The Steve Miller Band once sang in their 1976 hit Fly Like An Eagle, “Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping in to the future.” What Miller knew then, and is still true today, is time is the most valuable commodity a leader has. Buying back time or replacing time is simply is misnomer. Once time has been lost, it is lost forever. As a result, to waste someone else’s time is a cardinal sin. Time is precious and must be stewarded well.
If you are a regular reader of this site then you know BELAY Solutions is absolutely one of my favorite organizations. Co-founded by Bryan Miles and his wife Shannon, BELAY was recently ranked #1 among small companies in the 2017 Top Company Cultures List Presented by Entrepreneur and CultureIQ.
Below is an article written by their team on 10 Time Management Skills & Techniques To Improve Productivity In The Workplace.
For the record, nothing will help you manage your time better than hiring one of BELAY’s virtual assistants. Trust me. After reading, if you want to investigate hiring a virtual assistant, click HERE and start a conversation with the BELAY team today. You will not be disappointed.
Now onto their comments:
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Listen. We won’t even bother rhetorically asking if you often find yourself feeling overwhelmed by every ding, ping, and menacing red-number notification on your every device. We already know the answer.
Because if you’re anything like anyone else living this side of the 21st century, all of the instant-ness of our digital world is enough to drive you mad.
Sure, complete mobility and accessibility have certainly served to make us more productive but interestingly and conversely enough, it’s often equally counterproductive. So what can we do to drop the ‘counter-’ and get back to good, old-fashioned productivity?
Here are 10 time management skills, strategies and techniques that can help you improve productivity at work – and beyond.
- Delegate. Smart – and productive – leaders adopt the ‘70 percent rule’ that says that ‘ … if the person you’d like to perform the task is able to do it at least 70 percent as well as you can, you should delegate.’ If you’re still unsure about when to delegate, ask yourself these questions.
- Prioritize. Every morning, make a list of those items that need your immediate attention. Anything that can wait, should.
- Monotask. In today’s whirling, must-have-it-yesterday society, we’ve been indoctrinated with the belief that multitasking is the only ‘-tasking’ – but more often than not, we do better when we focus on one thing at a time.
- Start Early. There’s a reason the early bird gets the worm – they’re up-and-at-’em before all the other sleepy birds – and it pays off. Most successful professionals have one thing in common: They start their day early to have time to quietly plan their day.
- Interval Work. Try organizing your workday into 15-minute segments as that’s often long enough to get something done – and short enough to find that time in your day.
PRO TIP: Schedule meetings at 15 minutes past the hour and end them on the hour. In three 15-minutes ‘chunks,’ people can often accomplish in 45 minutes for what they think they’ll need 60 minutes.
- Say No. Seriously. It’s OK. Politely decline additional tasks if you’re already overloaded with work. And if you think you can say ‘yes,’ make sure to review your list of priorities first.
- Avoid Distractions. Resist the urge to check unrelated distraction – Hello, social media! – while you’re working. And if your fingers’ social media muscle memory is too hard to override, consider leveraging some programs like SelfControl, Freedom, StayFocusd, and Anti-Social, which block access to the sticky, slippery wormhole parts of the internet for specified periods.
PRO TIP: Work on just one screen at a time. If you’re on your computer, keep tablets, phones, smart watches, carrier pigeons and all other tempting distractions out of reach.
- Know When You’re Done. Just as you instinctively know when to stop eating, continuing to work on something when your brain is clearly circling the drain is a significant time-waster. Often, you can actually complete the task faster by taking a break and allowing your brain to switch gears for a bit.
- Recognize ‘Bonus Time.’ Rather than be frustrated to learn that your flight’s been delayed or an appointment is running late, learn to shift your perspective and view these ‘inconveniences’ as opportunities to tackle smaller, lower-priority tasks that have been nagging you, like responding to an email or returning a call.
- Give Yourself Grace. We will all occasionally be distracted by something shiny; we are, after all, human. Accept that you will make mistakes, become distracted or have an overall unproductive day – and accept that it’s really OK. Mistakes are proof that, at the very least, we’re trying. So recommit to getting back on track tomorrow with a clean slate. It happens.
With more and more companies and employees bucking the traditional 9-to-5, brick-and-mortar business model, the new ‘normal’ has become somewhat nebulous as we try desperately to (re-)apply some semblance of structure to our workdays, whatever hours and building they occupy. But adopting and applying even just a few of these time-management tips, tricks and strategies will serve you well on your way to being a laser-focused productivity machine.
BELAY offers expert-level, weapons grade, business-class options for organizations looking for bookkeeping, webmaster and administrative support. To learn more about their virtual solutions and start climbing higher, go here.