Meeting deadlines

Either when you are part of a project or support organisation, you always have to comply with deadlines. Apart from the fact that you need to signal potential issues which reaching a deadline with your team leader and a continuous focus on your tasks at hand will increase productivity enormously.

Establishing a focus on your work can be achieved by spending just a few moments at the start of your working day to list the three most important tasks you can do on the day. Rank these three tasks in the order of importance and go sequentially through that list with the aim to spend quality time on each task before lunchtime.

Any form of distraction needs to be avoided while you are working through your daily list. Therefore you could block your personal calendar to avoid invites to meetings. Scanning of incoming emails remains important, but in most cases it would not require an immediate reply. Always answer phone calls, but keep them short. You can quickly assess the importance of the call and suggest for a call back later in the day when possible. Chat sessions can be avoided by applying a ‘busy’ status, which normally reduces the potential disruptions.

Applying these suggestions to allow you to focus on your work should be possible on most working days. When making this a habit, you will discover that you get more done at a higher quality level.

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