In today’s world it is very difficult to deal with the pressure of work. Anyone in our industry knows that an average day’s work does not last long enough to finish all of the tasks on one’s to-do list. However, our productivity can increase dramatically if we adopt habits designed to make our work more efficient.
Identify Priorities
If someone asked you what your job is about, would you have a good answer?
Everyone needs to know the purpose of their job in order to become fully effective at work. If you do not know what the exact purpose of your work is, you will not be able to set your priorities correctly. Moreover, if you do not set priorities, you will be forever buried under a mountain of work, unable to tell the difference between what is important, and what isn’t.
We did an exercise to define the purpose of each Intraway team member. Be aware of this purpose every time you must decide what you are going to do first!
Adopt a Good Attitude
It is important that everyone have a good attitude at work. But what exactly does it mean to have a good attitude?
People who have a good attitude take initiative whenever they can. They offer to help a colleague whenever he/she needs it, cover the work of others when they can’t do it themselves, and make sure to deliver their work with the highest quality possible.
Having a good attitude at work will allow you not only to gain the respect of others, but also to show that you are taking ownership and responsibility for the tasks in your area.
At Intraway we try to convey this spirit of collaboration and of having a good attitude through one of our core values: Do your Best!
Build Essential Skills
To be more effective at work we must learn to better manage our time. But there is another key area that we need to pay attention to: improving our communication skills. These skills can have a major impact on the results of our work.
Time Management
One of the main things that must be done to be more productive is to know how to manage our time. If we do not do it well, our days begin to feel like a race in which every project, every mail and every conference call competes for our attention.
One way to manage our time in a better way is to begin to observe how we have assigned time to tasks in the past few days, reviewing our calendar or record of activities. Knowing what percentage of our time we dedicate to meetings, checking mails, and conference calls can be a revealing activity that allows us to discover which tasks are time-consuming and not aligned with our purpose in the company.
Here are a few tips for better time management:
- Schedule your most valuable work for the hours of the day when you have the most energy
- Goal setting is another important element in productive work. Once you have done a job analysis, set short and long-term goals. The advantage of having a to-do list is that goals act as a road map for our activities.
- Good organization is also imperative for working effectively and productively. If you are disorganized, you can end up wasting a huge amount of time looking for lost items.
Communication Skills
Think of all the times we communicate each day. We make phone calls, attend meetings, write emails, make presentations, talk with customers, etc. We can spend all day communicating with the people around us, therefore it is important to have very good communication skills.
Start by listening actively; this means making an effort to listen and understand what other people are telling you.
Pay attention to your writing skills. There are many techniques we can use to make sure we write effective emails:
For one, always keep to one main topic when writing an email. Placing several important topics in a single message will make it difficult for your colleague to prioritize and sort information.
If you must bring up several different points, then number them sequentially, or divide them into separate messages, with the relevant topic headings.
Pay attention to whom any message is directed and copied. It is important to be clear on who is targeted, what action is needed and when you should receive an answer.
References
http://dschool.stanford.edu/wp-content/themes/dschool/method-cards/facilitate-a-brainstorm.pdf
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/being-effective.htm
http://es.wikihow.com/ser-m%C3%A1s-eficiente-en-el-trabajo
