Ms. Juliette Bataille, Project Manager, Auchan Foundation; Alain Reners, General Delegate, Auchan Foundation; and Dr. Rudaba Khondorker, Country Director, GAIN also spoke at the event.

What's cool about working from home? The home office helps you to designate a workspace and pick a schedule that suits you! However, being productive is always challenging, and the common culprit of demotivation is clutter. So it is essential to organise your home office. An organised home office helps reduce stress, increase productivity, leave you with more spare time, and frees your mind. Here are some effective tips and tricks to organise your home office.  12 ways to organise your home office If you're working from home and are struggling to get your work done, we've provided ten home office organising suggestions you should test: Designate work zone It is easy to get distracted while working from your home. Therefore, you should create a specific work zone to improve your efficiency. Choose a quiet area in your home where you can work for long hours. Making sure that you can close the door in that space. It will allow you to avoid the distractions that can significantly impact your focus and productivity. Read Top 10 Bathroom Plants to grow in humid environment of shower Let the natural light in Create your workspace in a location where enough natural light can enter. Light can increase your productivity and motivation. If you spend most of the day in the dark, it can make you bored and sick. According to research conducted by Harward, sunlight can reduce headaches and drowsiness to 63 percent and 56 percent. If you're energised and do not have headaches to contend with, you'll be more productive.  Keep a shelf and other organising tools Organise everything in your office. It is a waste of time, if you need to search your desk, or get up to reach your filing cabinet to find the supplies you frequently use. Although your workspace appears quite tidy initially, it will not remain the same for long. Each time you take out the item you require and put it back on the desk, you'll add more clutter.  Always keep your most valuable tools nearby. You can use a variety of tools for organising your office, such as: - A shelf or bookcase can be a great way to organise the space of your home-office. Install an item on a shelf in front of or next to your desk to keep your calendar, dictionary and other books that you regularly use.  - Set up a file holder on your desk to keep the files you need for ongoing tasks. - A mailbox is a place to organise your bills, assignments, letters, and other tasks on your list of things to do. - A rack to store files for the current projects. - A trash can, recycling container, and shredder. Read How to Live Minimalist Life: Benefits, Drawbacks of Minimalism Sweep your desk clean As you'll spend the most time at your desk, you need to get your desk organised! Begin with a clean blank slate. Remove everything from your desk except your printer, computer and phone.  If the desk you are looking at has accumulated a few years of dust, it's a good occasion to tidy your desk and sweep under it. Get a locked cabinet Purchasing a filing cabinet is a fantastic method to create space in your home-office. Purchasing a fireproof storage unit with a lock system ensures that your documents will not be stolen or damaged. A fireproof, locked container is vital for crucial documents such as birth certificates, marriage certificates, passports, and car titles. They can also be kept in the safe deposit box. To make the most of the storage space, you can get an office cabinet with four drawers.  Read Stretching Small Space: Tips to create more room within a small apartment Declutter and relocate items  The home offices often become messy because the owners aren't willing or make an effort to throw items away or relocate personal things. For instance, your baby’s photo may keep you happy, but it takes up valuable desk space. Remove everything not directly connected to the work you do from your desk.  Spend a few minutes to declutter the things you don't use. Here are some items you should throw away: -Pens that are no longer working -Broken or unused office equipment such as old computers, phones and scanners and printers (you can reuse many of these items) -Documents that are out of date and no longer required -Old magazines, newspapers, Internet print-outs: when you've finished reading them or have done with them, you should stop using them - Photos, greeting cards, awards, plants, coffee mugs, and souvenirs. However, you may still have some of these in your office but in a less remote location. Read Home Shifting Checklist: Important things to do while moving to new house Cable Clutter Do you stumble across the tangled mess of cables and wires whenever you walk into your home-office? The presence of too many cables beneath your feet can make you stumble. It can also pose a fire risk and create a workplace that is much more cluttered than it is. Here are some tips to minimise the number of cables in your home-office zone,  - Remove electronic devices that you do not use anymore or occasionally use.  - Utilise the most wireless devices possible -- such as your keyboard, mouse and printer.  - Get a USB hub that can connect multiple devices to your computer with only one USB cable. Move office equipment off your desk If your desk is covered with monitors, printers and computers, phones, modems, phones and computer storage, where will you work? It's not necessary to have these gadgets over your desk. They are taking up valuable space. Read Tips to Keep Home Cool in Summer Without AC Here are some suggestions to get rid of some technology from your workspace: -Place your desktop computer's CPU beneath the desk or on the floor.  -Huge monitor can take nearly half the size of your desk. You can replace it with a slick monitor. -Back up everything online. This online backup can save you if your hard drive fails or your laptop computer is stolen or damaged. However, it will allow you to remove the extra storage device off your desk. Digital calendar and to-do lists How do you track your appointments, meetings or other commitments? Do you use a notepad Day Timer that's brimming with notes? Have you migrated your calendar to digital, but you still use notepads to keep track of deadlines and important dates? Choose a system you're sure to keep. You can eliminate paper and save all your important reminders onto the back of your iPhone or other personal devices. The documents include deadlines, meetings, appointments, to-do lists and appointments. Connect your calendar on your device to your computer so that you're always aware of where you're supposed to be. Read Bug-free Home: How to get rid of insects indoors Organise Your PC The filing cabinets and desk aren't the only things in your office that require clearing. Computers can also benefit from a thorough cleaning. If you continue to load documents and programs on your hard drive, eventually, it'll become too cluttered that it's impossible to locate what you require or find yourself running out of space. Here are a few suggestions to organise your computer: -Set up your filing system. Make the folders in a manner that is logical to you.  -Throw away old documents.  -Back up your files to ensure you don't lose any needed data, and back up all of your important data via an external drive or internet storage services. -Sort your email. Your inbox for email can be similar to your desk when you don't have an organised plan. Create folders to organise your messages according to subject, sender, or dates.  Read How to manage wardrobes, closets to wear fresh smelling clothes everyday? Utilise vertical space Utilising vertical space gives you additional space to keep your home-office zone especially desk area tidy and organised. This system is particularly true when you have smaller desk space or no drawers at the desk. The space over your desk could be the ideal spot to put your essential things. The vertical or floating shelves can also give the space an impression of art. Invest in the comfort  Few people consider comfort when selecting tables, chairs, and work desks to use in their office at home. You can’t stay productive when you're suffering from neck or eye strain while working. A poor ergonomics system can affect your productivity over the long term. As you will spend most of your time working from your home office, be cautious about comfort. While organising your home-office, purchase comfortable furniture.  Bottom Line The pandemic has taught the whole world about the efficiency of the work-from-home trend. However, not all people can enjoy the facility of a remote office as their workspaces may not be very inspiring. A well-organised home office can make you more creative and productive. So far, we have discussed useful methods to organise your home office. Hope it helps! Read Choose the Right Curtains for Your Home: The Ultimate Guide

Have you ever felt that you are not achieving enough at your workplace? Every morning you go to the office with a certain plan and goals for the day. But there are times you are left with the feeling that you could not achieve enough. This is not because you are less competent. It is the things that you are doing wrong and the things you are failing to include in your work regime. The lack of productivity at the workplace is a serious issue from both organizational and personal perspectives. So, what can you do to boost your productivity and efficiency? Let's find out. Why is it necessary to improve your productivity at work? The simple answer to this question would be to increase organizational proficiency. You are not the only employee in your workplace. You are part of a team that is relying on you to do your part. It is the combined effort of everyone within the organization that drives it to become better. If you are not being productive, it will have multiple drawbacks. In addition to driving down your motivation, you will also hinder organizational growth. Increasing productivity helps to boost the morale of other employees. They will feel motivated to do better resulting in increased overall output from the organization. Read:How to improve your professional networking skills? The improved performance and productivity will be reflected in the customer satisfaction rate also. Study shows that highly efficient companies tend to retain more customer. So from a customer service point as well, it's necessary to be productive. However, the responsibility of being productive isn’t on the employee alone. The organization itself needs to promote a productive and growth mindset among its employees. The strategic goals and vision of the organization should include the personal development aspect of its employees. The rule of thumb