Wednesday, March 20, 2013

How To Add 60 Minutes To Your Day

Personal productivity varies by person to person. Some people never carry work over to the next day, preferring to complete all tasks or delegate them before going home.

In today's world with snail mail, FedEx, facsimile, email and all the social media led by Google, Facebook, You Tube and Twitter you can hardly get your standard tasks complete. Planning an office routine is paramount.

So what to do about your routine?

You can make lists by priority, or create piles of papers by due dates or delegate which is basically passing the buck. Or you can:

  • Take time and decide what can be done to complete essential tasks for which you are responsible and complete them as fast as possible. Do not hold these over.
  • Drop any reading, both project/office related or any fun stuff. Take it home as homework. You are better off reading material at home than getting distracted from your serious work load.
  • Reply immediately to requests for information. This stops accumulation of paperwork or emails and the feeling of "you owe, you owe".
  • Plan about 40 minutes before lunch and 30 minutes just before leaving for home for secondary emails and social media activities.

Make sure you allow time in the morning and afternoon for face time with colleagues. This is essential for health and fun and it reduces stress. Drop all low priority tasks and participate in these via email.

Be prepared for meetings and hopefully these become more efficient. Plan your desk-work load so that 50% of the time you are at your desk (about 4 hours a day). Be firm with this and suddenly you will find spare time for enjoying your day at the office.