🌼10 Powerful Ways to Increase Your Efficiency at Work(HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)
The key is to work smarter, not harder, or longer
10 powerful ways to increase your efficiency at work
“Focus on being productive instead of busy.” — Tim Ferriss, an American entrepreneur
Efficiency is about completing a task with little to no waste. And it’s how effectively you can perform a job with the least energy used.
Learn MoreProductivity is not about getting more things done in a day but about getting important things done in a day.
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Being efficient is about being steady and consistent. You can achieve successful outcomes at work with the resources you have.
Efficiency is about working smarter, not harder, or longer
It means that you optimize processes, speed up workflows, and reduce the number of interruptions.
“Efficiency is doing better than what is already being done.”— Peter Drucker, an American economist and author
Here are 10 simple yet powerful ways to increase your efficiency at work.
1. Less is More
“It’s not always that we need to do more but rather that we need to focus on less.” — Nathan W. Morris, an author
You must know when to stop doing too much. You can focus more on things that matter the most by doing less. Adopting a less is more mindset at work can eliminate many unnecessary meetings and tasks.
The quality of your work will increase when you realize that less is more. Make subtraction visible in your life with reminders around your work area. Put up quotes emphasizing “less is more” or the “elimination of the unnecessary.”
2. Take Breaks
Don’t look at taking a break as a bad thing. Taking a break is good for you because it makes you more productive. Encourage yourself to take more breaks throughout the day.
You don’t have to work every minute of your 9–5 job to be efficient
You must slow down and take a break when you get busy at work. Research has found that your performance worsens the longer you focus on one task. Breaks can help you structure focused work.
3. Set Goals
“The tragedy in life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.” — Benjamin E. Mays, an American Baptist minister and American rights leader
Setting goals is an effective way to improve your efficiency. Our goals shape our actions and decisions. Think about goals as dreams with deadlines.
Make sure you set achievable goals. When you set goals, you plan to achieve an objective or project. Setting goals keeps you focused and helps you keep your momentum going.
4. Meditate
Stress has a more significant impact on us than we may realize. Stress plays a big role in our lives, and it’s essential to recalibrate our thoughts. Meditation can help you reduce your stress and redirect your thoughts and focus.
When you meditate, you become more purposeful with your actions and more efficient. Meditation teaches you how to respond, not react, to situations in your life. You can block out the noise of the world around you and quiet your thoughts with meditation.
5. Focus on What’s Important, Not What’s Urgent
“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States
Someone’s emergency should not become your emergency. Everything doesn’t have to be an emergency. Your work colleagues’ emergency tasks should not become your emergency tasks.
Follow the time management matrix — a framework for managing your time efficiency. Determine your urgent tasks that require immediate action and the important tasks that will help you reach your goals. Then categorize into four quadrants: 1) Urgent and important; 2) Not urgent but important; 3) Urgent but not important, and 4) Not urgent and not important.
If tasks fall into quadrant one, do the task right away; quadrant two, plan for them; quadrant three, delegate them; and quadrant four, eliminate them.
6. Turn Off Notifications
Notifications can be distracting. They are a dime a dozen. Turn off your notifications on your smartphone or computer. Additionally, sign out of social media accounts.
Doing this will ensure you are not bothered at work and tempted by your digital devices and social media. These distractions are productivity killers and slow you up from being efficient at work.
7. Declutter Your Work Area
Do you need everything you have on your desk? Things can pile up over time, and they can distract us from our jobs. They can make you feel overwhelmed at work.
When you remove clutter, your brain will work more efficiently. Clutter is a waste because it takes time to find what you are looking for. Take time to purge or delete things you don’t need. A clutter-free work environment helps you concentrate better at work and stay organized.
8. Learn New Skills
When you focus on your personal development, you can improve your ability to perform tasks more efficiently. The more knowledge and experience you acquire, the easier the tasks become.
You will improve your work efficiency over the long run when you improve your abilities. Learn useful skills such as writing, public speaking, and critical thinking that will help you be more efficient.
9. Time Block
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” — Stephen Covey, an American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker
Are you analyzing how you use your time and how that aligns with your to-do list? Time blocking puts your to-do list on your calendar. It helps with your efficiency because you devote time blocks to specific tasks or groups of similar tasks.
When you time block, you plan out every minute of your day in advance. You schedule blocks of time on your calendar, so you answer the critical question of “when” for tasks.
10. Concentrate on One Task at a Time
Multitasking at work is a bad habit. Switching between tasks reduces your efficiency and quality of work. Research says your productivity is reduced by 40% by the mental blocks created when you switch tasks.
“[We] are not wired to multitask well. When people think they’re multitasking, they are just switching from one task to another very rapidly.” — Earl Miller, a Picower Professor of Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
If you have much to do at work, determine your priorities and allocate enough time for those tasks. Multitasking will not help you get things done. Focusing on one task at a time is key to being efficient.
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Bringing It All Together
There are 10 powerful ways to increase your efficiency at work. Less is more, take more breaks, set goals, meditate, and focus on what’s important, not what’s urgent. Furthermore, turn off notifications, declutter your work area, learn new skills, time block, and concentrate on one task at a time.
It’s not rocket science to improve your efficiency. Work smart, not harder or longer. Simplify things and avoid looking for a new shiny toy to play with. The answers you seek are right in front of you, and when you smartly apply the resources you have, you can achieve excellent results.
“Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.” — Peter Drucker, an American economist and author
Contributed by Matthew Royse
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