You’ve got more to do than could possibly get done with your current work style. You’ve prioritized. You’ve planned. You’ve delegated. You’ve tried to focus. You’ve coached and mentored. The next frontier is increasing your efficiency so that you can spend less time and still do a good job.
Exactly which strategies will work best for you will vary person-by-person and situation-by-situation. The working environment and corporate culture is a critical thing here. Saving time which ordinarily would have gone waste is very important for businesses and productivity.
Clarify actual expectations: When you take on a significant task, talk with any key stakeholders about what they expect from you. Perhaps they need a PowerPoint deck, or perhaps they don’t. Perhaps they need an A+ job or maybe a B+ will be fine. Perhaps they need a comprehensive plan or maybe just an initial sketch will work.
Seeking clarity on deliverables and expectations will keep you informed and enable you plan your desk. By clarifying what’s actually needed and to what level, you can save hours of time deciding what to do and getting tasks done.
Re-use previous material: Your ability to reduce time by reusing and recycling work will vary depending on your particular responsibilities. But where you can, copy, paste, and edit. That could happen with emails, presentations, trainings, proposals, and almost any other type of activity where you’re communicating something very similar.
When you’re pressed for time, fight the urge to entirely update or overhaul materials, and use something you already have to save hours and deliver the best content. Keep proper records of previous materials – their re-use have proven to be helpful in saving time.
Develop templates and checklists: To speed up your process on routine items, come up with a template or checklist or find ones you can use. You might want templates for activities like putting together weekly reports, presentations, or meeting agendas. Also, you may find checklists valuable for weekly planning, one-on-one meetings, or other repeated activities. Both templates and checklists allow you to do a good job in less time because you don’t need to spend any time remembering what to do or deciding on the next step.
Make it a conversation: Depending on what you need to accomplish, you can potentially save time by sharing what you’ve done verbally. For example, maybe your manager asks you to research a particular topic. Instead of writing up a formal presentation, it may accomplish your purposes in less time to take notes and then talk through your findings during a one-on-one meeting. This strategy can also work well if you need to communicate about more abstract concepts, like design.
Planning ahead: It is assumed that everyone knows how to manage his/her boss, once you are able to master what pleases your bosses – work becomes easier. Forecast on what your boss will need and start making preparation towards delivering that. Agreed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) must come with timelines, keep to the timelines and deliver accordingly. If your target changes based on a new direction quickly adjust and keep to the new expectations. You can save a lot of time – you may only have to fine-tune the draft work without necessary wasting time. You by this approach avoid the pressure and error that comes with delivering on your target with limited time.
Time your work: Finally, a strategy for still doing a good job in less time is deciding in advance how much time you will spend on a particular task or part of a task, and then sticking to it. For example, if you tend to over-invest in the research stage, you may want to tell yourself that you have to stop after one to two hours. Or if you struggle with coming up with an initial draft, then you may pre-decide how much time you would like to invest in getting something typed out.
Time boxing doesn’t guarantee that you’ll finish the work in the allotted time. However, it can definitely help with focus. And deciding in advance on the deliverable that needs the most time, this approach can work to your advantage.
We all have our limits so I can’t promise that everything will get done by using the above strategies. But when you do employ these techniques, you can get more done in less time. You will improve on your efficiency. You can then save much time for yourself development and other things that may not be directly related to work – family expectation amongst others.
Source: Bright Ampadu Okyere/hbr.org | Tel. #: 0244204664 | Email Address: hrtoday@gmail.com
