Knowing exactly how to effectively manage work will help us save working time, increase productivity and work efficiency, thereby expanding development opportunities for ourselves. Read and the following article of Viindoo to know 13 effective work management methods to beat all deadlines!
13 effective ways to manage work
Set a To-do list
First, knowing and understanding the work you need to do is very important and extremely necessary. So develop yourself a small habit of making a to-do list for your next day before bed. This to-do list will remind you what to do and how you should allocate time for each task.
Setting to-do list
Besides, it will be very effective if you take notes of tasks, deadlines at easy-to-see place to constantly remind you of what you have to do. With this being done. All of your tasks will be completed on time, without leaving anything undone. Usually, difficult or mundane tasks can cause boredom, leading to the fact that they will be put behind other tasks. A little tip for you is to do both difficult and easy things at the same time to bring higher efficiency.
Determine priority
Effective work management skills are to optimize working performance in a day and arrange the right amount of time based on the priority of the work. To know which task to prioritize, you can divide the tasks into three categories
- Urgent and very important tasks – tasks that must be done quickly, without any delay.
- The to-do tasks – tasks that can be saved for later.
- Unimportant tasks – tasks that are done for fun, which do not directly affect your personal and professional development.
Determine priority
Define time limit for each task
Parkinson's law is a remark made by Professor Parkinson about the fact that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. For example, if you have 24 hours to complete a project, then under this time pressure, you are forced to focus, devote all your energy to being able to complete the deadline. If the time you have is a week, you will certainly extend the work that can be completed in 24 hours to complete in 7 days.
The same goes for work, since you have 3 hours to work, you will work for 3 hours. If you have 12 hours to work, you will also work full 12 hours, just to fulfill the exact same task. If you have urgent business and suddenly have to leave the company in one hours, you wil probably also do the work in the two hours left.
Time limit for each job
In short, it's really important to limit the time for each task. As it is often said, "pressure makes a diamond", limiting your working time also helps you "revive" your ability to work quickly. In fact, you don't need to spend too much time on a task, you can fully afford to complete those tasks in less time, you just did not allow yourself to do so.
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Break into smaller tasks
When you change your perception of the size and difficulty of a task, you can then gather more motivation to do it. Break your work into smaller tasks to avoid procrastination, stress, and serve as a springboard for later tasks.
To properly break down your tasks, start with the big picture and list out all its components. Then list all the relevant tasks and identify the important tasks that need your priority. Then design your own optimal work sequence according to your strengths, weaknesses, and work habits.
Know how to divide the work
The problem of teamwork and how to divide the work appropriately is always the biggest problem. To make this easier, we need to write down specific and necessary jobs and assign them according to each person's capacity. Don’t take too many tasks to avoid being overloaded and ensure fairness among team members.
Know how to divide the work
Besides, it is also necessary to seriously listen to the opinions of other team members while working together. Because their ideas will somehow bring you new experiences and knowledge. A team breakdown list doesn't necessarily have to be the whole team's consensus, but at the very least, they must be agreed upon by the majority.
Ensure health and avoid burnout
The prerequisite for you to be able to get everything done as productively as possible is to have good health. Regardless of the busy schedule or urgent work, you still have to take time to take care of your health, get proper rest and eat right. Thanks to a stable health, you will keep positive energy and a clear mind during a long day of high intensity work.
At the same time, to relieve pressure and avoid prolonged stress, after hours of tiring work, you should also regularly practice stretching exercises, eye conditioning exercises. Don’t let work invade all of your time, because they will erode your health day by day, easily causing dangerous diseases.
Ensure health, avoid burnout
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One task at a time
For big tasks, instead of completing them all at once, divide the work into small tasks. Giving full attention to one small task at a time increases productivity. Then, the work schedule will be completed without making us feel overwhelmed, inadequate or prone to mistakes.
Focusing on one thing means that you have to work on a task until it is completed, a specific milestones is reached, or the set time is up. Next, you move on to another task or take a break to recharge. Focusing on one thing only helps you achieve results in less time and with less stress. That minimizes context switching and helps improve mental health.
Prioritize solving "difficult" tasks first
Try to put the most difficult tasks at the top of the list and take the time to focus on completing them first. When you have done the hard work, you will feel that all the remaining tasks are very easy for you and the work efficiency also increases significantly.
