When you have fewer people to get tasks done because you’re a small company, making sure everyone – including yourself – is on task and contributing the maximum amount of help is no small task. However, there is one big word that can help anyone boost productivity: simplify.
All of the following tips are based on the idea that simplifying is key to a successful work day. Try them and see how they work for you and your workforce.
Keep Your Priorities Straight
Nothing hurts the ability to work more than forgetting what you should be doing first. If need be, write a list and pin it to your desktop or stick it to your screen to give yourself a small reminder of what you should be doing. Sometimes getting distracted from the important task just “happens”, so being able to find the list and figure out where you should be can help you refocus efforts.
Clear Out Your Inbox, Then Don’t Check It Again
Getting to the office in the morning usually involves about a thousand e-mails and maybe even a few notes on your desk about particular tasks, but power through it and move on. Even if it means giving yourself a time limit of half an hour to get through all of the junk you have, do it – and then don’t visit your e-mail again for a few hours. That may sound impossible, but it’s likely you have several tasks to do in the meantime.
Focus on One Thing at a Time
Check out your priorities list. Whatever’s on top is probably important enough to dedicate some serious time to, and you should consider doing so – without touching anything else. Doing one task at a time can get that task done at lightning speed, especially if you don’t particularly like that task and only do other things to distract you. Just sit down, get it done, and you’d be surprised how fast time actually goes. Do the same thing with the second, third, and tenth thing on your list, too – multi-tasking means time devoted to one project gets lost and it takes twice as long to finish it.
Organize, and Organize Well
Having a place for everything is really important, simply because if you have to root around to find something when you swear it was on your desk yesterday, you’re wasting valuable time you could be using to catch up on your priority list.
Not all of these things will work for everyone, but even using and utilizing one can save precious time and help you and your team get back on track with production.
