Everyone in business is always looking for ways to increase productivity, and there is no shortage of ideas out there on how to do it. Here are a few ideas to add to the mix that you may be able to apply to your particular job.
1. Use Pareto’s Law
Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian engineer and economist who came up with what is known as the 80/20 rule, which states that 80 percent of your results will come from 20 percent of your work. That means if you have 10 things to do, two of them will produce greater results for you than the other eight together.
Often, instead of thinking about output, we focus on input – how much we get done, rather than what results will come from getting those things done. Think instead about what tasks will deliver the most bang for the buck and yield the biggest results, rather than how many things you can cross off your to-do list.
2. Most of the things you feel you need to do just aren’t that important.
Again, how important is it to get all of those things done on your to-do list. Are they really vital, or just make-work activities. What is really important? Think about what really matters and focus on that.
Often, not having enough time means that you just haven’t established your priorities. Even if you have been able to finish a certain task, and have done a good job on it, that doesn’t make it more important if it really is a trivial matter.
So, establish a few priorities, and only a few, because if you have more than a few, you really don’t have any.
3. Watch out for Parkinson’s Law
That is, the amount of work it takes to finish something expands to fill up the amount of time you have to work on it. The more time you have, the more complicated and important the work becomes.
Here it is valuable to make use of deadlines. They force you to focus on what is important and not to waste time. They head off procrastination and avoiding priorities.
If you are looking for temporary, temporary-to-hire or direct-hire work in the Anchorage area, send a message to the Opti Staffing Group, one of the best in the area. We would love to discuss how we can help you find what you are looking for.