“The way to get started is to Quit Talking and Start Doing.” ~ Walt Disney
Every day we are bombarded with top priority tasks. Post-It Notes on our monitors, voicemails, emails and text messages are all demanding our immediate attention. Deadlines are constantly pursuing us, it is so easy to become overwhelmed from the moment we step into the office. As a result, we become frustrated and ultimately lose sight of our goals.
In our fast-paced and highly collaborative business culture many of our goals and projects are dependent on multiple people working together and carrying a specific roll to deliver a project. Each team member is personally accountable for their individual commitments and contributions to ensure goals are being met and projects are being delivered on time and within the vision originally discussed. Staying focused on our projects and goals in a proficient manner can be attainable, we just must know how to stay focused.
There are many ways in which we can personally improve our productivity, thus improving the productivity of our team and forcing goals to be met on time.
Prioritization might be the most important way to begin managing your time successfully. Start to manage your progress day by day, start with focusing on your task lists it will help free your mind of massive amounts of information. The key to productivity improvement is to prioritize only to goal-focused tasks.
Create deadlines and if you are working on a project with a team make sure everyone is fully aware of the scheduled deadline. Having check points to make sure you are all meeting expectations can prove to be helpful if you are working within a team as well. Hold your self and your team members accountable for meeting all of your goals.
Experiment with productivity improvement methods, here are three that are time tested and proven:
80/20 Rule (Also referred to as the Pareto Principle): Get 20 percent of the most important tasks done and that will take care of 80 percent of your productivity worries for the day.
Ivy Lee Method: Before your workday is over spend as little as five minutes preparing a list of tasks for the following day. The next day take care of them one by one, moving on from one task only after the subsequent one is completed. Stop multitasking, doing to many tasks at one often results in an inefficient work day and loss of productivity.
CRM System: A strong CRM solution develops, improves, retains and stores your customer relationship information and corresponds accurately to the needs of each clients. Ultimately this is a way to stay extremely organized, while having all your information in one spot.
All the systems and tools in the world are worthless, however, if you don’t discipline yourself to follow the process. Stay accountable to yourself and your team and you will eventually see lasting results. When you feel productive it will lead to increased commitment, efficiency and engagement to your job and co-workers.