Tips on how to organise your workload better to improve productivity
In an era when each of us has taken on extra work in order to increase the efficiencies of the companies with whom we work, it can be easy to become overwhelmed by your workload. There are however a number of ways in which we can better organise our workload which will result in better productivity and less stress.
Keep a list
Taking the time to make a list is the first step in managing your workload. Making a list each morning (or evening) is an excellent way of clearly seeing everything which needs to be done. One of the benefits of writing a list is that it avoids the build-up in your head of the sense of lots of things which need to be done and resulting in hopelessness that you will never reach the end. By listing each of the items you will clearly see the extent of your workload.
Delegate
Having made your list you can now begin to manage your workload. You may decide at this point that some of the work can be delegated. We are sometimes tempted to do everything ourselves as it may seem quicker than showing someone else how to do the job. However, the time taken to show someone else to do work which you can easily delegate is well worth it. Once you have checked the work done by your colleague and if you are satisfied with the standard of the work carried out, you will have saved yourself valuable time for more urgent tasks.
Prioritise
The remaining items on your list can be managed by prioritising them into the following three categories: Urgent, Important & All The Rest. Managing your workload will become a whole lot easier once you have differentiated between the Urgent items and the Important ones. Managing your workload is a question of discipline also as you need to do the urgent tasks first (even if these are the ones you do not enjoy doing). We are inclined to do the tasks we like first but this can cause problems when the ‘dreaded tasks’ get left to one side. It can be rewarding to tick off the items which have been completed and this in itself will help relief some pressure.
Distractions
Every day we are bombarded with distractions which individually may be quick but cumulatively can eat into the time we need to complete our workload. In order to manage your workload more effectively identifying these distractions and having a plan to minimise them can improve your productivity. Typical examples of these are emails, telephone calls, queries from colleagues, social media messages and postings. Closing my office door, logging out of Outlook & diverting my phone are three steps I take in order to help me to organise my workload and improve my productivity.
I hope you have found some simple tips for managing your workload which will help increase your productivity while increasing your sense of fulfilment.
