How to work more effectively

In order to get things done at work, it is necessary to learn to do a more effective job. Because time is a precious and limited asset. But the day to day will usually present us with multiple thieves of time and distractions.

Now you might be thinking of the usual culprits such as interruptions by colleagues, telephone or app notifications. But in order to work more effectively, we ought to take into account more factors which can be time thieves:

1. Lack of job preparation
2. Deficiency in concentration during the work
3. Lack of neatness during the work
4. Insufficient final review of the job or lack thereof

So, let’s see how we can work more effectively improving these four aspects.

1. Job preparation

We can actually waste a lot of time when not dedicating preparation the importance it deserves. More often than not we might just launch ourselves into the job without first thinking about whether we have enough knowledge about it, and the necessary resources and information available to carry the task out.

Therefore, before getting started on a task or project, remember to ask yourself these questions:

1. Are you clear about the objective and desired outcome?
2. By when has the project or task to be finished?
3. Do you have all the necessary resources?
4. Which people are involved?
5. Do you have all required information and data at your disposal to carry out the job?

If you are given the job in person, try and ask all doubts and clarifying questions you can think of at that very moment.

Even though, you might forget something or realise that you are not very clear about an issue once you start working on the tasks. But still try and have foresight. This will save yourself and the person giving you the job time.

If you receive the job by e-mail, take time to go through the five questions and reply with all your doubts at once. That way you avoid turning the e-mail received into a ping pong match.

I learned this working with bosses who spent a lot of time out of office. They had little time to review outstanding issues and give me new tasks. So, I had to learn to pose my questions and doubts in little time in order to get the tasks done autonomously afterwards.

1.1. Are you clear about the objective and desired outcome?

In order to work on a project or task efficient and effectively, it is indispensable that you know the objective. What is the project or task for? Which benefits will it bring to the company, your boss, clients, suppliers, yourself etc.?

What is the project’s or task’s desired outcome? Does a proposal have to be delivered quickly to client in order for him not to turn to the competition? Do you have to prepare a documentation within a stipulated deadline in order to opt in for a public tender? Is this project meant to improve the internal workflow? Does a conference have to be prepared? What is the purpose and audience?

There are as many options as there are jobs out there. But what I mean to say is that the target audience or customer, the deadline and objective will determine if it is more desirable to get a quick result in order not to lose an opportunity, or whether you have to ensure avoiding mistakes in order not to negatively affect the project and company image. They say perfection is not efficient. But take the example of a PR company. They cannot afford delivering a text with spelling and typing mistakes if they want to present a competent image. So it is important to find the correct balance between speed and quality.

1.2. By when has the project to be finished?

Be sure to know the deadline for the project or task in order to organise the work correspondingly and finish on time. As well, this will help you assign a priority to the project amongst your other responsibilities.

If there is no clear deadline, set one up yourself. Otherwise you run the risk of leaving the task aside every time another comes up which seems more important or urgent. Or even succumbing to procrastination.

1.3. Do you have all the necessary resources?

For the majority of office tasks, we will have the needed resources like computer, software, telephone and office material. But think about whether this task may require an application you do not have installed, office or presentation material which has to be ordered. Or maybe you need to reserve a work space, meeting or conference room.

We might be talking about a project with an assigned budget because you need to invest in material resources, hire staff or freelancers etc. Or maybe the project requires investment but you are not sure if you have a budget for it. That is why the preparation phase is important, in order for you to realise these details and put things together before you start.

1.4. Which people are involved?

You might have to carry out the task as part of a team or on your own. But anyway you might have to ask other people for information. Do you know with whom you will collaborate or who will be able to help you? Do you need to hire staff, freelancers or a service?

1.5. Do you have all required information?

If the job depends on the availability of certain data and information, review what you have available, what you need to research or request from others. Ask for what you need from other people in advance. If you start looking or asking for information when you are already working on the task, you run the risk of suffering one or more of these situations:

• Interrupting the task several times to investigate or search for something
• Not receiving the information on time
• Getting stressed out waiting for it
• Suffering from a mental block, not knowing with which task to continue whilst you await the information
• Forcing others to work against the clock in order for you to meet your deadlines
• Not meeting your deadline

2. Concentration during the work

Forget about multitasking. It is a myth. To concentrate on several things simultaneously will only give you a false feeling of being busy. It can also increase your stress level. But it will definitely not help you be really productive. We can only really concentrate on one thing at a time. So better do one task after the other.

If you are working on something requiring a high level of concentration, prepare your environment for it. Eliminate distractions and interruptions as much as you can in order to concentrate better.

When you work on task for hours, like a report or presentation, you will notice that your energy and concentration levels drop at a certain point. Come to that, take a break even if you do not have time for it. You will perform better afterwards.

• Look away from the task
• Take a deep breath
• Get up from your chair to take a short walk, even if just to the bathroom or coffee machine.
• Simply switching to another kind of task, may also help, like making some phone calls, filing some documents. Any task that requires less energy and concentration.

3. Neatness when getting the job done

Neatness might not be a trendy word. Before, I said that perfection is not efficient, but neatness is not the same. I talk about a job well done, carried out with concentration, care and taking advantage of the resources at your disposal.

Neatness can also be applied to how your workspace is organised, i.e. your desk, cabinets, computer and e-mail folders. Do you quickly locate needed information or do you need to dedicate, maybe unnecessary time, to searching things? A good arrangement and organisation system will save you valuable minutes, which over a month or even a year may sum up to hours and hours of work.

3.1. Take advantage of the resources available

Also, make your job easier by using the resources at your disposal. For reports, presentations, meeting minutes and correspondence, many companies have templates. So why complicate your life inventing new styles and designs instead of just using them? They are meant not only to keep the company image but also to make work easier for the employees. Presentation templates may even contain design examples for charts, lists and so on which will serve you as a guidance and help.

As well, the person receiving your work will appreciate not having to adapt the format to company standard or returning the document for you to do it. I speak from experience and know how much time it takes to reformat a PowerPoint presentation, after the person who prepared it had already dedicated quite some time, too.

Last but not least, and although it may be common sense, please make use of the spell check. It may not detect all mistakes, but still highlight quite some spelling and typing mistakes.

4. Review and correction of the job

Before delivering and sending a presentation, report, e-mail, letter or any other job, and even though you are in a hurry, take a moment to check through everything.

If you have been working for hours on the document, I suggest you close it and disconnect some minutes. Get a different task done or take a break. When you return to the document you will see it with fresher eyes and detect possible mistakes in spelling, style, figures etc. you might have overlooked otherwise.

The review will not take you much time when the task is still fresh. But it will prevent a possible waste of time further on. I refer to another person having to correct your task or returning it with a annotations for you to review everything over again. Imagine you are in a peak season at work. Time can go by until that person is able to review. And then more time until you can take up the job again and correct it.

That is to say that taking the time to check and correct your work before delivering it may mean the difference between meeting a deadline or not.

Recap:

1. Prepare your work before starting a project or task. Ask yourself the key questions about objective, desired outcome, people involved and information and resources required.
2. Create a favourable environment to concentrate on your task.
3. Organise and carry out your work neatly.
4. Review and correct your work before delivering it.

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