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Most everyone would like to be more efficient. Just think, you would spend less time doing the things that you don't enjoy and more on the things that bring satisfaction, happiness and profit. Some people are actually very adept at efficiency. They manage every manageable moment so they have more time for themselves to do the things they love. Here are eight techniques efficient people use to gain that freedom.
1. Stop Multitasking
Many people fool themselves into thinking they are good at multitasking. But actually very few can solidly focus on more than 1 or two tasks, particularly if they require focus and depth. They fool themselves into believing they are getting more done when in reality they are accomplishing less and the quality of the work is poor. Really efficient people know that concentrated effort with few distractions leads to better work product in faster times. Otherwise the work may not be up to par, which means wasting even more time and energy going back to fix the mistakes.
2. Delegate
So much productivity is lost when people take on more than they can accomplish. Don't be inspired by CEOs and leaders who overload their schedules and burn the midnight oil. Really efficient people are extremely good at delegating tasks to others who will perform them better. When you know how to break down a task and empower others to contribute effort, you can choose the tasks most suited for you and crank through them in record time without distraction.
3. Use Appropriate Communication
Poor communication is a huge time-waster. A fast email transmitting bad instructions or an offensive attitude can end up adding many unnecessary hours to a project. The masters of efficiency take a little extra time to think through their communication in the beginning. They consider their objectives when deciding to get on the phone. They craft their emails with purpose using the exact language necessary to get the desired effect. It takes a little more time at the beginning but can actually shave days from a project.
4. Apply Structure to the Schedule
With all the available scheduling and productivity tools you would think more people would feel they have a handle on their schedule. And yet often people feel their schedule drives them instead of the other way around. Efficiency fanatics create standard routines in their schedule so they can achieve a disciplined approach and be ready for the important events. The more you control the calendar, the easier it is to make room for the unexpected.
5. Give Everything a Proper Place
A lot of time is wasted chasing down lost items. Keys, pens and clothing hunts can cause distraction and frustration, especially when you have something important to do or somewhere important to be. People get really efficient from being organized. Establish a home for all the items you have. Factories that practice LEAN create common homes for necessary tools of the trade. You can do the same. Organize clothes, papers and electronics in a way that you can easily find what you are looking for. It may take you a few extra minutes to put things away but you'll save a ton of time and irritation from having to search for what's important.
6. Time Activities
Do you really know how much time you spend productively versus how much time you waste? I often know that I am talking on the phone with someone who takes efficiency seriously because they tell me when the call is almost over. Efficient people set a time for each of their tasks and work to keep the schedule. Try logging your time on conversations and activities for a week. Then spend the next week setting specific times for similar activities and work to reduce the times with similar output. You'll be pleasantly surprised at the gains.
7. Commit to Downtime
Tired and overworked people don't perform well. People pleasers will sacrifice their own downtime thinking they are benefitting others, but in truth they detract from productivity. Really efficient people make sure they get rest and recuperation so they can perform at their peak. Since one amazing employee can do the work of three average employees, best to let the team rest up and be top performers.
8. Plan Projects
Effort is often wasted when people don't have a clear path to success. Impatience is the direct enemy of efficiency. Really efficient people know they must take the time to research and break down a project into basic steps in order to achieve success consistently. Yes, planning takes a little time. But considering the challenges, process and responsibilities in advance will make for clear direction with the team. With good communication everyone can move confidently and efficiently to achieve all the objectives in record time.
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By Ssolbergj [ GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0 ] via Wikimedia Commons
The need for Australia to lift its productivity performance is well recognised (see for example the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) latest assessment of the Australian economy). With its terms of trade declining Australia can no longer rely on the willingness of the rest of the world to pay more for our exports to fund improved living standards. Part of the challenge is improving the efficiency of Australian firms and other organisations that produce the goods and services we consume as a community and export to the rest of the world.
In broad terms productivity is a measure of how efficiently an economy uses resources to produce economic output. Productivity can be raised by increasing the efficiency of firms, public sector bodies and not‑for‑profit organisations. Economists usually distinguish between three types of efficiency: allocative efficiency; productive efficiency; and dynamic efficiency. The first two of these are static concepts being concerned with how much can be produced from a given stock of resources at a certain point in time. The third is a dynamic concept and concerned with pushing out the production possibility frontier and giving the community access to more and better goods and services over time.
The Productivity Commission has produced a very useful summary of how it defines these and related concepts, which provides a more detailed discussion than is possible here.
In its assessment the IMF observed that ‘Since Australia has already benefited from sizeable productivity improvements following substantial structural reforms in the 1990s, finding further scope for improvement will not be easy’. This is not to suggest Australia has exhausted opportunities for structural reform but rather a future reform agenda is likely to look somewhat different to what it did in the 1980s and 1990s. In this context reforms focusing more squarely on improving dynamic efficiency appear particularly fertile ground.
In the context of an aging population and the opportunities presented by the economic rise of Asia the potential payoffs from improved dynamic efficiency are likely to be relatively large. Faced with these developments the question is not ‘What do we produce well today?’ but ‘How can we add value tomorrow by improving the quality of a good or service and/or produce it more efficiently?’ and ‘What new things might we develop the capacity to produce efficiently?’
Governments can potentially play a wide ranging role in fostering improved dynamic efficiency including by: ensuring the macroeconomic and social environments are conducive to learning, investment and innovation; investing in research and development; investing in education and training; removing regulatory and other barriers that may impede firms undertaking worthwhile investment; supporting collaboration between universities and businesses; and ensuring appropriate industry, foreign investment, intellectual property and competition policy settings are in place.
In a recent contribution Joseph Stiglitz and Bruce Greenwald have emphasised the importance of knowledge to economic growth and development and the role of government in creating a ‘learning society’ arguing:
‘All of this highlights that one of the objectives of economic policy should be to create economic policies and structures that enhance both learning and learning spillovers: creating a learning society is more likely to increase standards of living than the small, one-time improvements in economic efficiency or those that derive from the sacrifices of consumption today to deepen capital.’[1]
A focus on dynamic efficiency invariably draws attention to organisations themselves and in particular the quality of their management practices. In a market economy much depends on the decisions firms themselves take in relation to their organisational culture, work practices, risk management, investment and innovation. In a 2012 paper, David Gruen and Ben Dolman cited findings from an international study of 9000 medium and large manufacturing firms in 20 countries that suggests management practices in Australia are mid-range and well below top performers like the United States, Germany, Sweden, Japan and Canada. Moreover, Australia was found to have a somewhat longer tail of firms with relatively poor management performance than the United States. The authors found that lifting management practices in Australian manufacturing firms to the average level in the United States would raise the level of productivity in Australian manufacturing by around 8 per cent.
Securing the payoff from reforms targeting improved dynamic efficiency will almost certainly require a concerted effort by Australian managers to embrace a culture of learning and innovation.
[1] Bruce Greenwald and Joseph Stiglitz, ‘Industrial policies, the creation of a learning society, and economic development’, in Joseph E Stiglitz and Justin Yifu Lin (eds), The Industrial policy revolution I: The role of government beyond ideology, International Economics Association, Conference vol. no. 151-I, 2013, p. 45.
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