Seven Effective Shortcuts To A
More Productive Workday
If you had one extra hour every day,
what would you do with it? Maybe you’d catch up with a friend over coffee, take
your kids for a bike ride, try out a new dinner recipe, or even just grab 60
more minutes of shut-eye. Whatever you’d choose, your plans would probably
bring you significantly more satisfaction than staring at a spreadsheet and
writing status reports back at the office.
Of course, as awesome as that free
hour sounds, you might think cutting back on time at work could pose a big
risk. After all, if you’re not logging long hours, won’t your performance
suffer? Not necessarily, according to the experts—we just like to think a more
jam-packed schedule means higher productivity.
People tend to fall into habits
where they simply continue to do things the way they always have, even if it’s
not the quickest, most efficient route,
says Shari McGuire, author of Take Back Your Time: 101 Simple Tips
to Shrink Your Work-Week and Conquer the Chaos in Your Life.
As a matter of fact, there are
plenty of smart shortcuts that can shave precious minutes off of nearly every
aspect of your workday. Here are seven of those quicker approaches, which can
let you spend more time on what really matters to you.
If you’re the one organizing the
rendezvous, be strategic about timing. "Instead of scheduling it at 11
a.m., begin at 11:10 a.m.," McGuire says. Since most meetings end on the
hour, this 10-minute cushion gives people a chance to get a drink of water and
go to the bathroom without holding up the rest of the group.
Next, slash the amount of time
allotted to the meeting. Most calendars default to 30-minute or hour-long
chunks, McGuire says. And we tend to fill up the amount of time we’ve set
aside, even if we could finish sooner, so a 15-minute update could take twice
as long if you’ve penciled in a half hour.
In addition, adhere to the set time
frame—even if some folks are running late. "If coworkers know that you’ll
wait for them when they arrive late, then they’ll do it regularly,"
McGuire says.
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Meetings are more productive if
participants are standing up rather than sitting down.
Another
quick tip that makes a huge difference: Ditch the chairs. Research from Washington University has shown that meetings
are more productive if participants are standing up rather than sitting down.
And
if you’re an attendee? Consider occasionally asking to skip a meeting if you
feel your presence isn’t necessary. "Explain to coworkers that you don’t
think they need your perspective this time," says Peter Bregman, author of
Four Seconds: All the Time You Need
to Stop Counter-Productive Habits and Get the Results You Want. "By carefully
choosing which meetings you go to, you’re able to better target your value to
the organization."
You
may also want to point to coworkers this revealing study from Bain &
Company,
which found that 15% of an organization’s collective time is spent in meetings.
Another study found that the cost of all this meeting time equals $37 billion per year to U.S. businesses.
2. Let Stuff Slide
Adopt this slacker mantra: Don’t
always aim for perfection; settle for "good enough." There is a point
of diminishing returns where even though you could make something better, your
time might be better spent on another pursuit, says time-management expert Peter Turla. Of
course, this doesn’t work with every task—some should take 100% of your
effort—but still, this easygoing approach can save you a ton of time.
To that end, give yourself
permission to let some stuff slide (think: cleaning out your backlog of old
emails or color-coding file cabinets). "It’s poor use of your time to
focus on tasks that aren’t worth paying attention to in the first place,"
Turla says.
If your work routine allows for it,
slack off on email by reading it only a few times a day. "Add a footer to
your messages explaining that you only check email between certain hours, and
to call if the matter is urgent," McGuire says. "In the meantime,
turn off your alerts. Every time you get an interruption during the day, like
an email ping, you lose 20 minutes of productivity."
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Slack off on email by reading it
only a few times a day.
If
you use Gmail for work, download Google Inbox, which suggests three
brief replies to every email you receive. For example, in response to a note
reading, "Can you remind me which client we’re meeting with next
week?" It might offer: "Will do!," "I don’t know," and
"I’ll send it to you shortly." Simply tap the one you like best, make
edits or changes if you wish, then hit send.
You should also feel free to delay
responding to certain messages. If the email is regarding a situation that’s in
flux and could resolve itself without your involvement, putting it off means
you might never have to deal with it, Turla says. Plus, if someone asks you a
trivial question that they could easily look up the answer to themselves, not
replying right away will encourage them to do so, letting you off the hook.
And if you’ve received a long email
thread, shave time by simply skipping to the very end, rather than reading all
the back and forth. "The earlier messages often become obsolete,"
Turla says.
Give your multitasking tendencies
the boot. Sure, checking your email while taking a call sounds like a
time-saving technique in theory, but in the long run it only magnifies your
workload. If you aren't focused, the call will last longer because you’ll be
distracted and will miss things, McGuire says. "Turn off your computer
screen."
Another savvy strategy is to harness
the power of a rumbling stomach and place a call right when people are likely
to be hungry. "If you call just before lunch, the other person is less
likely to get long-winded," Turla says.
Want to get your happy hour on,
stat? "Block your corporate calendar between 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. [or whenever
your nonworking hours are] so it will show as busy if coworkers try to book an
appointment," McGuire says. Not only will this dissuade people from
keeping you longer at the office, but when you have a set end time on the
books, you’ll be motivated to get things finished sooner.
Having an open-door policy may be a
warm and fuzzy way to supervise, but you’ll end up shouldering a lot more work
as a result. Instead, establish a specific time slot—say, between 9 a.m. and 10
a.m.—when those you’re managing can stop by for guidance. They will pile up
their questions and be more likely to solve them on their own, McGuire says.
"Also, allow people to fail. If you give them a chance to try something by
themselves, you will free up time for yourself because you won’t have to walk
them through every step."
"If you call just before lunch,
the other person is less likely to get long-winded."
When staffers do seek your advice,
turn it back on them. Ask them how they would handle the situation. Not only is
your job as a manager to create an independently capable team, but people will
be less likely to come to you if they know you won’t give them an easy
answer—which helps make your life a whole lot easier.
Over and above your regular duties,
the last thing you probably feel like doing is hitting up an industry event or
crafting thoughtful emails to your contacts, all in the name of networking. The
good news is that you don’t have to pour a ton of time into these efforts;
making brief, two-minute connections at a time can have big-time benefits.
"When it comes to developing a relationship with someone, frequent little
checkpoints can be more effective than one long email," Bregman says.
For example, forwarding someone an
article along with a two-line note saying, "I thought you’d enjoy
this," shows you were thinking of them and trying to be helpful, without
requiring much investment on your end. It’s a win-win.
Molly Triffin
http://www.fastcompany.com/3058046/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/seven-effective-shortcuts-to-a-more-productive-workday?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fast-company-daily-newsletter&position=8&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=03212016
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