Slow and Steady Takes Care of the Pile Forming On My Desk
There appears to be multiple things piling up on my desk and I’ll admit I’ve dropped the ball on my pacing for getting stuff done. Yesterday I talked...
Clean It Up
Christopher Wesley
Oct 2, 2011
Spent most of my Saturday clearing out a pile of sticks in my backyard. The pile had been accumulating for 3 years, so let’s just say it was huge. How did such a pile come to be? I was lazy when it came to cleaning the yard. Instead of bagging or tying up the sticks I would accumulate I just threw them in a pile. Finally the pile looked like a beaver had crafted a damn in the back corner of my yard. It had to go.
We’re all guilty of letting things go. We think it’s something small, but then overtime it gets worse and worse and then we’re panicking. While we don’t have total control over our lives, we can take control of certain areas to ensure:
A Positive And Efficient Work Environment
A few of those areas we need to stay on top of are:
Office/Desk – Believe it or not your environment has a huge impact on your productivity. If you aren’t comfortable or organized you aren’t concentrating and producing. I’m not going to quantify what’s organize or comfortable, because that differs from person to person, but if you shouldn’t be wasting time searching through piles and messes.
Schedule: Tracking your hours will ensure you aren’t wasting time at work. When we don’t have a plan we tend to get lost in our days. Distraction will emerge because you aren’t tracking when to arrive, meet, eat lunch, take a break and head home. If we have a healthy work schedule we’ll avoid burnout.
Email/Voicemail: Not a lot to say here, but if the message can be addressed in 2 minutes do it, if it’s more of a project file it (write it down) and prioritize it in a to do list. The important thing is to be proactive and not reactive.
Meetings: A meeting with no plan and no purpose should never be held. You hold too many bad meetings, you’ll find a disgruntle or even absent team. Three things you need to know about keeping your meetings engaging:
- Have an agenda
- Start on time
- End on time
- Leave with an action step
Some of these areas seem so small but they can really throw off your productivity. It’s like the butterfly affect, might not seem like much at first; however, it will build overtime. Designate time to clean up these areas and it will payoff in the end.
What do you do to stay on top of these areas?