Harvard Business Review - Getting Work Done

Getting Work Done

Get up to speed fast on essential business skills. Whether youre looking for a crash course or a brief refresher, youll find just what you need in HBRs 20-Minute Manager seriesfoundational reading for ambitious professionals and aspiring executives. Each book is a concise, practical primer, so youll have time to brush up on a variety of key management topics.

Advice you can quickly read and apply, from the most trusted source in business.

Titles include:

Creating Business Plans

Delegating Work

Finance Basics

Getting Work Done

Giving Effective Feedback

Managing Projects

Managing Time

Managing Up

Presentations

Running Meetings

Getting Work Done

Prioritize your work
Be more efficient
Take control of your time

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW PRESS

Boston, Massachusetts

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Getting work done : prioritize your work, be more efficient, take control of your time.
pages cm. (20-minute manager series) Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-62527-543-1 (alk. paper)
1. Time management. 2. Labor productivity. 3. Performance. 4. Orderliness.
HD69.T54G48 2014
650.1'1dc23

2014021084

ISBN: 9781625275431
eISBN: 9781625275486

Preview

Demands on your time are growing by the hour, and work keeps piling up. Unclear goals, constant interruptions, and urgent tasks are competing for your attention; you know that youre working less effectively than you could be. This book will teach you how to become more focused and organized at work so you can be more productive by showing you how to:

Prioritize your tasks

Create to-do lists that work

Organize your physical and virtual workspace

Develop a daily routine and stick to it

Stay focused and stop procrastinating

Work more efficiently with others

Assess your progress

Contents

Getting Work Done

Why Invest Time in Improving Your Productivity?

Why Invest Time in Improving Your Productivity?

Do you feel so swamped with work that you dont know where to start? Though you know that its essential to work efficiently to ensure that you get everything done, these feelings can be paralyzing and cause you to spiral into a panic that actually makes you less productive. How do you get out of this cycle and get started?

This book will begin by highlighting the basics of time management: how to track, prioritize, and log your work so you can see where inefficiencies lie and where your goals arent being met. It will then show you how to schedule your tasks and create helpful to-do lists, organize the virtual and physical space around you in order to achieve better focus, train yourself in better habits and routines, and work more effectively with others.

Your first reaction may be to rebel against these efforts. Your time is already sapped; why would you expend more of it making lists, planning and executing changes to your work habits, and tracking your progress? Though improving your productivity requires time and effort up front, you will get more accomplished in the long runand youll do it more deliberately and calmly. By tracking your time, youll discover inefficiencies that will help you identify tasks that should be prioritized or delegated; by getting more organized, you will clear away distractions so you can stop procrastinating and finally focus; by adjusting your work habits and establishing new routines, you will discover newfound energy to put toward the work that matters; and by assessing your progress over time, youll be able to adjust how youre working as your goals evolve.

Commit to change

Its important to believe that you can become more organized, that you can change your work habits and improve your efficiency. You may think that youre built to work a certain way or that the way you work is too ingrained to be alteredeither youre a morning person or youre not; either youre organized or you thrive in chaos and clutter. This is not true. Good habits can be learned, and, even better, they can become routine.

In todays world of instant communication, we have become drawn to urgency. It pulls us in and gives us a false sense of productivity (see the sidebar ). But putting systems in place to organize your work helps to dissipate the stress and lets you work with more forethought, focus, and energy. Most importantly, it will give you time and attention for your most important work, the work that actually contributes to your personal goals and those your organization has set for you.

BUSY DOESNT MEAN PRODUCTIVE

Do you find yourself running from meeting to meeting, dashing off responses to e-mails while zipping through the halls, and focusing on routine tasks in order to feel a sense of accomplishment? If so, you may not be as productive as you think.

Its time to take stock of your work and your priorities. Busyness can be a dangerous way to make up for a lack of purpose or a feeling that you arent a good fit within a particular role or organization. You can schedule your day in an attempt to make yourself, and others, see value in you, but being busy may prevent you from reaching your true potential. Admit to yourself that it might be time to improve the way you work.

In order to truly understand what work is most important and how to become more efficient, you need to first identify your goals and recognize how youre currently spending your time. Well start there.

Identify What Needs to Get Done

Identify What Needs to Get Done

What goals are you aiming for in your work? Does the way that you are spending your time actually correlate to those goals? Without answers to these questions, you wont know how the many tasks on your list should be prioritized, organized, and ultimately accomplished.

List your goals

Ideally, you and your manager should meet at the start of each year to formulate a set of performance goals. From your discussion, you should understand how those goals tie into the companys aims and mission. You likely also have your own personal career goals. Together, these may look something like, Improve people-management skills. Manage six new products. Handle contracts for all of the departments new products. Develop vendor-management skills.