Do you often feel like you don't have enough hours in the day to manage your workload? How many extra hours could you gain each week if you cut out activities that waste your time day in and day out? If you're feeling stressed, use these strategies to stop wasting time and "find" extra hours for productivity every day.

Slack Can Make You Slack Off

Instant messaging programs like Slack can be extremely useful when communicating with co-workers, but it can also be an epic time waster. There's always someone with a lot less to do than you who has hours to chitchat. If you can't turn off your IM program, set your status to "busy" for the majority of the day to cut back on inane chatter. If someone does bother you with non-work-related chatter, tell them politely you're in the middle of a project and you'll catch up with them at lunch or at the end of the day.

Email Eats at Productivity

When that little mail notification pops up on your screen, do you drop what you're doing to deal with the message? If so, you're wasting countless hours a week, especially if you get stuck in a back-and-forth email conversation that could have been handled with a 60-second phone call. Check and respond to email three times per day. If someone has an emergency, they will come and find you or call you on the phone.

Smartphones Lead to Not-So-Smart Choices

Smartphones make our lives easier, but they can also cause us to waste a lot of time. If you drop what you're doing every time you receive a text message, Facebook update or news alert, you're not concentrating on your work. Set your phone to Do Not Disturb when you get to the office. Check your messages at lunch or on break only. Don't worry about home emergencies. You can set overrides to allow your phone to ring if specific people call while DND is set.

Chatty Co-Workers Crash Productivity

Socializing with co-workers is nice -- it can break up the day and you may genuinely enjoy your teammates. But if you run to the break room to grab a coffee and end up spending 20 minutes discussing Sundays' Game of Thrones episode, your whole day can get derailed. Put headphones on when you're working to discourage people from interrupting you, even if you aren't actually listening to anything. Don't be afraid to cut a conversation short by saying you need to get back to your project, and try to limit socialization time to lunches and breaks.

Get a New Job

Sometimes, the culture of your office is simply too chaotic to ever achieve maximum productivity. If this is the case, it's time to consider greener pastures. Reach out to a recruiter at PrideStaff today if you are ready to seek new challenges.