Tip of the Week: Simplify Your Day at Work

Work isn’t always great, and it can be stressful to boot. Distractions certainly don’t help, as they can complicate your schedule and get in the way of responsibilities. With the right strategies on your side, you could potentially eliminate some of this stress. Here are some of the ways you can do so.

Utilize Themed Days

Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter and CEO of Square, suggests implementing a “theme” day, giving your organization a way to schedule tasks accordingly. The idea behind this is that you can select a day for specific tasks to be accomplished, minimizing distractions and rescheduling tasks as they are needed.

Use Templates and Canned Responses

Templates are great for when you need to complete a task that requires a ton of repetition. A template simplifies this task by making it so, rather than doing the same thing over and over again, you only need to do a repetitive task once. Canned responses serve a similar purpose, allowing you to prepare for multiple scenarios and add in information as it’s needed. If you take the time to write all of these messages and templates out, you essentially create a library that can be used as needed.

Only Handle It Once

If you do a task correctly once, you won’t have to deal with it later. To this end, be sure that if you start a new task, make sure you have enough time to complete it. Similarly, you will want to make sure that you can delegate tasks in such a way that they can be completed in a timely and efficient manner to make sure they are done correctly.

Say No

As the business owner, you’ll need to make sure that you properly delegate to your employees. In other words, if you have too much on your plate, you need to know who to give tasks to. In particular, meetings can be tricky to make work, depending on the agenda. They can either be great opportunities to be productive, or they can be major time sinks that yield little to no results. You shouldn’t feel bad about saying no to certain parts of your job, as your productivity could very well depend on it. When all else fails, you can use a “to-do” list. Ask yourself what needs to be done, as well as what should be avoided, during a meeting.

Stop Coworker Interruptions

Coworkers that waste time can become a big distraction in the office, regardless of intent. Even though there is a considerable amount to gain from office camaraderie, there are also times where you absolutely cannot be interrupted. You can use your office’s instant messaging system to give your colleagues a notice for when you shouldn’t be disturbed, thereby retaining focus.

Streamline Processes

If processes aren’t working for your business, perhaps it’s time to revisit them. Doing so can afford your organization the ability to so considerable amounts of time and money from not having to repeat tasks or complete them in a way that isn’t ideal. Collaborations with other departments might be able to yield surprising results.

Avoid Being a Perfectionist

Doing everything perfectly can be stressful. Here are some of the side-effects of attempting perfection in everything you do:

• Stress
• Procrastination
• Unrealistic Expectations

While this can be difficult to balance, perfectionism can be helpful, but other times it might seem impossible. Reserve this level of quality and priority for only the most important projects.

What methods do you use to keep your workdays simple and productive? Let us know in the comments.