How often have you lost your concentration during the middle of a task at work? How many times have you let your imagination go for a ride while sitting in your cozy little swivel chair? And how many times have you completed your delegated tasks before the deadline without a lot of fuss? How many times you find yourself looking for ways to improve your work efficiency.
If these questions indeed bring back unpleasant workplace memories of the past, then it is time for a bit of introspection.
How to approach the various tasks at work and improve your work efficiency?
1. Track the time spent on tasks
A regular day at the office means working on multiple tasks that are a part of your daily routine. Thus, it makes sense to track the time spent on all your tasks in a day while making sure to not spend the bulk of it in performing trivial tasks. This will be one of the first steps that will help you free your calendar for the day and improve your work efficiency. The Art of Goal Setting will help you a lot in improving your work efficiency.
2. Effective communication skills
It is vital to master the art of communicating effectively to move up the organizational ladder. Also, it is useful to converse well with your immediate superiors to understand what their expectations are and how to fulfill them. If you are not clear on what your role is and what is expected of you, then you will end up wasting time leading to inefficiency in your team. Managers can conduct communication training for employees as it is really helpful and will improve the work efficiency. Effective communication is a life skill and is very essential to learn.
3. Taking breaks in the correct intervals
As you work, it is necessary to take a break once in a while. It would help you to boost yourself so that you can sustain the energy right through the day. It is desirable to look at an object placed at least 10 feet away from you after every 20 minutes to reduce the strain in your eyes.
Also, a short 15-minute break (involving anything from walking around and catching some fresh air to occasional tea breaks) after every 1.5 hours will help you rejuvenate yourself, helping you improve your work efficiency.
4. Minimize distractions and avoid multitasking
If it helps, it is better to keep your mobile phone out of sight so that you don’t keep checking your notifications or feed regularly. You might be good at multitasking, it is not recommended to listen to music and work simultaneously as well.
For starters, it makes you look less professional and committed and secondly, it increases your chances of making mistakes. You can listen to music to de-stress yourself once in a while. You should remember though, that the lesser the distractions, the higher the focus, and the more you can improve work efficiency.
That Facebook post or Instagram story can wait. Can your appraisal too?
5. Complete small tasks immediately
Tasks that take less than, say, two minutes of your time shouldn’t be procrastinated. If you wait to get them done later, you might forget them or pile things up, both of which are unnecessary. All great people have become so by following this “two-minute rule”. Now you know what is stopping you from achieving greatness!
6. Plan your commute well
You can utilize a lot of time by planning when to leave home for the office and vice versa. By avoiding traffic and commuting during less congested hours, you relieve yourself of all the weariness and exhaustion and work effectively.
To succeed at work, you must take some time off. Use that time to think about ways to get things done quicker. Working smarter and not just harder is the key as you make your progress up the corporate ladder.
Now, that you have a fair idea about how to improve your work efficiency, why don’t you try them out and share it with us?
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By applying all these work efficiency strategies I will be able to save a lot of time which I can use for more meaningful things.