Smart Work: How to Increase Productivity, Achieve Balance and Reduce Stress

Description

Organise your way to renewed focus and calm Smart Work: How to Increase Productivity, Achieve Balance and Reduce Stress is the busy professional's guide to getting organised in the digital workplace. Are you drowning in constant emails, phone calls, paperwork, interruptions and meeting actions? This book throws you a lifeline. Whether your workforce is in person, hybrid, or remote, Smart Work shows you how to take advantage of your digital tools to reprioritise, refocus and get back to doing what’s important. You may already have the latest technology, but if you're still swamped, you're not using it to your advantage. This useful guide shows you how to centralise and organise your workflow for better outcomes. With Smart Work, you'll develop a simple and sustainable productivity system to manage your inputs and realise your goals. Like most professionals, you want to do great work and achieve great things. But when half your day is spent on emails, phone calls and 'extra' duties, you rarely get a chance to shine. This book changes that. Get back in control so you can start performing like a star. Get organised, focused and proactiveConquer the daily incoming delugeSpend more time on the important workLeverage your desktop and mobile technologyOptimise your tools for remote and hybrid work When work is coming at you from every direction, it's difficult to focus and prioritise. Things get lost in the shuffle. But when you channel everything into a single stream, you settle into a flow and get more done in less time. Smart Work is your guide to finding your flow―and the bottom of your inbox. This book is part of the Smart Productivity series, helping readers find practical solutions for better managing their time, energy and focus. Cover Title Page Copyright Page Contents About the author Acknowledgements Preface Introduction Productivity in the 21st century The Smart Work system at a glance The practices that drive productivity The Smart Work roadmap — nine productivity skills Actions Inputs Outcomes Processing, planning and prioritising A note on technology Personal productivity tools Team productivity tools Mobile productivity tools Part I Centralise Your Actions Chapter 1 Consolidateyour work Meetings vs tasks Meeting tools — the shift from paper to electronic Task tools — stuck in the 20th century Centralise absolutely every action Consider — Capture — Commit 1. Consider 2. Capture 3. Commit Types of actions — hard to soft Undated task lists Loosely scheduled tasks Date-specific priorities Blocked-out time Meetings Zoom in, zoom out Use undated task lists Outlook undated tasks OneNote Paper notepad Capture mind clutter Chapter 2 Schedule it forward Reactive zone 1 — the first minute Reactive zone 2 — the last minute Decide when and schedule Plan your time using a weekly workflow Use action horizons Focus on the start Balance your workload Don’t dilute your task list Next steps only, please Track it back Information at your fingertips This seems like hard work Chapter 3 Focus your day Start each day with a daily PASS Highlight the critical work Manage the change Update the progress Filtering Scheduling Ranking Part II Organise Your Inputs Chapter 4 Reduce the noise Reduce email noise Actionable emails Informational emails Questionable emails Turn off the alerts Check email proactively Batch information emails Delete decisively Tell them to SSSH Send a timely acknowledgement Set an expectation Schedule an action Hold yourself accountable Reduce the disruption of interruption Chapter 5 Keep it simple Simplify your filing system Complex filing systems Condensed filing systems Compact filing systems Deciding if folders are needed Learn to search Search techniques Basic search Refined searching Make important emails easier to find Use a dedicated folder Rewrite the subject line Categorise the email Take the pain out of archiving File on the run Chapter 6 Process to empty Treat your inbox like your letterbox Clear the backlog quickly — the Mount Rushmore technique Schedule email actions Be decisive Process all your inputs Inbox Paper in-tray Voicemail MS Teams posts Meeting notepad Part III Realise Your Outcomes Chapter 7 Identify your value Clarify your critical roles Reconnect frequently Chapter 8 Make time to plan Build planning time into your schedule Monthly planning The Good, the Bad and the Great Weekly ROAR planning Review Organise Anticipate Realign Chapter 9 Fight for importance Make it visible Watch out for the procrastination pixie Blocking strategies Delegate early and well Why delegate? What to delegate? When to delegate? Who to delegate to? How to delegate the work? The delegation matrix Next steps The learning phase The set-upphase The practice phase The mastery phase Index EULA