Do more with less, yes really!

How often have you thought if I only had one more hour, another colleague to support me, or fewer emails to process I could take a deep breath, get caught up and not work on the weekend?

In a world that hands out busyness merit badges, we are not only asked, but often required to do more with less – less time and resources. So, how do you really do more when you are stretched thin and overwhelmed?

Maximize the hours that you do have and make time work for you.

Batch or group like tasks. Batching or grouping similar tasks increases your efficiency without any extra effort on your part. For example, make all your phone calls at one time, process your email at one time, or review project proposals from vendors. Switching between disparate tasks is highly inefficient because it takes our brains so long to reengage with the task we switched from and remember what we were doing. Work on the same type project or task and optimize your execution.

Work in vacation mode. Have you ever noticed what happens before a vacation? Your inbox is magically cleaned out, projects are wrapped up, and your desk is cleared off. Why does this happen? It’s the vacation phenomenon because your vacation provides a fixed deadline. You are going to be on a sandy beach holding a drink with an umbrella in it on Saturday afternoon. As a result, you want to complete your work before you leave.

Now, you don’t need to have a vacation scheduled to leverage the power of working in vacation mode. Here’s how. Decide when your workday will end and put it on your calendar. If you need support and accountability honoring this commitment you’ve made to yourself, schedule a fun activity after work that has an immovable start time – a movie, a play, or a sporting event – and then watch what happens to your productivity during the day.

Create a stop doing list. As our responsibilities continue to expand at work, we keep adding tasks and projects to our to do lists. However, we never take anything off the list. Critically review your projects and tasks and ask yourself if each task or project is still relevant, directly tied to your company’s strategic goals, supports or drives revenue, and has a significant return on your time investment. There are probably a few tasks and projects lurking on your list that need to be moved to the stop doing list and the reality is no one is going to miss them.

Decide what is good enough and stop. Do you know what good enough is for each of the projects on your list? This is good enough for the organization and good enough for you. Overthinking, over editing, and over tweaking wastes valuable time and is not necessary. Do good work and then stop.

We all have the same 168 hours in a week. It is how you leverage and maximize those hours that determines your impact and your quality of life. So, what will you do today to stretch the hours you have and do more with less?

For additional tools and strategies to personalize your productivity, click here to download the 30 Work Smarter, Not Harder Tips.

If you are ready to enhance employee wellbeing, reduce stress, and magnify your team’s performance and results when you prevent meeting overload, ease email anxiety, and enable your team to work smarter with our productivity training, start now! Click here to schedule time to talk.

Could your team benefit from our services and training? Learn more at https://www.workingsimply.com/productivity-training/ .?

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