here is that if you take care of your employees, the employees will take care of your organization. Read:Post Retirement Career Planning: How to pick your dream job? 10 ways to improve your efficiency at Work Improving productivity and efficiency at the workplace is important. But the question is, how can you do it? Here are 10 ways to get you started. Avoid multitasking Getting a number of things done at one go might feel efficient. However, that is the opposite of being productive. When you are multitasking, you are essentially dividing your attention and effort. As a result, the quality of the finished work might not be as good as it would have been if you had worked on it alone. It also ends up taking more time. Hence, it's better to avoid multitasking. Set realistic goals If you plan on getting a week's work done in a single day, that won't be happening. The human mind has its limitations. If you set an unrealistic goal for yourself, you will end up working more but that will downgrade your productivity. You will face energy burnout, as a result your overall level of efficiency will drop. Read:How to Restart Your Career after a Break? Taking break Don’t stretch your work regime like a machine. The brain needs its optimum level of a timeout as well. The more you try to push it to overwork, the more it’ll slouch. It’s recommended that you take breaks throughout the day in certain intervals. This will rejuvenate your brain and you’ll find yourself being able to concentrate better. Stop finding perfection There is a common misconception that you need to keep doing something over and over again until perfection is achieved. In reality, you can never find true perfection. There will be always a scope of things being better. So, you should not get stuck with a single problem. Do your best and move onto the next one. Read:Traits of the Smartest and Most Efficient Employees Minimize interruptions The idea is to work smarter, not harder. You need to reassess where you are spending your time and how you are spending your time. Instead of cramming your schedule with more and more work, focus on how you can minimize interruption to your work. Whether it is limiting the interaction with your colleagues or turning off the notification of your phone, take initiatives where you can work for an extended period without any distraction. The two-minute rule This is a rule of thumb that everyone should follow. The two-minute rule states that if the work can be completed in 2 minutes, it should be done right away without any distraction. Therefore rather than setting big goals to work with, break them down into small objectives or micro-goals. Once those achievable targets are brought under short time brackets it will be easier for you to tick them off. Read Considering a Career Change? 10 Questions to Ask Yourself Set your deadline Procrastination can kill productivity more than you can imagine. When you stack up everything for the last minute, they only add up. This will lead you to multitask or rush works which will ultimately reduce the quality. So rather than following the organizational deadline, create your own deadline. Try and stick to it so that you never fall behind the clock. Reduce meetings This might sound counterintuitive at first. But you should try and avoid unnecessary meetings. In this day and age of connected communication, most of the official tasks can be effciently delegated over a memo or a mail. You are simply wasting your time and productivity by attending mindless meetings. Read Perfect Resume: 12 Effective Tips for writing professional CV Wake up early Successful CEOs wake up as early as 4 AM. This is just a stat to show that when you wake up early, you have more time to get things done. Go for a run or a walk if you can. This will not only freshen up your mind but will also prepare you for the day. Learn to say ‘no’ Every once in a while, you will see your boss or peer dumping more work on you. You should learn to say ‘no’ to that. There is no need for you to take up more than you can chew. Instead of getting overloaded with bulk of tasks, focus on having your own ones done first. Read Effective tips for hunting jobs during pandemic Final Thoughts Your productivity and efficiency will be added to the overall output of your organization. In addition to making yourself productive, you should try and foster the same mentality among your peers too. Being more productive and efficient is not really a tough thing. You just have to do what you already do; but in a more efficient way.

Many workers of different industries in Bangladesh are victims of malnutrition and their productivity rate is likely to fall up to 20% due to the condition.   So, the workers' nutrition safety will have to be prioritised for the implementation of the government's Vision 2021 and 2041 and achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). Also read: 43 pc female RMG workers suffering from malnutrition Speakers said this at a partnership agreement signing ceremony between the Department of Labour and Switzerland-based Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) in the capital Monday. Moniruzzaman Bipul, portfolio lead of GAIN Bangladesh, said ensuring necessary nutrition for workers may increase their productivity rate up to 20%. "Only anaemia, caused by iron deficiency, is responsible for the reduction of productivity worth $500 crore in South Asia."