Thought for the day
The full archive of free daily management tips from our team of trainers.
Download ‘Speed up routine tasks’
Much of what you do may be fairly routine, such as travelling, filing, standard meetings, editing, making and receiving telephone calls, working on the computer and so on. By just being more organised, many people have found they can save three 30/40 minute periods per day. Try to speed up these activities:- Use a timer. Set it for, say, ten minutes and try to complete the task before the alarm goes off.
- Put a clock in front of you and keep looking at it as you work as quickly as possible.
- Make calls and do standard tasks where possible standing up. This may help you concentrate and be quicker and shorter in execution.
- Promise yourself a reward when you finish your activities, such as a cup of coffee.
- Fit the activities in and buffer them up against key meetings, lunch breaks and so on so that they have an end point that they cannot go beyond. This may help you to concentrate them into a fixed piece of time.
- Work with a sense of energy and urgency. Launch into the task and don’t stop until you have completed it.
- Do one thing at a time and don’t stop until it’s finished.
This thought has been taken from Graham’s book 'Working Smarter’. Graham has developed an outstanding course to go with the book – click here for details.
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