Happy New Year! Take this annual fresh start as the
opportunity to set yourself up for a successful year. The beginning of the new year is the perfect
time to set your intentions for greater efficiency in both your personal and professional
life. Consider the way you write your to-do list and how you plan your day. Organize
your desk supplies and email inbox so that you can minimize headaches and
access the resources you need quickly. Here
are some suggestions for increasing productivity and minimizing distractions so
you can stay focused and on target with your current responsibilities and future
goals:
Make Your
To-Do List Do the Work
An effective to-do list drives your schedule and spares you
from having to stop and decide what to do next. Your brain only has capacity
for a certain number of decisions each day, so leave room for making decisions
that will contribute to your organizational success and professional goals
instead of burning up all your energy on decisions such as "what should I do
next?” or "what time should I eat lunch?”. Steve Jobs’ now famous daily uniform
of a black turtleneck, jeans and New Balance sneakers was his answer to decision-making
fatigue. He was limiting the number of minor daily choices in order to leave
enough room for product-driven decision-making and creative work. Write your
to-do list the night before so that the moment you wake up, you know exactly
how to get started.
Construct
an Effective List
It feels good to scrawl a triumphant line though something on
your to-do list, but don’t overpack your list with meaningless items just to
get that high! A good list should help you balance the things you need to get
done in your personal life (pick up the dry cleaning, make dinner) with
projects and assignments at work (write that proposal, send the meeting wrap-up
notes). Consider the urgency and intensity of each item as you plan. For
example, the meeting wrap-up notes should be sent within at least 24 hours
after the meeting. And, that proposal deadline- even if it’s tight- likely
gives you enough time to split that project into small tasks that can be
completed over several days.
Plan a to-do list format that works with your style and the
arc of your day. The following are some guiding principles as you get started:
-
Make room for your own values
and emotional outlook. Exercising, checking in with a friend,
sitting down for dinner… if these fit in with your value system then they are a
priority.
-
Keep the list short. Consider dividing your list into
buckets: work, home and correspondence. Then write short task lists for each. For
example:
Work
-
draft opening statement to proposal
-
finalize meeting agenda
-
finish expense report
Home
-
write thank you notes
-
pick up dry-cleaning
-
make dinner
Correspondence
-
ask team for their monthly reports
-
read cc’ed files
-
reach out to layout vendor
-
Break large jobs into small tasks. This
will ensure that you can get a little bit done every day, but also affords you
some brain flexibility. If you’re feeling energetic and motivated, tackle one
of the harder tasks on that list. If you’re tired and the phone is ringing off
the hook, pick something easier.
-
Organize a master list. This will help you keep track of
long-term projects, professional goals, and competencies you need to tackle for
your annual review. You can draw from this as you plan your daily and/or weekly
workflow.
Keep
Minor Headaches to a Minimum
Forgetting your password to the department server can ruin a
morning. Three incorrect log-ins resulting in a lock-out and you’ve lost an
hour. Keep your passwords in a safe place so that you can find them in case you
blank. Running out of office supplies, hunting for an email in a disorganized
Outlook box, and misplacing your security badge can also be equally disruptive.
Here’s a few tips for limiting headaches and wasted time:
-
Keep your keys in the same spot. Have a
consistent and secure spot to drop your most important things (keys, badge,
wallet) when you walk into the office and when you get home at night. A basket,
small shelf or designated drawer will remind you of this ritual each time you
walk through the door.
-
Maintain a clean inbox. Organize
your file folders in Outlook so that your inbox is clean and past emails are
easy to find. Some ideas for folder organization: client name, project name,
and an archive folder to move over documents or folders you aren’t using
immediately but aren’t ready to delete. Consider setting up a box for the
emails you’re only cc’ed on, to distinguish them from emails requiring your
immediate action. Then select a time at the end of each day or early each
morning to read through the items in that file.
-
Tidy your desk weekly. Set an admin hour each week to
tidy your desk and make sure you have the supplies (letterhead, business
envelopes, mail slips, sticky notes) needed to stay productive. Bring your
paper inbox to "ready,” meaning that you take this time to go through each item
and file, trash, or respond so that the box is completely empty for the upcoming
week.
Minimalizing
the Social Media Distraction
It’s not just kids who can’t stop checking social media sites!
Minimize the distraction by setting some boundaries for yourself:
-
Set "no social media zones” in your house and
office.
-
Turn off push notifications.
-
Remove apps from your phone.
-
Shut down the internet browser while you’re working.
-
Try a social media detox.
-
Use an actual alarm clock so you can put your
phone away at night.
Ask a
Mentor
When it comes to time management, mentors have had plenty of
experience balancing a full plate with competing deadlines and priorities that
stretch across both their personal and professional endeavors. Ask them about
the practices they’ve adopted to meet these challenges. Some questions you
might ask:
-
Do you have any tips for managing Outlook emails
and folders?
-
What’s your favorite time-saving strategy that you
use when organizing your administrative items (i.e., cleaning out your inbox,
responding to emails, filing expenses.)?
-
How do you stay connected to social media while
making sure it doesn’t dampen your productivity?
-
What does your daily to-do list look like? Do you
use a specific format?
-
When breaking big projects into smaller tasks, how
do you keep track of your overall progress?
-
If you had to segment your to-do list into five
buckets, what would they be?
