Five Tips For Getting More Done in Less Time

The world of work has become very intense and moves at a faster pace than ever before in our history. To get ahead, or just stay even requires effective strategies for managing your minutes, hours, days or weeks. These five tips can help you be more effective by getting more done with less stress.

1. Plan
It is imperative that you plan your hours, days, weeks and months if you really want to accomplish more. Sure, the plans will change as external factors and internal factors associated with your business change. But, if you don't know what you will be doing each day, your days will be filled with working on unimportant and urgent stuff that happens every day while the important goes lacking. Working without a plan leads to more stress, especially in the intense and fast world of work that we live in today. A simple list of work to be done can go a long way towards getting more done. Make your list, refer to it often and mark it off as you complete each task.

2. Know your priorities
Make a simple list what is really important and urgent in your business and then focus on those items first. Too often we focus on what we like instead of what is important. If you aren't sure, then maybe you need to ask your boss what's important to him or her. Priority should be given to those tasks or issues that are important. We often live under the tyranny of the urgent, even when the urgent may not be all that important. When you make your list of work to be done, prioritize it according to what is important to your business or situation.

3. Don't over commit, learn to say "no"
It is easy to over commit our days at work or at home. Realize that most tasks take longer than you think, so allow enough hours or days to get the work done on time and right. Just because someone else has failed to plan and prioritize doesn't mean you have to respond as though it is an emergency for you. When you're feeling overwhelmed ask yourself, "When did you last say 'no'?"

4. "Haste makes waste"
The old saying from most of our Moms, "if there's time to do it over, there's time to do it right at first!" How many hours do you waste in a week doing stuff over because you got in a hurry and made mistakes or overlooked a big piece of information? Think about it.

5. Organize your files
Several years ago it was widely reported that most executives spend six weeks a year looking for stuff. Now that we have so much information it is difficult to "separate the pepper from the fly poop." The key to finding stuff when you need it is to get your files (electronic and hard copy) organized in a coherent manner. One of my clients requires any memo or document that is published to have the file path/name printed so it may be found easily. While this may be the extreme, it works and saves a lot wasted effort.

You can read all the tips and study the books, but as the old saying goes, "nothing works unless you do!" So, stop procrastinating and make the most of everyday. Make your list, prioritize your work day, organize your files and get more work done every day with less stress and effort.