Increasing Your Effectiveness at Work

  
There are a number of things you can do to stay at your peak effectiveness during your work day. Experiment with the following:

- Take the breaks your employer offers to you. Go for a walk, go outside, climb a few flights of stairs - move! Just a few minutes of change refreshes your mind and your body.

- Multi-tasking is over-rated. It seems that all the hype about multi-tasking over the last few years has proven to be bad advice. The studies I've read recently show that people who concentrate on their task at hand do it more quickly and more effectively than those who multi-task.

Doing a couple of tasks at the same time which require little concentration is always a time saver - just make sure you don't sacrifice quality for "efficiency." If you have to redo a task, it's not saving you time.

- Create boundaries for yourself. Don't volunteer to help someone else at the expense of your own duties. Don't let others waste your time. If you are in a noisy area, close your door or wear headphones to reduce sound if it's acceptable in your workplace. Go to a different location to work in quiet if possible.

- Eat. If you are running low on fuel, you will not be able to function properly. Have a healthy snack during your breaks.

- Drink. Keep yourself hydrated. Our well-known coffee cafes make their coffee three to four times stronger than regular coffee, and if you get a specialty coffee it's loaded with sugar. Stop for one on the way to work, and expect your energy to crash in a couple of hours as the caffeine and sugar wear off. Better to have some green tea. Or water!

If you need more help with time management at the office or organizing your office efficiently, see our books on those topics.

More on work efficiency:
Three Steps to Organizing Your Office
Three Steps to Time Management at the Office
Three Steps to Time Management