Have you ever felt like you work too hard? No, it’s not a matter of working harder than you want to, this is a matter of working harder than the results warrant. Wouldn’t you like to streamline your work? Whether it’s financial, creative, business, sales, or even housework, there are six primary steps to reducing wasted work time.
Understand the operation. First of all, you must know what you are doing! You must know how to perform the task at hand well enough to improve upon it. Yes, I said improve upon it, not just do it well. That is what makes a truly efficient worker. Your day should not be a series of tasks where the learning is in progress, they should be a series of learned tasks that allow you to create efficiency. When you are constantly having to learn new tasks as part of your job, there is no way to build upon those skills.
Set the right objectives. Are your goals in line with improvement? You need to ensure that you have set both short term and long term goals that are focused on the betterment of your business or endeavor. With daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals, you can ensure your own success.
Check customer perception. You may see improvement, but unless your clients perceive it as well, your endeavor won’t be seen as profitable. If that is the case, you won’t attract investors. This step brings to mind the fact that success can only be sustained if it is perceived.
Increase capacity. This step means that once you have derived a method for improving productivity, you must then turn that into a way to improve capacity. Ask yourself, are you meeting demand? What extra actions can you take toward creating more product? Are your resources efficient?
Continuously improve. You must have a systematic approach to constant improvement. Don’t take it for granted that improvement will come with experience. Sometimes laziness comes with experience, and sometimes bad management comes with experience, so systematize your strategies for improvement and make them part of your everyday protocol.
Understand motivators. What is driving your employees or coworkers? Do you know how to motivate them effectively? Have you given them productive work with efficient methods? Improving efficiency always means improving management skills, and that doesn’t just mean wasting fewer pencils, it means keeping employees happy and motivated and thus reducing turnover.
For this last point, there are a few questions you can ask yourself that will help you understand what good management really is:
- Do you always have visibility of your employees’ numbers including year to date, forecast, and required performance?
- What are their activity levels: do they work hard and smart enough?
- Do you review performance regularly?
- Do they all have personal development plans?
- Do you encourage a How can we do it better mindset?
- Do your people enjoy working for you?
With all of these points in mind, you can’t help but create more efficiency in your workplace, whether the environment is corporate, small business, boutique, sales, creative, a home business, or a household itself.
