Anyway, I just thought I'll share the contents of the article, since it's project peak time and the exams are just looming round the corner.
Efficient vs Effective
which should we work on first?
Efficiency menas doing things right
Effectiveness means doing the right things
The best answer is to improve your effectiveness first as it is much better to aim your sights at the results than to worry about the process. Too often, people get bogged down in the menas and lose sight of the end.
Eliminating Time Wasters
some problem areas common to most people:
- scheduling less impt work before more impt work
- starting a job b4 thinking it through
- leaving jobs b4 they are complicated
- doing things that can be delegated to another person
- doing things that actually are not a part of your real job
- failing to build barriers against interruptions
- socialising at great length between tasts
- handling too wide a variety of duties
Setting Priorities
1) Parkinson's Law: work tends to expand to fill the time allotted for its completion. Therefore, setting priorities is very important. If you do not know what your priorities are, your other work will expand to fill in the extra time -- hence taking you longer to accomplish less.
2) Pareto's Principle: 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts
Using a 'to do' list
According to them...
- the list gotta define a specific amount of time (if possible) for each activity to prevent the work from 'expanding'.
- activities should also be listed in order of priority
- it is helpful to spell out the result as well as the process. Stating when, where and what you are going to do increases your chances of doing it successfully.
- As the days goes by, check off completed activites and make any notes that seem relevant. In the evening, make out a new list for the next day and include any activites you could not complete the day before. Always save your lists for future reference and evaluation.
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