Looking for ways to boost your productivity?  Here are 8 top pieces of advice from a noteworthy group of industry leaders compiled by LinkedIn.  Make note of a few of your favorites and start applying the advice today.

Happy People Are Productive People

Naomi Simson

Founder, RedBalloon

Be happy then you will be able to apply lots of the Hacks!

In short, happy people equal happy profits. Happy employees are simply more productive – and that can only be a good thing for business – but also great for you as the employee.

Say “No Thanks”

Beth Kanter

Speaker/Author/Master Trainer & nonprofit innovator in networks & social media, recognized by Business Week & Fast Co.

Saying no is one of the most useful productivity skills you can cultivate in both your professional and personal life. In your personal life, saying no to unnecessary commitments can help reduce stress and make space for recharging yourself.

Divide, Delegate, Conquer – Here’s How to Do It Right

Neil Blumenthal

at Warby Parker

Being productive is not about the sheer quantity of stuff you get done—it’s about maximizing your effectiveness. That’s why the ultimate productivity boost is delegation. Delegation is about creating high-functioning teams by dividing and conquering—but in order to conquer, it’s critical to divide thoughtfully.

In my time at Warby Parker, I’ve found that smart delegation can be achieved by sticking to five rules.

Rule #1: Self awareness is key

Rule #2: See it in black and white

Rule #3: Prioritize

Rule #4: Communicate

Rule #5: Follow up

Good, Old-fashioned Conversation

T. Boone Pickens

Founder, Chairman and CEO at BP Capital and TBP Investments Management

Want to work smarter in 2014? Try talking to people. Not tweeting them or texting them but good, old-fashioned conversation.

Talking generates ideas, and it makes companies – and individuals – grow. Our public affairs director, Jay Rosser, tells me I would have been a good reporter. I work a beat constantly. I like to walk into people’s offices and hear what they’ve got to say. I want to know what my people are hearing, reading, and thinking. If they aren’t talking to me, I’ll reach out and ask them. And they know that I listen.

The Key to Effortless Networking

Zach Coelius

CEO, Triggit

Step one: Connect. It is constantly surprising to me how few people collect contact information and follow up. This is the most basic step to networking and yet 90% of professionals fail. It is easy: collect cards, send a “nice to meet you” email and then connect on LinkedIn with everyone you meet. (You never know who will start the next Facebook or Starbucks or be a future president.) Just by taking this step you have laid the critical groundwork for a network that will grow in value over time as people naturally advance in their careers.

Step two: Add value. You naturally have things you know, people who you are connected with, articles you come across and new ideas costless for you to share. A simple tweet, a LinkedIn share or short blog post does wonders. It is easy and by adding value you will be building equity among not only your network but also people who you don’t know yet. In that same vein, pay it forward. You will reap the benefits in spades. Whenever you can help someone without too much effort on your part it is almost assuredly worth it. I have lost track of how many times some random favor that only took me a couple seconds to do has resulted in a valuable relationship and returned favor. An introduction or a bit of advice can mean a huge amount to others when they need it and they will remember it when the time comes that you need help.

Step three: Keep track of your network. It is amazing how often folks change jobs, get promotions or start working on a mutually interesting product. The only way you will know is to check. Since I use LinkedIn religiously, I simply download a text file of my network and scan through it. A quick look at profiles is usually enough.

The 1-Minute Trick

Gretchen Rubin

Bestselling author; blogger www.gretchenrubin.com

I discovered an incredibly easy, effective hack—but it must be followed consistently if I want to see results.

It’s very simple: Do, without delay, any task that can be finished in one minute. Hang up my coat, read a letter and toss it, fill in a form, answer an email, note down a citation, pick up my phone messages, file a paper, put the magazines away…and so on.

Because the tasks are so quick, it isn’t too hard to make myself follow the rule—but it has big results. Keeping all those small, nagging tasks under control makes me more serene, less overwhelmed.

Read More by Reading Less

Tom Keene

Editor-at-Large at Bloomberg Television & Radio

This productivity hack is short, sweet and deadly important.

Read less.

There are things to read cover to cover…But for most reading the great hack is to cut the paragraphs by 2/3rds. Call it a planned and highly practiced skim. It can be as simple as take in the top, pound through a part of the next several paragraphs then, and this takes nothing but a practiced eye, find the author’s key idea. Longer pieces may have more than a few key ideas…a 20-page report may take about 7 pages of reading. And, always search for the single chart that floats your Euclidian boat. With opinion pieces, always read the top then the last two paragraphs in search of the author’s main point.

Know that you will miss things. The goal in our collective 2014 productivity crunch is to turn a 7-page research report into 2.5 pages. The idea is to turn a two-page op-ed into a two-minute skim.

I Want My Employees to Stand Around

Kevin Chou

CEO, co-founder at Kabam

Most CEOs don’t like to see their employees standing around. When I see it at Kabam, I know teams are getting on the same page.

The Productivity Hack I’d like to discuss is not one that increases my personal productivity, but my team’s productivity. As a CEO, my focus is on ensuring a much broader set of people beyond me can make the most productive use of time. I think this holds true for anyone that manages or influences other people, and I hope this advice will be helpful to you. My best productivity hack is this: I hold daily stand-ups for my direct team every morning at 9:15am that lasts for about 10 minutes.

To maximize effectiveness of daily stand-ups, we have established parameters for the format:

• Same time, same place every day—we start on time no matter who is there or not there
• Stand up—this creates a sense of urgency and alertness for the pace of the meeting
• Keep the meeting agenda tight—high-level executional discussion only
• No tangents or sidebar discussions—anyone can call a topic out of bounds

For the rest of the Productivity Hacks click here