If you’re disorganized with your valuable time and unable to prioritize or delegate duties effectively, the stress of an approaching deadline can become unbearable. Poor task management can cause a drop in productivity, cause stress-related health problems, and negatively impact employee morale. It comes as no surprise that 70% of corporate projects fail, and only 2.5% of companies successfully complete 100% of their projects. As a business leader, you need to know how to be organized and increase workplace efficiency. Being more organized can enhance creative and mental wellness, making everyone more focused and productive.
Let’s look at how to organize work to boost efficiency and stay on top of task management.
Organization and Efficiency: How They Work Together
Good organization involves methodically approaching problems and tasks. Sometimes, this entails placing an order for tangible materials like files. Other times, it refers to working through activities step-by-step in a systematic manner.
Conversely, efficiency is the discipline of completing things while investing the least amount of effort and time. Efficiency emphasizes the connection between the effort you invest into producing or providing goods or services and the reward you receive.
Efficiency and organization coexist, despite the fact that they are conceptually distinct. In short, efficiency is typically the organization’s purpose, whereas organization is how efficiency is attained.
Let’s look at the top strategies that will help you eliminate bad habits and increase workplace productivity.
How to Increase Efficiency: The Top 11 Task Management Strategies
There are a vast number of methods that can help you to become a more organized leader and maximize employee productivity, making it hard to know where to start. However, the following tips on how to increase efficiency can guide your way.
Set Deadlines
Deadlines are scaled-down versions of project timelines. They assign specific dates to critical project phases. Deadlines are especially important when managing more than one project or task.
Using a specialized calendar app is an easy way to add deadlines and keep them noticeable and easily accessible for everyone. You can manage the workload more efficiently and prioritize impending deadlines by seeing when assignments are due.
Use the 1-3-5 Rule to Complete Tasks
The 1-3-5 rule suggests that in order to enhance work productivity, you must set a goal to accomplish one large task, followed by three medium ones, and five small tasks each day.
Simply list all the things that need to be finished, choose a single task to perform each day, break it down into three medium tasks, and then break those three medium chores into five minor tasks. That way, you can rest assured that you’re progressing on important projects, deliverables, and daily activities.
Complete the Challenging Task First
Anxiety is normal when working on difficult and complex daily tasks. In most situations, we try our hardest to avoid difficult projects or save the hardest duties until last.
We might preserve some sweat using this strategy, but eventually, we’ll have to take on the difficult duties. So, why wait? Just think about all the ideas that spring to you when you have a challenging task, and imagine how incredible or motivated you will feel once you have completed them.
Organize Your Files
Having a well-organized method can help you find your files — whether digital or printed — easily. It can also assist you in avoiding making the potentially expensive mistake of losing important information.
The first step in building your organizational structure is to create file names. Titles, dates, and other identifying details are acceptable here. After that, store your files in folders that are properly ordered and have names that are obvious.
Set KPIs and OKRs
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are performance measures that assess an organization’s or a specific activity’s effectiveness. KPIs can be used for several processes — from sales targets to social media indicators, they can gauge the success of everything.
OKR is a framework for setting goals at a team or company level along with the quantifiable key results that characterize each objective’s accomplishment. Setting OKRs can help you define goal-oriented tasks that will help you accomplish your goals. Although they can be used for annual planning, they are most commonly used to set quarterly goals.
Implement the 2-Minute Rule
The 2-minute rule suggests making good use of your work time by filling the brief, in-between periods with productive activity. Identifying little tasks that can be completed in two minutes or even less can save you a lot of time.
Although it’s not a guarantee that you’ll succeed in finishing every task in that time, setting objectives is the most important step in achieving them!
Maintain a Collaboration Environment
As a time management expert, you must possess strong task management skills. Maintain regular communication with your team, ask them about progress updates, find out what frustrates them about their current task management strategy, and use their feedback to organize your work effectively.
Ultimately, implementing effective communication and collaboration protocols will foster employee engagement and enhance job satisfaction.
Declutter Your Office Space
The benefits of decluttering the place where you work and transforming the average office into a creativity oasis are comparable to those we’ve already addressed, such as making it simpler to locate the items you need right away. In addition, organizing your physical area enhances your well-being in general.
Functioning in an environment that’s organized reduces anxiety and stress. In addition to being great for mental health, this can improve employee performance by reducing the main distraction at work and allowing for more focus and increased efficiency.
If you’re stuck, decluttering might even help you unwind and find creative insights. Consider what items you need to be at hand before cleaning your workstation. In addition to throwing away anything you don’t need, make sure to let natural light in and stock up on some healthy foods!
Use the 80-20 Rule
The idea behind this rule is that 80% of the results come from investing 20% of the effort. Therefore, you should identify your 80% and focus on the business practices that actually create a real, noticeable effect.
Consider the following:
- Do you have to have social media accounts on every platform? Or it would be better to concentrate on dominating the two social networking sites that pertain to your industry the most?
- Are there too many workers devoted to a single project? Is it possible that the conflicting viewpoints impede progress?
- Can you narrow down your clientele and your area of expertise?
Use Project Management Software
When working on a project with numerous team members, task management tools can help ensure that everyone on your team is aware of what must be done. Additionally, it automates repetitive tasks and avoids energy crashes.
Advanced collaboration tools like Focus have an easy-to-use interface and offer multiple-user support. From creating weekly plans to setting due date reminders, a project management tool can help you organize your to-do list and delegate tasks, thus boosting your business productivity.
Permit Flexible Work Hours
Employees that work flexible hours are not constrained by a fixed schedule. Instead, they work at their most effective and productive times.
You might think about letting your employees work remotely or, at the very least, providing additional work-from-home days. That way, they can complete tasks that require deeper focus when their productivity is at its peak. According to Entrepreneur, having a remote team increases employee productivity by 13%.
Photo by William Fortunato on Pexels
How to Increase Efficiency: The Bottom Line
Good organization is a concoction of planning, setting objectives, tracking progress, working in teams, collaborating, and communicating.
Knowing how to organize tasks is the key to successfully completing tasks. It also brings about more efficient employees, fosters collective energy, and helps develop efficient habits that can help enhance productivity in life, not just at work.
