How to Be More Productive and Efficient

You hear all the time that you or your company needs to be more efficient. But, do you know how to accomplish that? Efficiency seems like a word that is thrown at as the end-all be-all answer to problems within an organization. Without a proper plan, the likely result will be confusion and chaos. The following tips can help you when you are given the initiative to be more efficient.

 

Time Management

 

If you and your team are not managing your time efficiently, you are going to find it hard to move the company forward. The team will constantly be missing deadlines and playing catch up. This makes the group look bad and causes undue stress on the team. The likely result will be high turnover at times when team members are needed the most.

 

Learning

 

Always be on the lookout for how to improve your job or your teams’ jobs. This often requires learning new skills. The more you learn, the easier it will be to find alternative methods that work better.

 

Organization

 

If your office environment is cluttered and there is no sense of organization, it can impact the productivity of the entire group. There are professionals who can assess your current situation and make recommendations on how to improve the environment. This can include such aspects as desk clutter, filing, and even ergonomic issues and proper placement of fixtures or furniture.

 

Automation

 

When you find ways to automate, this frees up your staff to work on more important tasks. Mundane tasks that eat away the time of your staff are the best candidates for automation. It is possible to go overboard with automation which can cause slowdowns when the automation processes fail. Try to determine the best tasks to automate without overdoing it.

 

Delegate

 

If you are micromanaging the work of your team, you won’t have time to handle your own tasks. Your team won’t respect the fact that you are doing tasks that they should be doing. You hired them for a reason. Let them get their jobs done. It’s okay for them to come to you when they get stuck. But you should guide them rather than simply doing everything for them.

 

Outsource

 

With corporate cutbacks, delegating may not be easy to accomplish. Companies are expecting their employees to do more with less. But managers still need to get their work done. In such cases, it may be worthwhile to consider outsourcing some of the tasks of your team. The benefits of outsourcing are that it does not increase the company’s headcount.