Six Ways on Getting More Done each day
Once people got organized and they can handle tasks well, usually they want more out of their time. They want to accomplish more things. When I present an introduction on time management in the organization I am working for, I got these questions a lot from people: “How can I really can more done?”. In my opinion, there are six tips that I had to assist you on getting more done:
1. Focus high importance tasks first
This is the number one thing you want to do if you want to accomplish more. Prioritize your tasks into high importance to low importance. In my definition, “accomplish more” means getting more value out of an interval of time. If you are choosing to watch TV over completing your project that is due tomorrow, you are definitely getting your priority wrong. By spending time onto higher importance tasks, you will squeeze more value out of your time.
2. Work smarter
It means that you are using some smarter ways to complete the task. Sometimes it is hard to work smarter because it involves a longer start-up. For instance, if I am doing a set of repetition tasks in computer, I usually would not dig into it directly. I will try to think if there are any ways I can write a script to automate it, or if I can find some utility that can assist the operations. After longer start-up on writing scripts or search for utility, the result will be pay off as I do not need to repeatedly to redo tasks.
3. Work faster
You may think “Duh!” but it is quite true. Work faster may mean you are learning to type faster, or if you train yourself on a new shorthand system for minutes taking. Things like this can able you to speed up your work.
4. Work harder
What do you mean work harder? Drop your TV watching session. Drop your tea break. Schedule all your work on the time that you should do work. Enjoy your free and relaxing time on your weekend.
5. Concentrate and focus tasks
Concentrate yourself on one task and only one task. Your concentration will help your mind to focus the data, skill and knowledge that require you complete the task. You will finish the task faster. Focus all the tasks that are similar and have them scheduled one next to one. Because you are already “in-the-flow” with all the related knowledge, you will able to work with the tasks quicker.
6. Avoid to make mistakes
Finally, mistakes are the one of the most deadly time waster. If you have made one mistake on a task, the time of correcting it, or apologize to your customers or boss will cost you much more time. Better to be careful at the first time and finish it. Everyone make mistake, but there aren’t any excuse if you are making the same mistake twice. Note it down as notes and remind yourself when you are doing similar tasks again.
So there are six steps in my opinion that can help you accomplish more. The most important thing to get more value out of your time is to focus into important tasks first.
Comments and your tips on this topic are welcome.
I’m sorry, but the irony in “6. Avoid to make mistakes” and “mistakes are the one of the most deadly time wasters” is just too much to not point out. Funny.
Thanks for the article. It is a good read!
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Some to add:
1) Get a steady sleep rhythm and wake up earlier
2) Eat well and exercise when possible (even jogging from A to B instead of walking can help a lot, remember to stretch in the morning and evening!)
Billy,
“…just too much to not point out.”
Your split infinitive is made all the more egregious because you are admonishing against bad grammar. My father used to say: remove the dangling participle from your own eye.
There are just so many things that are wrong here. I started to comment, but I found myself writing so much I turned it into a post on my own site:
http://www.tmtm.com/nothing/archives/001982.html
Thanks for your opinion there, Tony. I think the idea of this post is to share what are some basic ideas that work for me. Definitely “getting more things done” over a finite time is difficult, but those tips are what I used over time to get more done by improving my effectiveness with my time. Ideas here maybe simple to some people but there are audience who maybe benefited from this post and I would like to reach to that group of audience.
First example “If you are choosing to watch TV over completing your project that is due tomorrow, you are definitely getting your priority wrong.” - It may mean if I am going to have deadline on my financial investment (which I cannot do in my work hour), I would drop my time watching TV because TV does not give me value over my life. I know it is not a world class example but I hope it showed the differences between importance or unimportance tasks. Keyword would be prioritization.
Work smarter – Right, you have a good point. It is really based on tasks. However if there are tasks which involve large repetitions, spending time on finding a utility or automate it will still help. For example, if I am going to extract data from 50 text files, I will definitely write a script (or find a utility) to do this than going through them manually. Work smarter can also mean something that is outside automation as well, like delegating your task appropriately to your subordinates or peers; thinking of different ways on solving problems; or improving the work process etc.
Work faster – Agreed. That is why we should learn more life hacks.
Some of the tips may not work for you, but they are probably not wrong because they are working for me. They maybe suitable for other people as well and it is up to readers’ judgment to implement them or not.
By the way, thanks for visiting my site and spending time on replying. It is my pleasure to have a popular Perl coder here.
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We built ActiveWords in part because we wanted to get more stuff done. But in what I call the ActiveWords odyssey, I have been struck by encountering a lot of people who don’t want to get more done. They want 8 hours work, not six or ten, and changing or threatening to change that model creates real unhappiness.