Get the most from your day with this month’s top tips…

• Manage personal emails first 

The start of the day should be the only time you look at personal emails. This means you can focus all your attention on important business for the rest of the day.  

• Do your least favorite task second

Get those tedious tasks done early. You will feel a real sense of achievement and will approach everything else with positivity.

• Focus on what matters

Don’t let trivial tasks take time away from things that are really important. After the ‘least favourite tasks’, write a to-do list. Make this list manageable or your day will be unproductive, e.g. :

- Meet with Bob
- Lunch with new client
- Interview with potential Sales Manager
- Reply to very important emails
- Shop for dinner on way home.

• Be on time

In fact, be known for being on time. You don’t waste other people’s time and you do not expect your time to be wasted.  

• Get to work early at least once a week

That uninterrupted time in an unoccupied office can help you get things done or allow you to organise your to-do list for the day.  

• If you are the boss, don’t stay late.

People often feel they have to leave no earlier than their boss. If you are the boss and really have work to do, take it home and do it after the kids are in bed.

• Identify things which waste your time

Do you take a long coffee break or have a colleague that talks just a bit too much? Figure these out and cut them out of your day.

• Stick to schedules and routines

They are not exciting, but schedules and routines can help streamline and improve your productivity. This will also help others be more productive because they won’t waste time looking for you when you are not there.

Some years ago Avery did a survey about tidy desks and concluded most of Britain was in the grip of Deskitis – that is “Dump Everything Seldom Keep It Tidy”

Less than a third (30%) said they cleared their desk daily with one in five (20%) doing so very occasionally and one in six (16%) only bothering when the pile threatens to `fall off the desk!'

So you may resign yourself to the fact that you are in good company but what impact does it have on your business? A Psychologist analysing the survey concluded that a messy desktop reduces efficiency and impairs performance in three key ways.

1. It leads to wasted time searching for an essential item, and when this is needed urgently, the anxiety aroused by its temporary misplacement undermines both your concentration and confidence.

2. Being confronted with piles of work to complete not only makes it far harder for you to stay focused but causes a loss of motivation.

3. A cluttered desk acts as a significant barrier to the important psychological process of closure. That is finishing off one job before embarking on another – this of course can have a direct effect on your invoicing levels!

So, are you lacking focus? Low concentration and motivation? Need to increase your billing? Why not let us help you?