Maximize Your Effectiveness At Work In 10 Easy Steps

By Kristine Lewis

Do you leave work each day feeling as if you had accomplished all you had intended to?  Or, do you leave stressed and harried thinking about all of the work you need to do that night or all the work that will be awaiting you on your desk the next morning?  Are you dealing with constant interruptions that prevent you from getting your own work done?

Here are 10 easy ways to maximize your effectiveness at work.  Hopefully, by integrating some or all of these ideas into your life, you will leave work each day with a sense of satisfaction knowing you completed everything you intended to.  And, hopefully, you will greet each morning refreshed and excited for what lies ahead at work that day. 

1.  To begin, here’s a great quote by Laurence J. Peter…If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.  This is so true!  How many times have you intended to work on “Project A” all day and then got sidetracked by a multitude of interruptions and never even looked at “Project A”?  So, the moral of this story is, don’t leave work at night without a written plan for the next day.  This plan should consist of 10-15 action items you want to accomplish the next day.  After completing your list, take the time to prioritize each item.  Put a star by the most critical one (even if it’s not going to be the most enjoyable—it rarely is!) and give everything else a B or C priority.

2.  Brian Tracy, a leading time management expert, wrote a book entitled Eat the Frog.  The premise of this book is that to maximize your effectiveness at work, you should complete your most critical task first, or as Brian Tracy says—Eat the Frog.  You will be surprised at what a sense of accomplishment you will feel when you take on and complete your most critical task first.  And, it will help you breeze through the rest of the tasks on your list.  After completing your most critical task, work on your B’s and then your C’s.

3.  For key projects you are working on, schedule blocks of time during your day in your day planner or PDA in which you will completely focus on that project.  To illustrate this point, here is an example:  John has a list of about 10 items on his task list for today.  One of those items is a direct mail piece in which he needs to write the copy.  This is a time-intensive and challenging project which demands a lot of focus.  John is going to schedule time between 9:00am and 10:30am to focus on this one project.  By scheduling this time, he won’t be tempted to push this important task aside in lieu of less critical or demanding tasks.

4.  Focus seems to be one of the biggest challenges at work today.  We are inundated with emails, voice mails, instant messages, phone calls, PDA alarms, etc.  It is so easy to get caught up in dealing with these interruptions.  Schedule time(s) during your day when you will check and respond to emails and voice mails.   Do not allow yourself to be interrupted by emails or voice mails the rest of the day.  Focus on your task list.

5.  Allow yourself to take a few short breaks during the day.  Get away from your desk, grab some coffee, take a short walk.  Most people cannot concentrate consistently for more than two hours at a time.  A short break can do wonders for your concentration levels.

6.  Keep your office organized and tidy.  Don’t waste a ton of time during the day searching for pieces of paper or files.  If your office is not already well organized, spend 20 minutes a day clearing away the clutter.  Here is a good system to follow when going through your piles of paper:  It’s called TRAF.  TRAF stands for:  T-Toss, R-Refer, A-Act, F-File.  If a piece of paper has no value now or in the future, toss it.  Whenever you can, refer or pass papers on to your secretary or fellow staffers to handle.  Act on any piece of paper requiring action—write that letter, make that phone call, answer that complaint.  And, finally, if a piece of paper does have future value in it, file it.  Write a date on it in the right hand corner denoting when you can safely discard it.

7.  Keep your desk clear.  Work on one project at a time.  Physical clutter creates mental clutter.  If you have only one project in front of you at a time, you will be free to focus on that project.  And speaking of your desk, leave it completely clear when you leave in the evening.  Mentally, this will get you off to a great start the next day.

8.  Whenever you can, work on a task until it is complete.  Constant starts and stops and interruptions can significantly increase the amount of time it takes to complete a task.  By focusing on one take until it is complete, you will greatly reduce the amount of time required to complete that task.

9.  Eat nutritiously throughout the day and get at least 30 minutes of exercise.  A healthy person is a lot more energetic, and therefore, most productive at work.  Eat a diet high in fruits, vegetables and proteins and low in sugars and starches.  And, don’t forget to drink that water. Being dehydrated can make you feel tired and lethargic.

10.  Celebrate your successes!  When you successfully complete your task list for the day or finish a tough project, give yourself some type of reward.  The reward doesn’t have to be costly…here are some ideas:  flowers for your desk, frozen yogurt, drinks with co-workers after work, time to read your favorite magazine. 

Kristine Lewis
An Organized Life
888-762-8147
www.anorganized-life.com

Copyright © 2005 Kristine Lewis.  All Rights Reserved.

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