Whether you work in an office or on your laptop at home, work for many these days seems to continue to grow faster than we can keep up with it.  Meetings, deadlines, emails, phone calls, and repeat day in and day out.  Managing your time effectively with such a busy schedule crucial to getting it all done.  Now take work and mix in a personal life with a 100 other responsibilities and you get a recipe for stress and frustration for many very quickly.  As a person who wears many hats so to speak, I am always looking for new ways to simplify work and make things just a little easier and a whole lot less stressful.  So in an effort to reduce your work today, I wanted to take some time to highlight 10 easy ways to simplify work both in and out of the office.

Simplify Work Starting Now:

So you’re interested in making your workday just a little easier?  Well, you’re in luck.  ZenHabits recently published a list of things you can do to simplify the work you do everyday.   Here is a shortened list of what I think are the 10 most useful ways to simplify your workday:

• Start Early: Get more done for the day before everyone else shows up.
• Limit Your Hours: Set a firm end time to your workday.  You’ll find you most likely work harder to get things done in time.
• Make a List: Note the 3-5 things that are the most important and focus on getting those things done first that day/
• Shorten Emails: Emails consume much of everyone’s day.  Aim to shorten your message (use bullets) and save time.
• Limit Meetings: Meetings often waste a lot of time.  Set a firm start/end and keep to the agenda.
• Keep Your Desk Clean: Reduce stress and stay focused with a clean desk to get more done in less time.
• Take Small Breaks: Getting up to stretch every hour for 5 minutes will help clear your mind and simplify things.
• Eliminate Papers: Printed materials are just am excuse for clutter and distraction.
• Batch tasks: If there is a simple task you do multiple times a week such as updating – pick one day and do all your changes.
• Automate: Look for ways to standardize common tasks and processes to reduce your involvement.

The most important thing to remember is that you need to take action to see any kind of change.  It’s great to read and learn something, but then you have to go out and apply it to truly benefit from it.  So take the time to assess your work habits and make an effort to incorporate some of these suggested changes.  I think you’ll be surprised to see how well some of these can actually work.  Feel free to share any additional suggestions you have below.


Source: ZenHabits