Increase Your Productivity

No one person can do everything, and understanding how to pick your tasks is a key step towards making the best use of your time. Make these choices second nature before starting your tasks to make 2014 one of the most productive year

Vilfredo Pareto came up with the basis of the 80 / 20 principle in 1906 and suggested that we can get 80 percent of the benefit of our efforts by focusing on the most valuable 20 percent of the possible activities that we have the capacity for.

When next a task arrived in your inbox, run through these five different ways you can respond.

1. Drop - You can leave it altogether
2. Diminish - You can do a part of it
3. Delay - You can do it later
4. Delegate - You can ask someone else to do it
5. Do - You can go ahead and complete it

The most important ‘D-word’ is Decide. Until we do that, all we are doing is procrastinating.

What if you drop it?

Ask yourself what the consequences are of not doing the task, and if there are none, or the consequences sit well with you then simply drop the task as a whole. If it doesn’t contribute to your overall goals, or reduce your chances of meeting them, then consider not doing the task at all.

What if you diminish it?

Can you get away with only doing part of the job? How can you make the job smaller? Basically with this step you are looking for a way to reduce the scope of the job to get it done quicker and simpler. This approach is very helpful with large and complex tasks, and can save you serious time.

What if you delay it?

Doing it later is often the temptation, but this question to yourself isn’t about procrastination, but about completing it during a more convenient time.

This approach can mean that you come back to the task with better information, more skills or experience  or even be working on a related topic and so much of the preparation  may already be complete. The ability to delay a job gives you more control over it. If you’re good with managing your time then you will be able to schedule this to suit yourself – and make sure this happens well before the deadline pressure starts to mount.

What if you delegate it?

Using your time effectively includes asking yourself what can only you do, and what can others do? During this question the options of delegating and allocating the work and buying a service comes into play. As an example, think of the last time you paid a mechanic to fix your car or an accountant to help with filing your taxes – this is delegating a job to someone far better suited to the job.

Doing the job

What if you asked the above questions and didn’t feel comfortable with any of the answers? Sometimes there are tasks that need to be done, you are the only person who can do them, and they need to be complete as soon as possible. Then you need to go ahead and just do it.

Communicate your decision

Now, whatever you have decided, whether you drop, diminish, delegate or do, be sure to communicate it to others involved in the task. People are generally fine with whatever decision has been made, so long as they’re kept in the loop and have been re-assured that you have the task under control.