1. Know your goals.
Know
your long term and daily goals. These should be very clear.
Activity
1.
Make a list of your goals for the next
week.
2.
Make a list of long terms goals (Consider 2
lists here:
a)
1 year goals and b) 3 year goals)
2. Prioritize wisely.
Stephen
Covey’s list to help you prioritize.
·
Important and urgent —
Tasks that must be done. Do them right away.
·
Important but not urgent —
Tasks that appear important, but upon closer examination
aren’t. Decide when to do
them.
·
Urgent but not important —
Tasks that make the most “noise,” but when accomplished,
have little or no lasting value. Delegate these if
possible.
·
Not urgent and not
important — Low-priority stuff that offer the
illusion of “being busy.”
Do
them later.
Activity
Make a list of ten tasks for the day and break
them up based on the above pointers of Covey.
3. Just say no.
You’re the boss. If you have to decline a
request in order to attend to what’s truly important and urgent, do not hesitate
to do so. Be prepared to move on to more productive
tasks. Learn from the experience to avoid wasting time.
Activity
Can you list down 3 tasks that you performed
last week that could have been avoided?
4. Plan ahead.
Planning
is perhaps the most underrated exercise that can actually make you or break
you.
Once you are thoroughly planned your
confidence levels go up and you are able to handle
any hiccups that come your way.
·
The night before —
At the end of the day, take 15 minutes to clear your desk and put
together a list of the next day’s most
pressing tasks. It’s a great decompression technique,
and you’ll feel better sitting down at a
clean desk in the morning.
·
First thing in the morning —
Arrive a few minutes early and assemble your prioritized to-do
list. This may prove to
be the most productive part of your day. In fact if you are in the habit
of having a morning walk, run through the
days plan as you walk.
Activity: Make a
plan for tomorrow
5. Eliminate
distractions.
Start paying attention to the number of
times someone interrupts you when you’re in the midst of an important task.
Track self-induced interruptions, too, particularly those of the social media variety.
Your smart phone is extremely useful, but it’s also addictive and among the
biggest time-wasters known today.
6. Delegate more often.
If you are a manager this is a key skill
that you must acquire. Even at the entry level you should learn to delegate or
seek help from other to accomplish certain tasks.
.
7. Take care of yourself.
Be sure to get plenty of sleep and
exercise. An alert mind is a high-functioning mind.
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