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How to Effectively Get Your Work Tasks Done

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How to Effectively Get Your Work Tasks Done

When working with people, getting actual work done can be a task. Not everyone works on the same wavelength. Coordinating the work if you are a more efficient person than your peers, colleagues, employees can be frustrating. Phone calls at work, replying to emails, meetings are some of the things, though required waste a lot of time.

It is important to find workarounds and methods that will help you keep your sanity. Trust me, sometimes all you need, to relax in your routine, is to make a simple change. Some of the things that I am going to talk about has completely changed my life in terms of saving time and increasing efficiency.

So, the most insignificant tasks or the tasks that no one looks forward to, that pressurize us daily and make endless demands on our time are briefings, meetings, phone calls, emails. Meetings are believed to be the biggest collective waste of time by many people.

Let me show you some quotes about meetings from people who know what they are talking about.

“A meeting is an event where minutes are taken and hours wasted.”

– James T. Kirk, Captain of the USS Enterprise

“The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favor of holding meetings.”

– Thomas Sowell, American Writer and Economist

“If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be “meetings.””

– Dave Barry, American Writer and Humorist

“Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.”

– John Kenneth Galbraith, Canadian Writer and Economist

Although our focus isn’t just meetings today, I just wanted to share my bit on the discussion with you. Here are some ways you can save time doing the mundane but necessary parts of your job/work.

How to Effectively Get Your Work Tasks Done

Start out by creating lists. Make a list of all the meetings, briefings, discussions, you might have to be a part of. May it be for the day or the mandatory weekly, monthly ones. Lists help you get a clear perspective of your work. Note down what all will be needed for every meeting. If there is a scheduled phone call you need to make with a client, note down the particulars for it as well.

When making your list, eliminate anything that will hinder with your productivity. If there are too many meetings in a day, try to put them down for later in the week. More than one meeting in a day mean you won’t be able to get a lot of work done. You also need to know what times work the best for the tasks you have to do.

For example, some people find replying to emails in the morning better, while some people do it in the middle of the day. Find out what parts of the day are high-energy times for you. This will help you plan better, and also give you a designated time to complete certain tasks.

Let’s talk about the three main concerns here-

Emails –

  • Even if you are not going to reply to your emails now, sorting them can be a great idea. Take a look at your inbox every morning and then quickly categorize each email. Create labels like now, future, urgent, etc. Trash the not useful emails immediately. Whenever you go to reply to your emails, you will have your work cut out for you.
  • When your employees send you emails, tell them to tell you the subject matter in a concise form. A quick look at the email should suffice to tell what the email is about. Do the same when you send emails to your employees.
  • Use bullet points to communicate in emails with your employees, instead of paragraphs. This ensures only important information being passed, and the employees will start to follow the same soon.

Calls –

  • Before making a phone call or returning a call, write down the objective of the call on a post-it or a piece of paper and keep it in front of you. Use bullet points for ease of use, and you can also put in a check next to each point as you cover it.
  • Writing down the objectives helps you cut the discussion time by not having to think about what next was to be discussed. It gives you a clear purpose, and ensures effective communication.
How to Effectively Get Your Work Tasks Done

Meetings –

  • Prepare a written agenda for every meeting. Like the phone calls, having a clear list to follow stops you from straying from the subject.
  • If the meeting is based on going over some reports, plan, or written documents. Have the document sent to the people, who would be attending the meeting, prior to the said meeting. This gives everyone time to go over the material and form questions and opinions. This saves a lot of time in the meeting. All you have to do is discuss the points everyone came up with, and wrap up the meeting.
  • Only the people really needed in the meeting should be in the meeting. Try cutting down the number to only the crucial people to that meeting.

Apart from these things, keeping your environment decluttered is really important to make it easier to find things as well as have a space you feel like working in. Make it clear to your colleagues that you are not up for a chat while working. Wear earplugs or headphones when working to drown the noise out. Honestly, all changes needed are really simple and small to make your current situation more workable.

All these things might seem small, and might seem like not a lot of time is saved, but trust me, it adds up. Also, this isn’t only about saving time, it is also about increasing productivity. These things can easily take a toll on one’s mental health. It can also sap your energy for the rest of the day. Which is why it is always advised to not spend much time on secondary tasks.

Automate or plan on making these tasks as quick as you can. You will see the difference soon enough!

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