More hours in the day is something that everyone wants, but at the same time something that is unfortunately impossible to get. But what if you could free up a lot more time at work - perhaps as much as 20% of the working day - to focus on tasks that are more important and higher priority?
For three years, the Harvard Business Review has been studying how knowledge workers can become more productive in their work. The answer they came up with was very simple. Eliminate unimportant tasks and replace them with tasks that are important! The study found that knowledge workers spend on average more than 40% of their working time on tasks that could just as easily be done by someone else. So why do we keep working this way? Getting rid of tasks is harder than we think. We instinctively cling to tasks that make us feel busy and therefore important, while our managers, continually striving to get more done with fewer resources, delegate as many tasks to us as we are willing to accept.The Harvard Business Review highlights an effective way to solve the problem: knowledge workers can become more productive just by consciously thinking and reflecting about how they spend their time, deciding which tasks are most important and then outsourcing the other, less important tasks.In an experiment with 15 managers at different companies, they tested just this. The result was that managers were able to dramatically reduce the amount of time they spent on tasks that were not considered important. Pure office work was reduced by six hours a week and meeting time by two hours a week. The benefits were also very clear. For example, Lotta Laitinen, a manager at the insurance company IF, reduced both her meeting time and her administrative tasks to spend more time supporting and helping her team. The result was a 5% increase in sales for her unit over the next three weeks.Although not everyone in the experiment had quite such measurable success, the results were still convincing. Just by asking knowledge workers to think twice about how they spend their time, they managed to free up a fifth of their time - an average of one full working day a week - and instead use that time to focus on more valuable tasks.Inspired to try? Follow the lead of these managers and delegate tasks you don't have to do yourself. Contitude's project managers are ready to help you with a variety of tasks, quickly and efficiently. And at a cost that's up to 70% less than hiring other local providers. Please contact us for more information or visit www.contitude.com and submit your assignment for a free quote.Full article from Harvard Business Reviewhere.
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