7 Keys to Get Organised in Your Business
Business Lift
In Effectiveness, Leadership, Time Management Posted September 18, 2015
Why are you doing what you are doing when you are doing it?
Keeping track of your time for a week might surprise you. By reviewing your findings, you will learn quickly any activities that are unnecessary and soon move to eliminate or delegate them. Here are 7 Keys to Getting Organised…
1. Take Control
a) Train others to be more efficient in how they interact with you. In addition, be more specific in how you communicate with others.
b) When you get requests, fit it in where it best suits you – prioritise, diarise, but don’t just react.
c) Do one thing at a time, multi-tasking is not always the most effective way of managing (e.g. set a time for dealing with email, rather than just reacting as it comes in).
2. Set Goals
a) Set your top priority for the day and work on it until it is done. Then work on your second priority, but only if you get the first one done.
b) Have goals for each area of your business, including those for staff. Know how they all work together in order to achieve your vision.
c) Ask your customers about their expectations. Seek feedback to improve your products and services further – that way, you’re working on the right things!
3. Use Your Experience
a) Think about past projects and use resources in a similar way. What can you copy and paste?
b) Learn from hiccups you have overcome. Remember—those who don’t learn from past mistakes will repeat them.
c) Recognise and admit what you don’t know, and then seek out someone who does – model successful businesses and individuals.
4. Don’t Procrastinate
a) The more you break down and dissect a project the easier it is to complete.
b) Work on your toughest work first thing in the morning, get it out of the way and find how empowering it is to now it’s behind you!
c) If you feel you do your best work under pressure, give yourself short deadlines.
When you relax you get lazy, so don’t stop working hard. Successful people work hard (and smart).
5. Prioritise
a) Set the top 3 tasks to achieve for each day, prioritise and then get about doing the top priority task. Once completed, move to the next. If you get all 3 completed, set top 3 again and get back to work.
b) Keep only current paperwork on your desk, and where possible, deal with it only once.
c) Remove or delete files and mail that has been finalised.
d) Be ruthless with junk, delete it, read it (if you must), action it if necessary, file it or throw it away.
e) Be determined only to deal with something once. If you receive an email, either respond immediately if it is important and fast, or schedule time to deal with it later in your diary – or delete it if it’s not really important and just a distraction.
6. Manage Interuptions
a) Does it relate to one of your priorities or goals?
b) Is it a customer action?
c) Is it something time sensitive from a staff member or key stakeholder?
d) Can someone else on your team deal with it?
7. Delegate
a) Delegation is not dumping. It is empowering. This is one of the highest forms of motivation.
b) Don’t micro manage – show that you have confidence in their ability. Ask for staged feedback where necessary. Train and develop where outcomes are not to the appropriate standard. This will ultimately leverage your time and produce massive benefits long-term.
c) Keep a list of tasks you have delegated so they’re not forgotten. Blind copy (BCC) yourself into task delegating emails and then keep these in an inbox marked “Awaiting Response” as a time proven way to keep track of delegated items successfully. One of my favourite mantras is “great management delegates the task, not the responsibility.”
Start working on The 7 Keys to Get Organised today and before long you’ll be blown away by the results – and the extra time you’ll have. If you need help, click here to get in contact.
To Your Success
Darren Laudenbach