If you run a business, manage a team or are a busy executive, the mountain of tasks you face can make it seem like there’s just not enough time to get everything done. Productivity, however, is the art of managing your time to get more done in less time.
To manage your time and to become more productive, there are five things that you can start doing today to make yourself more efficient.
1. Plan your day
The first key to time management is planning. Each morning, set yourself an outline for the day. You could plan what you will do in each hour, but unless you have meetings, it is usually better to prioritise your tasks rather than have strict time periods for each one.
2. Take breaks
If you have a lot to do, there is the temptation to skip lunch and keep working throughout the day, Research has shown that taking regular breaks actually increases productivity. If you are tired through overwork, you are more liable to make mistakes and lose concentration.
Where possible, try taking a five minute break every hour to improve your efficiency.
3. Limit meetings
Meetings can take up a lot of time and are not necessarily productive. Before you arrange your next meeting, ask yourself whether you can achieve the same goal of the meeting through email or phone.
If several attendees are travelling far to a meeting, consider holding it as a web meeting. Limiting meetings and the travel they involve save a great deal of time.
4. Stop multitasking
Some people pride themselves on the ability to do several things at once. They might answer the phone, read emails and fill in spreadsheets all at the same time, but is this always a good thing?
Psychologists who have studied multitasking have discovered that it often gets less done than focusing on a single task at a time.
Multitasking is often caused by distractions. For example, in the middle of writing a report, your computer notifies you that there are emails waiting to be read. It is tempting to take a peek at what has come to your inbox. Try turning off email notifications and check your emails just three times a day. It is rare for an email to be that urgent that it cannot wait for an hour or two before being read.
5. Delegate and outsource
If you are an executive or a manager, you will have a team of people under you. There is no strict rule that says every task needs your attention, and good managers know which tasks to delegate to their staff.
Entrepreneur Richard Branson once said that one of his greatest skills was to recruit staff that were smarter than he was, then delegate large areas of his responsibilities to them.
Outsourcing is another area that can save you time. One of the major concerns of an entrepreneur is finance, because you need to make sure that the money coming in exceeds the money going out. Accountancy and bookkeeping are time-consuming in a busy company, so consider leaving financial management to an accounting outsourcing service.