First impressions are everything, but it takes more than just a good handshake and a quick wit to make a good impression on your boss, clients, and co-workers.
Knowing how to work efficiently and approaching tasks with the right mindset will affect personal & professional success significantly if done correctly. In this article, we will highlight ten tips to increase your productivity and hone your skill set.
1.GET UP EARLY
This tip will feel counterintuitive to everything you ever learned about successful people, but seeing the start of the day creates a sense of purpose. You are starting it right, rather than catching up or rushing to finish something you didn’t start the day before.
2. GET ORGANIZED
An email is not something you need to worry about, but with stacks of paper or contracts/statements, make sure you have a filing system set up. It doesn’t even matter if the filing system isn’t sophisticated, as long as you can securely store and retrieve documents easily.
3. HAVE A SET PLACE TO WORK
This tip is crucial for assistants who are still working from home. Whether it’s at your desk in your home or a library, having a designated space creates an area solely for work, which minimises distraction and enhances your productivity.
4. PRIORITIZE
Your boss expects you to multitask as an assistant. Focus your energy on tasks that will push your career forward. Make a habit of checking back on those tasks intermittently. In addition, prioritize your day by setting a schedule for yourself and sticking with it as best as possible. Schedules enable you to stay on top of your work and prevent time from slipping away on social media or less important tasks.
5. RESEARCH APPS THAT INCREASE WORK PRODUCTIVITY
Sometimes you can’t put your phone down (that email a big client just sent needs a response ASAP), but other times, taking a step back is necessary. For example, if you’re constantly breaking away from tasks to check your phone, that’s not good for either your productivity or your stress level. Put that phone down and here’s how: Research apps that help increase productivity while at your desk, such as RescueTime. RescueTime automatically tracks how much time you spend on different apps and prompts you to set goals.
6. SCHEDULE “ME TIME”
Take care of yourself by taking breaks when you need them. Ensure you set aside time every day to do something you love. Whether it’s reading a book or listening to music or just watching TV for an hour, the important thing is that it’s something you enjoy.
7. DISCUSS AND COLLABORATE WITH PEOPLE WITH THE SAME WORK SCHEDULE
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go together.” It’s challenging, however, to move fast when you are isolated. Reach out to someone with the same work schedule as yours so that you can collaborate on project ideas and tackle them together. You can also discuss similar past projects to better prepare yourself for the task at hand.
8. KEEP TRACK OF EVERYTHING YOU DO IN ONE PLACE – LIKE A SPREADSHEET
Your job demands you to be accountable, which requires a great system to help you set deadlines and remember details. We are often encumbered with a zillion tasks at work, and without a system, it’s easy for important tasks like client meetings or presentations to impede something even more urgent. Informing your boss you forgot a deliverable, or that you had to get back on track because you missed a deadline, is not a good look for an assistant. Here’s a simple system to help you remember everything: Use a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets are perfect for keeping track of everything and keeping it all organized.
9. DON’T GIVE UP ON TASKS IF THEY ARE DIFFICULT; BREAK THEM DOWN INTO MANAGEABLE MINI-TASKS
When working on a laborious task, it’s easy to want to quit. However, to effectively tackle the problem at hand, identifying what is slowing your current process down can make all the difference in terms of productivity. Try breaking that issue into manageable chunks or asking for help from a friend or colleague if necessary. Even the simplest task can become difficult if you try to take it on all at once. Break a large project into a series of smaller steps and focus on the primary one. Then move to the second step and then the third, etc. It doesn’t matter what you do to make your tasks manageable as long as it works for you.
10. UNDERSTAND YOUR LEARNING STYLE TO ENHANCE TIME MANAGEMENT
Productivity comes from how you manage your energy and time. You have a limited amount of time and energy, so you must understand how to use these resources efficiently. First off, identify your learning style – visual, musical or kinaesthetic – and use productivity tools that work best for your style. Visual people like to organize tasks online, make charts and graphs to help them visualise tasks. Musical-minded people use helpful reminders and alerts on their phones. A kinesthetic person enjoys arranging items in a set place with lots of folders for organization.
Have you ever gone into a meeting where the entire team is on their laptops, checking emails or social media platforms? Why are they so focused on these platforms?-because they are visual learners. Identify your learning style so you can maximise your time and execute your tasks more efficiently.
We hope you enjoyed our list of 10 tips to make your job easier! If you’ve got any productivity tips, please share them in the comments. What’s one tip from this article that you would like to try?
