Learn to Work Smarter

You spend more time on the job than anything else in your life – take these small steps to boss it, good and proper.

Our expert Matthew Brown is a professional productivity ninja – yes, that’s his actual job title. He gets paid to tell businesses how to make the most of their time, and has the knowledge to change your working life forever…

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01

It’s really important to have a To Do list. The problem is, most people have a terrible To Do list, because they mix up “projects” and “actions”. A project is a multi-step thing, whereas an action is something you can actually do. When you look at your To Do list and it says “book holiday”, that’s not something you can do instantly. It’s a project. So what you should put is: “research holiday destination online”. And once you’ve done that, you can “decide on the accommodation”. And then “book holiday on Expedia”. These are all actions. And remember: no one ever gets to the end of their To Do list.

02

When you’re dealing with emails, you’re just a hamster on a wheel. Check your emails three times a day, say at 9am, midday and 4pm. Go into your inbox, process your emails down to zero, then close down your Outlook. And in between 9am and midday, and between midday and 4pm, just do some work, don’t piss around with emails.

03

Of the 100 emails that come into your inbox every day, how many really make a material difference to something that’s important to you? Realistically it’s going to be four or five, but we tend to assign equal importance to all 100 messages. All you need to do is find the five emails that make a difference and really focus on those – forget the rest. If you can spend less time on emails, less time in meetings and less time either interrupting or being interrupted, you’ll find you have three, even four hours more in a day that you didn’t have before.

04

One school of thought says if you’ve got a lot on your plate, put in another hour – don’t leave at six, leave at seven. If you’ve still got lots of stuff on, don’t leave at seven, leave at eight. The fact is, you could work a 100-hour week and you still wouldn’t get through everything. You don’t have enough time to do everything, but you always have enough time to do the important things. Multitasking doesn’t work, and neither does constant self-interruption. Find the relevant thing to do and get on with that.

05

There’s a technique called Eat That Frog. The idea is if every day, the first thing you did was eat a live frog, everything else that day would be pleasurable. So every day, when you’re making a list of what you’re going to do, put a frog on there – something that’s been sitting around just not being done. Once you do it, you’ll feel better about yourself and everyone will love you. So Eat That Frog once a day – it’s a good thing.

06

One way to get work done in a generally chaotic environment is to have a way to signal to the world that the stuff you’re doing is important and you need to concentrate. Put on a pair of headphones – you don’t even need to have any music on – and block out the world. It has two benefits: 1) you’re working in a silent environment, or relatively silent, and 2) people can see that you’ve got your head down.

07

We absolutely need to have times where we’re not working. One of the problems with the modern world of work is we’re never not able to work, because even when you’re on the bus home, you go, “I’ll just check my emails.” But actually, one of the biggest improvements in productivity is when you stop getting emails on your phone – it means you can sit on the bus and think. We do ourselves no favours by always being available for work.

08

This area of our lives lends itself very well to an app. The trick to this whole productivity thing is to have one place to go to when you need to decide what your next task should be. Most people scan through their emails, or they look at the Post-it notes around their screen, or they go through the notebook from last week, or they rummage through the papers on their desk – but if you have a single task management app, you have just one place you need to go to.

Supersmart apps

• Dropbox: Upload your files to the app to get hold of all your docs, pics and vids from any internet-enabled device. Free on iOS and Android
• Pocket Informant: Like having a tiny PA living inside your smartphone, this task management app is a To Do list and calendar in one. ₹645 on Android, ₹250 on iOS
• Evernote: Had a great idea on the go? This app makes all your notes – text, photos etc – available across all your devices. Free on iOS and Android

From the November 2013 issue of FHM India.