Tips for Improving Work Efficiency
12 December 2008
Read by 2193 persons
There's no secret; efficiency comes from better time management. To-do lists, prioritizing urgent and important tasks, delegation—these tools and management methods help you work better. Good intentions can be ineffective if the company is poorly organized.
Are you efficient at work? "I don't know," "It depends on the period or my mood"... Very few people actually know their work output, and not a day goes by without wondering if they accomplished what they should have during the day. It's true that the final result matters, but we can only truly talk about efficiency if we achieve that result without too much stress or putting our employees and/or colleagues under pressure.
Knowing that a day only has 24 hours and that we have to juggle professional and private life, we are first obliged to sort out what needs to be done immediately and what can be postponed.
As the old saying goes: "To manage is to foresee." One of the main sources of efficiency for a manager lies in better time management.
Clearly, those who say they are overwhelmed often misuse the time they have, either because they spend too much time on the phone or chatting about trivialities with colleagues, or because they insist on doing tasks they could easily delegate. But sometimes the problem stems from poor work organization within the company.
Arriving at the office before others to get organized
As Patrick Barrau, coach and associate director of the Maroc Devenir firm, explains, "Time management is not only a matter of individual behavior; it also depends on the organization of the company. If priorities are not clearly displayed, it will certainly hinder everyone's work and impact the company's performance." Under such conditions, personal good intentions can be ineffective. However, this feeling of constant overbooking is not inevitable. It is quite possible to achieve your goals without too much stress.
How to achieve this? By simply putting order in your head first and then in your schedule. "Preferably very early in the day, before colleagues arrive," emphasizes Mohamed Alami, CEO of an SME. This is to calmly clarify your priorities for the day. Adil M., for his part, is a fan of an "organized" start. He makes a point of tidying his desk and making a list of tasks for the next day, the evening before leaving. This allows him to be operational from the first hour.
It is also advisable to use the right tools. Today, an electronic or paper agenda is essential.
How then to organize your day effectively? Clearly, the sequence of tasks, the rhythm of the day, the way you handle your tasks and organize your priorities influence your productivity. If you handle tasks as they arrive, if you react quickly to everything, if you don't have a method for discerning what is important from what is not, your productivity will be lower. Therefore, many advocate adopting the urgency/importance chart, also called the "Eisenhower matrix." This involves classifying tasks according to their degree of urgency and importance. By reviewing this chart, you will learn to better manage your priorities.
However, be careful; managing urgent and important tasks should not prevent you from giving time to the unexpected. A monthly planning meeting decided by your bosses at the last minute is difficult to avoid. A colleague making a mistake, forcing you to intervene, generates unexpected extra work. Also be careful not to turn your time management into an escape: by constantly postponing problems, you end up overwhelmed, and the entire organizational process you have built will collapse. To avoid finding yourself in this type of situation, two solutions exist. Delegate as much as possible what you cannot handle and schedule, at the end of the week for example, a half-day free to deal with these trivialities that could become big problems. Even in this case, you must be organized. This free half-day must include an agenda.
Learn to use the "5S" method
Furthermore, if the Japanese terms Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu, Shitsuke mean absolutely nothing to you, know that these are mainly the five foundations of organization.
Seiri or "tidying up" involves sorting, prioritizing items, and eliminating the unnecessary to combat accumulation.
Seiton or "setting in order" allows you to better organize resources to avoid wasting time and therefore energy. As they say, "a place for everything and everything in its place."
Seiso or "cleaning" can take two forms: one preventive (don't get dirty), the other corrective (clean, inspect).
The fourth foundation, Seiketsu, concerns "order." This operation consolidates the previous ones. It marks each person's respect for their immediate environment. The 5th S, or Shitsuke, concerns rigor. This is the most important rule. It perpetuates the effort made and encourages continuous improvement.
Delegation is also a good way to be efficient. Learn to do it, but not just any way. "Because it is often badly experienced, delegation can lead to disappointment on both sides. To do this, it is a matter of better understanding one's own areas of restraint to transform them into conscious aptitudes and abilities to better delegate, or to better receive and experience delegation, according to one's deep intentions, according to one's own values and according to one's environmental framework," notes Patrick Barrau, who also adds (see interview on the following page) that, contrary to popular belief, one should not put pressure on one's collaborators to obtain more efficiency. For him, it is in serenity that one is more efficient. However, many managers claim they can only give their best when they are stressed. The debate on this subject remains open. Finally, being efficient also means clearing your mind. Doing sports, dedicating yourself to a passion, taking vacations... These are all activities that allow you to recharge.
Prioritizing the urgent and important is essential. However, you must regularly set aside a half-day for those trivialities that may one day become major problems. Here too, this "downtime" must have an agenda.