Prioritizing "hard" tasks first is an effective way to handle work
Also, as a bonus, you'll feel satisfied and won't have to spend the rest of your day worrying about the most unwanted tasks.
Clean up the workspace
There are many reputable studies that have shown that we humans are often unable to concentrate, easily distracted when sitting and working in a messy, untidy place. Hence, we will spend more time working, or worse, the work will not be completed.
Clean up your workspace
Start reorganizing your workspace now. Review the drawers, bookshelves to see if any objects or papers are no longer needed, then move them. Important documents are sorted into folders and stowed away. In particular, please clean the table and immediately dispose of unnecessary decorations.
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Always carry a notebook
Another effective way to manage your time is that you should always carry a notebook with you to clearly record all the tasks you have to do as well as the corresponding deadlines for them accurately. In addition, when you suddenly have a good idea or remember an important note or change your plan, you just need to make a note in the notebook.
Always carry a notebook
Work in Everyone's "Golden Time"
Each of us will have a different productive time frame. Some people are in their best in the early morning, some in the afternoon, but others find themselves most productive at lunchtime in a quiet place. Get in the habit of tracking your performance at different 24-hour time frames to find your “golden time”. Then try to arrange the tasks that need the most focus and creativity in this time frame to work.
Working in everyone's "golden time"
Have fixed schedule to reply to email
We often have the habit of replying to emails immediately after receiving, this is easy to distract us when we are doing reports, or thinking of ideas. We should only check and reply to emails about 4-6 times in a day. We can specify a fixed email response time. For example: 8 am, 11 am, 4 pm, 9 pm; or reply to emails every three hours.
It should be noted that after replying to previous emails, please exit the inbox immediately to avoid being bothered by new emails and spend time focusing on other tasks. You do not need to worry about missing important emails, because when the sender of the email has an urgent need for your support or has an important job that needs you to look over, they will find a way to contact you right away.
Set a fixed schedule to reply to emails
Use task management software
There is a way to significantly improve your work performance by using task management software. Using technology to assist people is not a new thing and we can also see obvious benefits.
Viindoo Projects is one of the best project and task management software, which is highly appreciated by many businesses. The remarkable advantage is that tasks, as well as work plans of large and small projects and close monitoring of progress can all be done on a single software.
Viindoo Projects - Effective work management tool
3 commonly applied work management methods
Getting Things Done method
"Getting Things Done” (GTD) is a method that focuses on the basic principle of organizing work step-by-step, which can help increase productivity without overloading team members. The benefit of applying the GTD method is to help us reduce pressure and stress at work, and at the same time release energy flow and activate creativity.
Getting Things Done method
This method consists of 5 basic steps as follows:
- Collect all tasks, projects, reminders;
- Clarify each content;
- Classify things according to their properties;
- Review and self-evaluate tasks and regularly update new tasks;
- Embark on tasks that are classified in detail, ensure work progress on schedule
Pomodoro method
Pomodoro is a time management method that is quite close to people today. Pomodoro method is to maximize concentration while working. Pomodoro in Italian means tomato.
Pomodoro method
- Identify the work you need to do;
- Set working time to 25 minutes;
- Concentrate on working seriously until the 25 minutes are up;
- Take a break for 5 minutes;
- After performing 4 times as above, take a longer break with 15 - 30 minutes, depending on the nature of work and strength of each person.
Ivy Lee method
Even when you work hard, there will still be a list of important tasks waiting for you to complete them. The only solution then is to find a way to go deeper into the tasks to clarify their true meaning.
This solution was made possible by a leading performance approach created by performance optimization expert Ivy Lee. The Ivy Lee Method makes it incredibly easy to prioritize your tasks.
Proceed as follows:
- At the end of the day, make a list of the 6 most important things to do the next day (Make sure not to exceed 6);
- Prioritize these 6 tasks by importance;
- The next day, when you go to work, start working, just focus on doing the previously arranged order;
- Keep doing this until the list is exhausted. At the end of the day, move the unfinished business to the next day's list;
- Repeat the above process every day.
Above is 12 ways to effectively manage work, beat all deadlines that Viindoo wants to share. When you have learned how to organize the work order, the implementation efficiency will therefore also be improved by being comfortable instead of "compensating" to run the deadline. You can refer to the methods we have mentioned or ask for the support of technology software.
