If you could get eight hours of work done in six hours, you would have two more hours to do billable work.
Or you could go home early.
Either way, working faster is your friend.
There are many strategies for getting things done in less time. Here are some of my favorites.
- Single-task. Doing one thing at a time allows you to get things done faster because you’re able to focus and work at a deeper level. You’re also not wasting time “task switching”.
- Time-block. Scheduling blocks of time on your calendar to work on important tasks or groups of tasks forces you to work on those tasks.
- Shorter deadlines. Parkinson’s Law says, “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion,” which means you can usually get things done in less time simply by allotting less time to complete them.
- Do your most important tasks first. Get your most important or difficult tasks done when your energy is highest. You’ll be better able to concentrate and work faster.
- Plan your day in advance. At the start of the day, or even better, the night before, plan your day so you know what you’re going to do and can move from task to task without having to figure out what to do next.
- Divide big tasks into smaller sub-tasks. You’ll procrastinate less when you “only” have to do something that takes a few minutes. You’ll also get a dopamine fix each time you complete a sub-task and check it off your list, making it more likely that you will continue working until you’re done.
- Eliminate bottlenecks. Examine all the steps and identify those that slow you down or send you off on tangents. Fix these by finding alternative methods or delegating those steps to others.
- Gamify your tasks. Promise yourself a reward for achieving important milestones–making twenty calls, working for twenty minutes, or completing 2000 words, for example.
- Take breaks. When you’re “on a roll” (“in a state of flow”), keep going. Lose yourself in the activity. Otherwise, to avoid mental burnout, take a five-minute break every half hour or so. Clear your mind, stretch your legs, and hydrate, before you go back at it.
- Done is better than perfect. Give yourself permission to do a “bad” first draft or first iteration. You will often find that its “good enough” and if it isn’t, you’ll have time to fix it. It’s easier to fix something that’s done than to do something from scratch.
Okay, one more: Dictation.
When I was practicing and had staff, I dictated and recorded my work product and had someone else type it. Today, I often use text-to-speech software to get first drafts done in a fraction of the time.
How about you? What are your favorite ways to work faster?
