One of the many takeaways from Anvil Media came from Kent Lewis – during a weekly staff meeting, Kent challenged us to set aside 10 minutes an hour to tend to email and reserve the remaining 50 minutes for work. I didn’t think this was going to be a huge change, but wow, when I became conscious of my email patterns, I didn’t realize how frequently I check my mail – once I began to delegate ~10 minutes/hour exclusively for email – wow – it really does make a huge difference in terms of efficiency & productivity.
From Kent, Hallie and the Anvil team, I’ve really learned to be more effective & efficient with my time and work by revamping the way in which I approach & accomplish tasks.
Follow are a handful of my takeaways regarding maximizing efficiency and productivity:
1. Make a to-do list and actually follow it
2. Set deadlines and stick with them
3. Plan in advance, prioritize, allocate and delegate
4. Take on one task at a time and finish it before moving on – rather than having facebook, wordpress, cnn, gmail., ical, Pandora, adfeed, etc. etc. etc. open at one time, take on one task at a time, complete it, then move on to the next taks.
5. Rather that working to improve your weaknesses, invest time in nurturing your strengths (personal favorite!)
