Accelerate Your Career Using Simple Time Management
May 25, 2008 – 2:18 pmOften just a little more productivity at work is all that you need in order to get a promotion or a raise.
This can be achieved by adopting a few simple time management techniques that will have a positive and tangible effect on how you work and the results you achieve. Rather the work for weeks, months or even years for that next promotion, consider these simple suggestions that will help get you noticed.
1. Get rid of the clutter in your office. When you have a cluttered office, everyone notices, even if they don’t say something to you. Sure a cluttered office may be a sign of an organized mind, but your boss probably won’t take that into account the next time it comes to promoting someone. Look at it from his or her point of view for a moment and you’ll see what I mean. All things being equal, would he/she rather promote someone who is neat or someone who has a cluttered desk?
So bite the bullet and clean up your cluttered office. Two things will happen when you do. The first thing is that you’ll be more productive when you don’t have to go digging through the mess on your desk just to find that important paper. The next thing you’ll notice is that when your manager stops by your newly clean and tidy office, he’s going to see that you’re taking your work seriously. He may even comment on it and this will be a wonderful opportunity for you to express your interest in taking on more responsibility. It might seem hard, but just bite the bullet and clean up your office.
2. A supportive physical environment is best. So often people forget about the quote from Bucky Fuller “Environment is stronger than willpower”. It’s true so why not use your environment to your advantage? Try this simple process. Pick five different things that occupy space in your office. For each of the 5 different things, ask the question “Does this ‘thing’ support my productivity goals or does it hinder my productivity goals?”. When you answer that question honestly about each of the things you pick, you’ll be taking the first step towards improving your chances of getting promoted.
The hardest part of this might be simply being honest with yourself. Once you do get honest and start taking action to get rid of the things in your workspace which don’t support your time management goals, you’ll immediately notice a difference. Your energy will rise. So just take action and only fill your workspace with things that support your goals.
Managers look for higher productivity and an abundance of energy when it comes time to award promotions.
3. Efficiently and effectively take care of your email, phone calls and verbal communications. We all live in a wired “must be done now” type of world. People who can effectively handle the fast pace of all types of communications are more likely to be at the front of the list when it comes to be promotion time.
Keeping your email inbox under control is a tough thing to do, but you have to do it. Learn about various sorting and filtering functions that are part of your email program so you can sort the emails into different groups according to where they come from. Set up one group for your boss, one group for your peer level employees and one for your friends. Handle the emails from your boss quickly and efficiently, with response that briefly communicate that you understand what he/she is looking for and that you are following through on your responsibilities.
After you handle the emails from your boss, go ahead and answer the emails to your peers or other employees at your level. Use the same efficient and effective language you use with your boss and don’t worry if these people wonder why you always answer the boss first. That’s the way it supposed to be done and when it is time for your boss to give a promotion, he will see you as the person who communicates well and good communication is critical in the work place.
One more thing, about the emails you get from your friends. If you don’t have a personal email address where they can email, get one fast. You don’t want to be distracted at work by unnecessary “joke emails” from friends. Beside, with email security issues and the fact that employers will look into all your email, you really don’t want odd events of your personal life to be stored on company email servers.
These are 3 simple time management and productivity tips you can use to help get a promotion at work. By adopting them, you send a clear message to your boss to that you are “ready for a promotion”. Good luck and have fun with it!
Tags: Careers
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