Demolish That Mountain of Paper on Your Desk with These Effective Time Management Tools
Shemeka Brathwaite, MSED is a peak performance strategist, keynote speaker, and coach. She is often invited by organizations, associations, and educational institutions to provide inspiring programs on productivity, leadership, and executive presence. Her immersive training programs help professionals learn how to implement new systems that streamline the demands on one’s time, so they can achieve more at work, increase their influence, and live intentionally.
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Have you ever felt like you're losing control in the workplace? Does it seem like that mountain of paper on your desk is growing higher and higher as the clock ticks?
Don’t worry! The good news is that you can take back control. By implementing some effective time management techniques, you can cut that mountain down to size and keep it that way.
Effective time management is the best way to drastically cut down your existing work load, and maintain it at a point where you can manage it effectively on a day to day basis.
Practice these techniques to develop effective time management skills in your workplace.
Complete Tasks in Order of Importance
If you're not careful, everything that comes to your desk will be labeled as important! And while they may be important to somebody else, you simply cannot make everybody's priority your own. You'll probably never get anything done that way!
Instead of adapting the urgency with which the project was brought to your attention, choose this sequence of steps:
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Assess the importance of the task in relation to everything else you have to do.
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Advise the person requiring your urgent attention that you have a specific window of time allotted to working on their project.
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Stick to completing the tasks in the order of importance.
Stick to the Schedule Set for Tasks
Once you've identified the sequence in which you plan to attack the tasks, it's very important to stick to that schedule.
You’ll very likely encounter one or both of the following scenarios when trying to clear your desk:
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You tell yourself that you’ll complete a specific task later because you're not in the mood to work on it now.
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Something else that's "small" is added to your pile, and you drift from the schedule set because you're just trying to get that task over and done with.
Both scenarios will undoubtedly lead to the pile of paper growing and growing. It's very simple: set a schedule and stick to it. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day. There's no point trying to conquer the world all at once; most times, if you try to do too much all at the same time, you'll end up not conquering much at all!
Make Time for Re-Energizing Yourself
Re-energizing plays a huge part in being able to manage your time at work effectively. The reality is that when you're burned out and exhausted, it's next to impossible to focus on the task at hand. You start getting sidetracked by all sorts of distractions, and before you know it, you're further away from clearing your desk than you were before.
Give your brain a chance to breathe and relax. It's actually very much like a machine that needs servicing every now and then! And a sharper mind is most naturally successful at setting and attaining goals.
Clearing paperwork can be a daunting task. In fact, without effective time management strategies, it’s a possibility that you might never get it down to size. However, the more organized you are, the greater the likelihood that you'll be able to stay on top of your work, instead of having your work on top of you!
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