When you work in an office, there are a million things that will eat up your time. The time to leave the office will come and you’ll feel like you’ve accomplished nothing at all, despite feeling like you were “getting stuff done” all day. Check out the following “hacks” to learn some simple tricks to stay focused and leave the office feeling accomplished.
Get to work early.
- Getting to work early means you have time to work when (hopefully) no one else is in the office. You can organize your day, work uninterrupted, and get to the coffee first.
Get a second monitor
- . If you often have many browser windows and tabs open, you can save yourself a lot of time by getting a second monitor. Avoid switching back and forth, complicated copying and pasting, and frantically cycling through applications to find what you want.
Disable social media.
- Anything you have open that is social media — Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc — close it. You’ll eliminate one of the most pervasive daily distractions from your workflow.
Flip a coin to determine task order.
- No need to take this one too literally- just assign some sense of chance into your routine. Why? Because you probably waste lots of time deciding what to do next, if you should do something at all, or whether or not to get something started. By flipping a coin, you can take some of the triviality out of your simple decision making.
Act like you get paid $1000/hour.
- Your time is precious. Act like you need every second you can get because someone higher up is determining whether or not you deserve to be paid so much. Keep your time valuable and complete the most important tasks first.
Do one task at a time.
- Don’t try to undertake multiple things at once if possible. Select a task, start it, do it well, and finish it. Without a dozen simultaneous projects on your plate, you’ll be checking things off your list in no time.
Say “no” to tasks.
- People in an office environment will tend to defer tasks to you- say “no”. Obviously you can’t adopt this habit for all things as many tasks will be rightfully assigned to you. If it doesn’t fall in your area of expertise or job description, get someone more appropriate to do it. You’ll keep your to-do list shorter that way.
Delegate tasks.
- Much like saying no, you need to heed the notion that you can’t do every task that comes your way. Especially if you’ve got someone working for you, be sure to defer tasks so you can stay focused and complete things that really matter.
Use the right technology
- . Using the right technology can make all the difference. Be sure to research all of your options, and start using some new programs. If you don’t like it after a week, go back to your old workflow.
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