Robin Madell* says tweaking workday routines could help leaders reach their careers goals faster.
If you have high career aspirations, then it’s important that most of your energy goes toward your most meaningful goals.
Learning how to work more efficiently can ensure that you don’t waste time on busywork and minutiae.
But what does working more efficiently really entail? And what tweaks do you need to make to your habits and routines to achieve this?
The following strategies can help you become more efficient at your tasks so that you’re free to dedicate most of your efforts toward the things that matter, which can ultimately pay off in making a bigger impact in your career.
Block your distractions
One of the biggest efficiency killers is a distracted state of mind.
If your mental focus is constantly being hijacked away from what you’re trying to work on, your productivity will plummet, and you’ll spend too much time moving back and forth between your work and whatever “shiny objects” attracted your attention.
When you’re chasing distractions for much of the workday, there’s no way that you can be a standout in your job or industry.
Instead, it’s important to set boundaries to help keep your eyes and mind glued to your most goal-driven actions.
What types of blocks and boundaries you use will vary depending on your personal vices and distractions of choice.
For example, if you can’t keep your hands off of your smartphone, you can physically lock it in a drawer while completing key projects.
If you’re a constant text- or email-checker, there’s an app for that.
Calendar what you care about
Your dreams of efficiency can quickly dissolve into disappointment if you let entropy reign and create a gradual decline into disorder.
As the old saying goes, failing to plan is planning to fail, and nowhere is this hackneyed truism more apparent than in scheduling critical actions and activities on a calendar.
If you enter your workday with a blank slate for a calendar, then your time will be seamlessly absorbed into meaningless undertakings and other people’s agendas.
As an alternative, carve out a few moments each evening to set a firm calendar of time-blocked “appointments,” which will indicate to yourself and others what you plan to get done with your allotted hours.
These calendar items need not be focused just on actual events or meetings, and in fact they shouldn’t be—designate time blocks for each thing you want to get done during the day.
In particular, make sure to calendar not just your daily duties, but also schedule your most meaningful work that gets you closer to your goals and helps create your impact.
Monotask, don’t multitask
Another sure way to totally tank your efficiency and stamp your workday with mediocrity is to spin from one focus to another, trying to accomplish two or more things at once due to time pressure.
You may think you’re saving time by channelling your efforts in multiple directions simultaneously, but multitasking has been proven in multiple studies to backfire, putting you further behind the eight ball than you were when you started.
Monotasking is a much smarter and saner solution where efficiency’s concerned.
By slowing down enough to drill down into one assignment, deadline, or deliverable at a time, you’ll be able to achieve better focus and create more impactful work.
Monotasking is simpler than it sounds.
All that’s required is to truly put your brainpower behind just one idea, project, task, client, or customer at a time and let the others wait until you’re finished.
Channel saved time into priorities
As you implement the above strategies to grow more efficient, the result should be a time savings.
When you’re no longer draining your energy and losing your focus to distractions, lack of planning, and multitasking, you should end up with at least a little more time at the end of the day than you had before.
Don’t waste this found surplus! Determine how many additional minutes or hours per week you now have, and block them on your calendar for your career priorities.
By taking a proactive approach to efficient working methods and seizing the opportunity to leverage your time more strategically, you’ll be primed to make a bigger impact in your career.
*Robin Madell has spent over two decades as a corporate writer, journalist, and communications consultant on business, leadership, career, health, finance, technology, and public-interest issues.
This article first appeared at flexjobs.com
