Prioritize and Delegate: ‘Tis the season!
Sometimes it’s difficult to comprehend that there is only twenty-four hours in a day. When we feel time is blustering, we often forget that we have no more hours than the next person. Working effectively is important to every business, but being snowed-under is an overbearing feeling that we are all too familiar with.
As we countdown the days until Christmas, our workload seems to be snowballing and when the festive spirit begins to consume us the snowball becomes harder to control. During the holidays it’s essential that you know how to balance your time and schedule; when we manage our workloads we achieve more and begin to enhance our careers.
Here are five ways to help shovel through the snowstorm and increase productivity this wintertime:
1. Let Good Ideas Thaw
Are you somebody who likes to scrawl their daily tasks on dreary post-it note designed to help but often gets gusted away? Perhaps you’re someone whom is too stubborn to write tasks down and opts to have them melting away in their brisk mind? If this is the case, you need a one-stop-cabin where you can reference all things that need completing. By writing your tasks on a list, you can allow ideas to thaw until you require them and focus your mind on one given task at a time.
2. Ski Through the Latter
Every business worker should be familiar with the good ol’ 80/20 rule. This rule predicts that 20% of your work will be the most valued and a chilly 80% will be significantly less. As a result, you must concentrate and prioritize the polar latter. You can do this by setting realistic deadlines which estimate the time of completion. It’s necessary that you’re honest about how much you can achieve in a day and never be too overoptimistic about your work overcast.
3. Stop Snowballing Around
Never let your email inbox drive your workload. Although reading fifteen emails may seem minor, it equates to fifteen times you have been interrupted and had your focus sniffled. If proving vital switch your emails off and always keep multitasking to a minimum. For example: if you’re synchronizing (juggling) many jobs, the majority won’t have your complete attention.
4. Don’t Hibernate: Allocate
It’s highly advised that you review your workload regularly. You may discover that there is one task you’re always going out of your way to avoid. If that task is outdated – or not as important as you once thought – simply eliminate that task. If that task is bleak and makes you want to hibernate, consider delegating a certain weekly time for this task to be done. Add structure to your workload by avoiding nipping at tasks a little and throwing them back on the work pile.
5. Monitor the Blizzard
Take time at the end of your week to monitor your performance. Evaluate how you can speed up and improve. Maybe you had unreal expectations? Perhaps you were interrupted to work elsewhere? Or tasks took longer to complete? Whatever your reasons, you must log your findings and look how to decrease problems the following week. Keep in mind that it’s the quality of task outcomes that account and not the quantity being produced.
