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We all know that feeling of treading through treacle when it comes to getting things done at work. It’s common among many workplaces, but have you ever thought about how you can eradicate that from your work life and get the best out of yourself, both for work and for peace of mind that you’re being ‘The best you can be’?
There’s not much worse than finishing a day feeling like you’ve been unproductive, and sometimes it’s not even your fault! If you’ve been dealing with orders, helping someone out and leaving your work until a later point, or the emails are flying in and you’re not making progress, we can help!
Before we give you the all-important guidance for optimum output, there are a few rules that are all too often abided by that are as outdated as the ‘poke’ function on Facebook! The four main pointers are that meetings are essential, email is the top of the tree, you have to ‘look busy’ even if you’re not, and you have to ‘look stressed’because you can’t possibly be being productive if you’ve not got steam blowing from your ears!
Your friendly Magento agency advise that the ideal thing here is to forget the above rules and instead work by one main rule: Concentrate on output.
We’re not saying to just drop everything and be slackers, you need to get the work done, but try not to focus on how many minutes or hours you’re putting in to tasks, and instead look at optimising the results you can get from your day.
At the end of the day (literally) it’s the results that count and not just appearing busy constantly.
With this in mind, we’ve got some handy tips to aid your transition from being ‘busy’ to being ‘productive’:
Vital Comes First
Point blank, never begin the day with your favourable and easiest tasks. Kick off the day with the trickiest tasks and most important task. You’ll only keep pushing them back otherwise! And then, before you know it, time’s run out and it’s still on the to-do list.
Harness The Email
Don’t allow those emails to reign supreme in your work life. You might feel like you’re being a model employee, but sometimes you don’t have to send a reply to that email instantaneously, things won’t crumble around you if you do! Obviously there are exceptions, but what we’re saying is, don’t let emails capture all your time and productivity.
If you can in your role, try checking emails once in the morning, once after lunch and once towards late afternoon. Reply in batches and you’re bound to reply far quicker than if you’re allowing them to interrupt your flow throughout the day.
The 20-Minute Rule
Ever been in those extensive unnecessary meetings that could just have easily been said in an email that you’re going to check at one of three points in the day? You’re not alone, and meetings have the potential to be such a waste of time, so make a conscious effort to trim those meetings into 20-minute sessions.
Structure Meetings
It’s important to make sure meetings have some structure, or they’ll end up being those pesky one hour bore-fests that aren’t required. Ensure there’s a full agenda prior to meetings with the plan setting out exactly what the discussion points will be about. That way the runner of the meeting has to do the appropriate prep, and therefore reduces the time wastage in the meeting.
Three Focus
This is a contentious one, but just like the email assigning, try to have a maximum of three priorities per day.
You may have a to do list as long as your arm, but if you plan your tasks in line of importance and then keep working your way through your list of things to do until you’re done then you’ll fire through in no time. For example, you could become overwhelmed with all the things you have to do because of the little things interfering with the larger, more vital jobs. Stay focussed, get the three main things done, cancel out the procrastination and watch the three main tasks get boxed off in no time at all!