Boost Task Efficiency

Generally, humans are good at forming ideas but bad at remembering them. By writing everything down in a notebook or Word document, you free your brain from having to remember everything. This lowers your stress levels and frees up more brain space for important things. Here’s a look at how to boost task efficiency.

Organise tasks

Grab your phone and use it as the place where you put everything. This includes notes for your meetings, email follow-ups and ideas you had while commuting to work. Some people carry notebooks for this reason or send themselves emails full of notes. The great thing about apps is that you don’t have to worry about your notes being stored in many different places. Instead, they’re stored in a place you can access no matter where you are.

Use it as a sort of “brain dump” for all the things that are cluttering your mind. Write down everything you need to remember for work, or everything you need to do. Not only does this enable you to keep track of everything, but it gives you to opportunity to free your mind from the things that have been nibbling at the back of it.

Manage tasks

Now that you’ve got everything down in writing, it’s time to sort through it. When you go to work through the items on your tasks list, ask yourself:

• Is this task actionable?
• How long will it take to complete it?
• What steps are required?
• Can I allocate this task to someone else?
• Is this urgent, or can it be done on a later date?

Answering these 5 questions will help you determine what tasks to do first. This way, you’re prioritising the more important tasks, so you won’t fall behind in work. It also tells you what tasks you can remove from the list – either because they aren’t necessary to complete or because someone else can do them.

Adopting this way of working will maximise your efficiency by organising your tasks and keeping track of the important things.