Once priorities are established and listed, delegation is essential to implement them.
B.H.
Posted on December 5, 2008
casafree.com
Are you efficient at work? "I don't know," "It depends on the period or my mood"... Very few people actually know their work output, and not a day goes by without wondering if they accomplished what they should have during the day. It's true that the final result matters, but we can only truly talk about efficiency if we achieve that result without too much stress or putting our employees and/or colleagues under pressure.
Knowing that a day only has 24 hours and that we have to juggle professional and private life, we are first obliged to sort out what needs to be done immediately and what can be postponed.
As the old saying goes: "To manage is to foresee." One of the main sources of efficiency for a manager lies in better time management.
Clearly, those who say they are overwhelmed often misuse the time they have, either because they spend too much time on the phone or chatting about trivialities with colleagues, or because they insist on doing tasks they could easily delegate. But sometimes the problem stems from poor work organization within the company.
Arriving at the office before others to get organized
As Patrick Barrau, coach and associate director of the Maroc Devenir firm, explains, "Time management is not only a matter of individual behavior; it also depends on the organization of the company. If priorities are not clearly displayed, it will certainly hinder everyone's work and impact the company's performance." Under such conditions, personal good intentions can be ineffective. However, this feeling of constant overbooking is not inevitable. It is quite possible to achieve your goals without too much stress.
How to achieve this? By simply putting order in your head first and then in your schedule. "Preferably very early in the day, before colleagues arrive," emphasizes Mohamed Alami, CEO of an SME. This is to calmly clarify your priorities for the day. Adil M., for his part, is a fan of an "organized" start. He makes a point of tidying his desk and making a list of tasks for the next day, the evening before leaving. This allows him to be operational from the first hour.
It is also advisable to use the right tools. Today, an electronic or paper agenda is essential.
How then to organize your day effectively? Clearly, the sequence of tasks, the rhythm of the day, the way you handle your tasks and organize your priorities influence your productivity. If you handle tasks as they arrive, if you react quickly to everything, if you don't have a method for discerning what is important from what is not, your productivity will be lower. Therefore, many advocate adopting the urgency/importance chart, also called the "Eisenhower matrix." This involves classifying tasks according to their degree of urgency and importance. By reviewing this chart, you will learn to better manage your priorities.
However, be careful; managing urgent and important tasks should not prevent you from giving time to the unexpected. A monthly planning meeting decided by your bosses at the last minute is difficult to avoid. A colleague making a mistake, forcing you to intervene, generates unexpected extra work. Also be careful not to turn your time management into an escape: by constantly postponing problems, you end up overwhelmed, and the entire organizational process you have built will collapse. To avoid finding yourself in this type of situation, two solutions exist. Delegate as much as possible what you cannot handle and schedule, at the end of the week for example, a half-day free to deal with these trivialities that could become big problems. Even in this case, you must be organized. This free half-day must include an agenda.
Learn to use the "5S" method
Furthermore, if the Japanese terms Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu, Shitsuke mean absolutely nothing to you, know that these are mainly the five foundations of organization.
Seiri or "tidying up" involves sorting, prioritizing items, and eliminating the unnecessary to combat accumulation.
Seiton or "setting in order" allows you to better organize resources to avoid wasting time and therefore energy. As they say, "a place for everything and everything in its place."
Seiso or "cleaning" can take two forms: one preventive (don't get dirty), the other corrective (clean, inspect).
The fourth foundation, Seiketsu, concerns "order." This operation consolidates the previous ones. It marks each person's respect for their immediate environment. The 5th S, or Shitsuke, concerns rigor. This is the most important rule. It perpetuates the effort made and encourages continuous improvement.
Delegation is also a good way to be efficient. Learn to do it, but not just any way. "Because it is often badly experienced, delegation can lead to disappointment on both sides. To do this, it is a matter of better understanding one's own areas of restraint to transform them into conscious aptitudes and abilities to better delegate, or to better receive and experience delegation, according to one's deep intentions, according to one's own values and according to one's environmental framework," notes Patrick Barrau, who also adds (see interview on the following page) that, contrary to popular belief, one should not put pressure on one's collaborators to obtain more efficiency. For him, it is in serenity that one is more efficient. However, many managers claim they can only give their best when they are stressed. The debate on this subject remains open. Finally, being efficient also means clearing your mind. Doing sports, dedicating yourself to a passion, taking vacations... These are all activities that allow you to recharge.
Prioritizing the urgent and important is essential. However, you must regularly set aside a half-day for those trivialities that may one day become major problems. Here too, this "downtime" must have an agenda.
Once priorities are established and listed, delegation is essential to implement them.
B.H.
Posted on December 5, 2008
casafree.com
