Using internet at work is often associated with procrastination. There is a stigma that employees overusing the Internet and other digital technologies are less productive than others. However, according to a recent Pew study, 46 percent of working adults feel their productivity has increased due to internet.

As a portfolio entrepreneur, I rely heavily on internet and associated communication technologies to manage my businesses across different countries. To use internet in a productive manner, it’s important to exploit the following six benefits associated with it. I call them MIKNOR– Mobility, Inspiration, Knowledge, Networking, Organization and Recreation.

Using Mobility to Cut Costs and Save Time

Significant advancement in mobile technologies in the last two decades has completely transformed the way people work. Smartphones allow you to access your work from any location, various productivity applications ensure your office is always in your pocket. Cloud computing has made vast amounts of data easily accessible from multiple locations. This has saved time, cut costs and increased productivity of people across industries.

Seeking Much Needed Inspiration

The Internet enables you to understand the latest trends in your respective industry and set a benchmark for your performance. When you read countless stories of success through the execution of innovative ideas, it provides inspiration to emulate that. The internet offers opportunities to innovate, even in our ordinary job functions like creating presentations. Gone are the days that a simple slide show would suffice – now, there are platforms that do most of the “flashy” work for you and provide customizable presentations, like Prezi. The design and format of the presentation is there, you just need to add information about your business and goals. The entrepreneurial boom we have experienced in last couple of decades is largely due to internet.

Broadening Your Knowledge Base

“I Don’t Know” should very rarely be a response in the digital age. When you find yourself without the answer, don’t depend on others to give it to you, at least not at first. At times, we are so dependent on others for the information we need. Teach yourself and the people that report to you to do the research first and take the five extra minutes to draw your own conclusion. With the Internet, answers are available at our fingertips. Chances are you’ll remember the information better the next time you need it, and you won’t have filled anyone’s inbox with needless questions. In the long run, the Internet cuts down on the amount of time it takes to find an answer to a problem or question and increases the amount of execution time.

Networking With Resourceful People

All professionals understand the importance of networking in advancing their career and business prospects. You’ll meet lots of inspiring people in your respective fields and brainstorm cutting edge ideas with them. Various forms of online communication like emails and social media ensure that keeping touch with such people is easier than ever. Social media websites like LinkedIn allow you to even build fresh contacts. Spending time over internet to nurture relationships with your professional contacts positively affects your job performance.

Organizing Your Personal and Professional Lives

The internet in itself is a productivity tool. It is full of useful websites and applications to organize both your personal and professional life. Platforms like MyHealthSphere can keep a track of your physical well-being and motivate you to be healthier and therefore more productive. There are also productivity applications like Taskworld. Managing a large portfolio of diverse companies across different markets is always a big challenge. That’s why we created Taskworld, to establish seamless collaboration among all our employees. Now our employees create tasks, manage projects and evaluate performance on a single online platform.

The All Important Recreation

When we talk about performance, too often we ignore an equally important side of productivity – Recreation. People will perform better if they are having fun as opposed to being stressed. Through a seemingly endless collection of engaging multimedia content, games, news etc., the internet has made the concept of being bored obsolete. Accessing such content every once a while at work does no harm. It reduces stress levels and uplifts your mood. The key lies in not getting carried away with it.

Employees and business owners should continue to explore and exploit internet tools that increase productivity. Technology allows us to think more about the end-goal and less about the smaller, more tedious tasks it takes to get there. When you find yourself online, just do a check and ask yourself, “Am I using this to benefit my work or well-being today?”