As knowledge workers, we have to deal with a lot of information as part of our job. We’re processing hundreds, if not thousands, of information every day. With responsibilities, personal obligations, and other commitments we’re involved with, we can easily become overwhelmed.
Think about this. There are only 24 hours in a day. A third of that is allocated for rest (sleeping time and other relaxing rituals). The other third is for work. The last portion of those 24 hours is for recreation and family or friends. Add an extra hour to your rest and you’re oversleeping or slacking. Add an extra hour to recreation and you’re too lax and lazy. Working on extended hours might just be OK once in a while but doing that over and over up to a point that it becomes a habit can only mean two things: You’re either workaholic or mismanaging your work.
The challenge is clear: Finish work within the time allotted for work. The only problem is you don’t have enough time. Process overflowing information within very limited amount of time – that’s Information Overload delight.
Your first lifeline is delegation. But delegating tasks to others has become a luxury that we can hardly afford given the new environment we’re dealing with in this Information Age. Everybody has his or her own problems to solve in the first place. Because of the availability of tools and technologies, we’re now expected to yield more than what we’re willing to output. When we’re given a job, we’re expected to deliver results with all the parameters that were required to accomplish the job.
These are some of the things that will help you ease or mitigate the weight of Information Overload that is bogging you down:
Use Technology To Automate
Study the patterns of your recurring tasks. Are there any parts that can be automated with existing software? If there is no available out-of-the-box solution for specific tasks, does building a new tool satisfy ROI? The tasks that you may want to automate are the ones that are rudimentary or the boring stuff.
Modern Programming Languages make things possible. Many tasks that have something to do with computers can be automated. Programmers and developers take advantage of the Application Programming Interface offered by some productivity applications and services to address certain needs.
Eliminate Redundancy
Analyze the methods involved in your job. Scale down the processes to simplify task completion. You’ll be surprised to find steps that are unnecessary. Reduction of steps needed to put tasks into completion will increase efficiency and, thereby, productivity.
The book, “Eat People” by Andy Kessler has a good explanation of what efficiency and productivity are and how they are related. According to one of the famous Book , “efficiency is about inputs while productivity is about outputs.” writer further explained:
To really understand all this, we need to add another word. Effectiveness is how outputs compare with what was planned or desired – doing the right things, while efficiency is the ratio of the amount of actual outputs to actual inputs – doing things right.
Procrastinate
This seems to contradict what I stand for in this blog; but wait, let me explain myself here. What I mean to say is procrastinate when it’s inevitable. There are some legitimate reasons that allow procrastination. Wikipedia defines procrastination this way: “Procrastination refers to the act of replacing high-priority actions with tasks of low-priority, and thus putting off important tasks to a later time.”
That’s what I mean by procrastination. When nagging deadlines confront you head on, learn to negotiate. Some tasks are just impossible to turn in on their deadline. Negotiate deadlines if possible to give yourself more time to finish your tasks or project.
No comments:
Post a Comment