Eliminate Time Zappers at Work

The average American spends about 8.7 hours per day tending to work-related activities. Just what is going on in the office certainly varies, but some studies indicate that we actually spend a lot of time, well, wasting time. By all accounts, it adds up to almost 2 hours each day!

Here are tips to help increase your office productivity.

Learn to manage email.

Many people have email systems within their workplace to help increase communication. In reality, reading and responding to emails can be a real time zapper.  It takes valuable time to open them, read them, and then to decide on when and if you need to respond. The good news is that people do not always expect an immediate reply, and some are even willing to wait up to a week for you to get back to them. 

To save time, skim through emails right away in the morning, and respond immediately to the ones that take less than a minute. Next, you can file all the remaining emails in your inbox into categories such as “Respond Today,” “Needs More Info,” and the like. This can help you to move on with your day without ruminating on messages you still need to get back to. At the end of the day, set aside time to follow up on the remaining emails. This also works for phone messages.

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Don’t take on more than you can handle.

Learning how and when it’s appropriate to say “no” can eliminate time drainers at the office. Of course we all want to please our colleagues and our bosses, but if you become known as the one who always says “yes,” you’ll find your to-do list getting bigger and bigger. Here are suggestions on what to put the kibosh on at work.

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A bit of foresight today can help you better manage your time tomorrow.

Make a quick list of tasks to do tomorrow before you head home at the end of the work day. Not only will this help cut down on wasting time getting organized in the morning, it will also prevent you from bringing your work home with you.

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These are just a few simple suggestions to help eliminate time zappers, and help increase your productivity at work.