Tips on being efficient
I was nagging the team today to try and get them to complete their commitments the other day and they were querying one of the metrics I wanted them to achieve. They thought that I’d pulled the number out of the air. When I commented that I’d actually researched the figure, worked it out before giving it to them and jokingly remarked “Do you lot think I don’t do anything all day?” James responded that he had no idea how I managed to do everything in a day. So here are my tips for being efficient:
1: Delete. Do you REALLY need that mail? once I’ve answered a mail, I delete the original. At the start of each financial year I move everything out of my mailbox and into a PST file and I delete the previous financial years mail. I’ve never needed it. I also follow Chris’s advice about being more efficient with mail and also trying to be more productive.
2: Google Reader. Yup – I read all of my feeds online through Google Reader – I can process hundreds and hundreds of posts in a really short space of time, sharing some and starring others that I’m going to blog about. Sometimes – I mark all as read for things like Friendfeed to save reading stuff twice
3: Live Writer. When I have some time I process posts and post date some of them for publishing on a regular basis. Then when I’m travelling, busy, or on holiday, I can still post fairly regularly instead of swamping you with 10 posts in a day so you just know I’m not busy
4: Windows mobile. I triage my mail, deleting it when I don’t need to respond, responding to short messages and using the hyperlink feature to call people who may need a longer reply. I move the mails to my outlook folders from my phone (Menu | 5 from the mail items)
5: Work from home when you can. you’ll be much more efficient, do the things you need to do, and still manage to get the washing into the machine. I follow Bruce’s approach here
6: Turn your PC off. It’s your job not your life! I follow tips 2,4,7, 13, 16, 20 and 23 of the 24 daily life habits and these help me get through so much more
7: Don’t procrastinate. I used to dither all the time – I’m much more decisive – I think ;-)
I don’t have 10 tips either and would have wasted lots of time trying to think of them – so I’m going to follow my tip 6 right now - after I hit post of course :-) …
