作者：北美考试教学中心 托福写作组 李砚丹

In today's highly competitive workplace, productivity is a very important ability; only with high productivity can you handle the affairs of your day-to-day work well. Different people have their own opinions on how to increase productivity. Some people think that a quiet environment is helpful, while others think that rewards or interest can bring more motivation to work. In my opinion, interest is the most important factor affecting productivity.

First, having an interest in a work task directly has many positive effects on productivity. If a person is interested in work, he will be keen to work hard. Personally, when I enjoy a project, I do my best and keep thinking about it even after getting off work. I still vividly remember that when I was showering at home one night, I was still thinking about the problems in the reports that I encountered during the day at work. However, if I'm not interested in the content of the job, I can only do it by taking up my responsibilities and getting the job done as required.

Second, while being interrupted at work can reduce productivity, a workplace free of distractions and noise is often counterproductive. It may sound contrary to what people think, but in reality, most people don't want a completely quiet work environment. Long hours of work itself can lead to reduced productivity, and being in a very quiet environment can make people feel bored faster. We often see people working or studying with headphones on – they're not really enjoying the music, they're trying to focus in the atmosphere created by the background music. Many music-related websites and mobile applications provide an option called white noise, which is designed to provide people with some soothing background music to help people work and study better. It is very popular among users.

Finally, while a reward can be an incentive to work hard, it doesn't fuel productivity. Rewards can motivate people to complete the job content, but they don't directly make them do it more efficiently. After all, when factories are modernized, most people are not paid for the amount of work done. In addition, reward is also an external factor, and its promotion of productivity is quite limited. In comparison, interest can provide a steady stream of intrinsic motivation to keep people moving forward.

All in all, I know that to increase productivity, the most important thing is to find your interests in your work content.