Time management in Office
In this
article we will review recommendations developed
by Jan Jasper, a New Your productivity expert,
special for office employees.
1. A Little of
Everything
About routine work
Usually, a
huge part of our work is actions you carry
out every day over and over. When you’ve
finished such regular routine work, think of
what you could do to make this task easier
in the future. Do not reinvent the wheel and
don’t try to devise something new – just
find an optimal way to perform the work.
Every time something goes wrong, stop and
analyze – why? For instance, if papers
required for accomplish the task are always
late, find the reason of this: is this
because of a printer working bad, or
employees and colleagues doing their jobs
carelessly or something else? Such approach
helps you to adjust productive work in the
future without delays and idle times.
About meetings
The idea
mentioned above can be also applied to
meetings. Usually, employees don’t like
meetings and tend to consider them wasting
of time. Is it so in your company? Then it’s
time to make meetings useful. Now, instead
of listening ranting of your employees,
enlist their support: create a meeting
improvement plan. At the end of each meeting
spare several minutes for discussing it; ask
everyone what was right and useful) in the
meeting and what was not. Think together on
how you can make every meeting maximally
productive.
About phone talks
Use voice
mail or an auto-responder more often,
instead of answering all calls yourself.
Apply a headset or a microphone to free your
hands for other jobs (for example, cleaning
your table).
About business appointments
Value your
time. If you have clients canceling
appointments in the last minute, think of
canceling cooperation with them. Even if a
client who constantly breaks your plans is
big and important, think a bit – wouldn’t it
be better to spend time on looking for new
perspective clients than wasting time on
someone who just steal other’s time?
When you
meet people outside the office, don’t wait
for more than 10 minutes. Meet those who
tend to late often in your office, so you
can do something useful if they will be late
again. Don’t go to unnecessary appointments
– learn to solve issues by phone.
About mail
If you have
a secretary, delegate mail work to him or
her. This will free you up some time, and
will let the secretary to get better
understanding of your work as well.
When you
send e-mails, don’t be lazy and put a
sensible subject. For example, don’t just
write “Agenda”, use “Agenda, April 3, 2011”
instead. Thus, when you receive an answer
you can quickly get the point, plus you will
be able to locate this message later with
less effort.
About idle time
Utilize
every free minute you have. Bring letters,
reports or magazines you want to read with
you, and study them when you have to wait
for an appointment or a transport or in a
queue.
2. Motivation
to act
“Reserve” yourself
Reserve time
in your schedule for important work. If
someone wants to set an appointment
afterwards, politely decline saying you’re
already “reserved”. When you do something
important, turn off your phone or set it to
voice mail, so you won’t be tempted to
answer.
Use
alarm
Don’t waste
your memory capacity for things you do not
need to remember. For instance, if you have
scheduled a phone call at 20:00 and you
worry to forget about it, simply set an
alarm. Don’t memorize things you don’t need
to memorize. Leave your brain for more
important matters.
Take care of yourself
Never forget
about your health and wellness – this is a
vital part of the time management. If
you don’t feed or rest well, you will spend
much more time and energy to recover then.
Plan your rest time (bowling, tennis, an
evening with your spouse) the same way you
schedule your important meetings and
arrangements.
Use
an organizer or a scheduler
Write down
to your organizer everything you need to or
want to do. Later, when you will be setting
plans for a certain day or week, you can put
tasks you need in to the list of obligatory
businesses. Specialized scheduler programs
can also be effective. By planning your
future you can avoid many crisis situations.
Be
prepared
Always have
your briefcase near your desktop, so you
could put documents there at any time to
read them later (at home, or on trips etc.)
Make notes
Make notes
on what step of the work you have stopped
at. If an unexpected interruption occurs,
you can quickly find yourself then and
continue your work after that.
Finish what you have started
Don’t
abandon your work in the middle. Don’t take
a new task until you finish the current one.
Do
it now
Don’t put
off things that take 2 minutes or less to
complete.
Don’t fuss after a vacation
When you
return from a vacation you may have dozens
of unread mails and tons of documents to
study. Don’t panic trying to do everything
at once – it won’t work. Deal with your
business according to priorities. Otherwise
you risk to feel yourself worse than you did
before the vacation.
Another
trick here is to come back from a vacation
one day before your leave period actually
expires. This way you will be able to easily
sort out at least your home affairs (such as
shopping, laundry, cooking etc.).
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