7 Steps to Turbocharge Your Efficiency

Let’s face it, one of the most valuable commodities in any busy person’s life is time. No matter how much we may wish for it, making more of it is simply outside the reaches of modern science. The myth of the 25-hour day, for the foreseeable future, will remain just that, a myth.

So how do you stretch more time out of your finite resource of the same? Efficiency. In short, we may not be able to create more time, but we can turbo-charge the limited time we have. Here’s how:

1.       Set Daily Goals.  One of the best ways to ramp up your efficiency is to set daily goals. Each morning, before your work day begins, make a list of the top things that you want or need to accomplish during the work day. Rank them in order of importance. Depending upon how long each task will take you, your list may contain two items or ten.  Once constructed, use the list as your guide to keep you focused throughout the day to work towards completing those goals. Keep the list readily accessible and in plain sight on your workspace so that it will act as a constant reminder for those tasks that you want to complete in a given day. As you complete each of your predetermined objectives, check them off. If you do not complete a given goal, move it forward into the next day. This simple task of setting and monitoring daily goals is amazingly effective at increasing your productivity.

2.       Delegate. If you are in a position to delegate make sure to do so. Too often we are saddled with a belief that we are the only person that can do a specific task or do it well enough. Throughout my career I have been particularly afflicted with this mistaken belief. There was a time in my career that I would type all of my own letters even though I had a secretary whose job it was to handle this task for me. I would think, it is going to take me longer to explain to her what needs to go into the letter than it would if I just go ahead and write it myself, which I then proceeded to do.

Learning to delegate is an acquired art form, one everyone should try to master. Believing that a task cannot be delegated is truly more about control issues and less about whether or not it truly can be assigned to someone else. Why spend two hours on a task yourself if instead through crafting 10 minutes of detailed instructions, you can delegate the project to another? Accordingly, if you have someone to whom you can delegate, learn how to delegate and learn how to do it well.

3.       Let the Phone Ring. Let E-mails go Unanswered. You’re in the middle of solving an issue relating to one of your goals for the day. The phone rings. You answer. On the other end of the phone is someone who needs to speak with you about something that is important but not related to the task at hand. The conversation only lasts three minutes and then ends. However, when you go to pick up where you left off you need to quickly review where you were, get your brain back on track and then finally pick up and keep moving on the same.

Do not assume that picking up that quick call only cost you three minutes of being off task. It cost you your focus, the three minutes, and ultimately the review time of thinking about where you left off and the time it takes to re-engage your brain on the specific project you were working on before you were interrupted. All in all that three minute call, depending upon the complexity of the issues being dealt with, may cost you six, seven, even 10 minutes!

If your job allows, keep focused. Turn the phone (off?) ringer volume down so as not to disturb you or simply do not answer the same if the caller on the caller id is not calling about an urgent matter. You would be amazed at how simply allowing callers to leave a voice mail and then responding later in the day, in bulk, to all of your messages can truly amplify your efficiency.

However, it doesn’t have to end there. The same policy should be employed in regard to e-mails. How many e-mails do you really get that need to be viewed or read almost instantaneously? So don’t. Let them sit. They’ll still be there when you complete the task at hand. Like your calls just designate a time during the day, or two if you prefer, to answer all of your e-mails. Once again, by not allowing these constant interruptions, the efficiency with which you can accomplish the goals on your list will be increased exponentially.

4.       Close the Door. The phone and e-mails are not the only distractions in modern office life. Your co-workers can really drag down your efficiency as well. Back when I worked in a large law firm in Washington, D.C. I would routinely need to go see one of the head partners in his big corner office. Almost without exception every time I walked into his office he would sigh, roll his eyes, and growl “Yes, what is it?” For the first year or so I worked there I simply chalked it up to the fact that he was personality-challenged and sadistically enjoyed degrading others, in other words, a lawyer. But one day I was standing down the hall from his office and it hit me as to why he was consistently grumpy. I was not the only associate that was constantly demanding attention from the big cheese. While I stood there speaking with other lawyers in the hallway I witnessed a veritable conga line of associate attorneys strolling through his office to ask him questions here, decisions there. No wonder he was so upset every time I would come into his office. Although I did not realize it, someone else had been in there two minutes before and again five minutes before that. If the man had seven minutes in a row to think to himself and get his own work done he would consider it a good day.