At this time of year, it’s great thinking about what you want to achieve for the year ahead. Niamh Brady, a Productivity Coach, founder of Better Workday and author of Remote Working Essentials gives her advice on how to be realistic and contribute to genuine change. She will challenge you to think differently about managing your time, energy and attention at work. She has some great advice on returning to work after the holidays.
The New Year can be a great opportunity to switch things up at work. Here are some great tips to start your new year off strong:
Review your workload
Before you get stuck into anything, take some time and review everything that is on your workload.
Meetings: Are there recurring meetings that are no longer relevant or add value to your day?
Delegate: Are there items on your desk that could be delegated to someone else on the team?
Traffic Lights: Break your workload into three categories, Green, Amber and Red. Red items are priority and need to be actioned first. Amber items are in progress, and you have taken them as far as you can for now. Green items are low priority and do not require your attention right now.
Proactively reviewing your work allows you to do some things differently and manage the expectations of both yourself and others better.
Sorting through the noise
Emails can be the dread of everyone when returning to work.
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Sort your emails by who they are from – the repeated junk emails can easily be identified quickly and deleted.
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Set a target. If you have 100 emails, aim to have say 30 sorted by the end of the day.
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Respond to priority emails first.
Working from Home
There’s something nice about going back into the office after a break and it’s all nice and fresh and tidy! That’s not the case when you work from home!
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The day before you return to work, tidy down your workspace, set yourself up for success.
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Make sure your desk, chair and screens are ergonomically set up properly.
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Put time in your diary to step away from the screen for 15 minutes, take in some fresh air and hydrate.
You can learn more about Niamh’s work at www.abetterworkday.com.