To want to discover the secrets of extremely efficient work colleague

[crissymoomoo]

It's astonishing. You will email her at 9:02am asking for her to bring a report to you at her earliest convenience. 9:04 I get a reply 'of course. I am on my way'.

She replies to all emails within 30 mins max. Has all tasks completed within an hour max and she's super busy in a profession well known to be stressful and busy.

Anyone else know someone like this?

I have a similar method of working to the GTD process. I start the day by reading my emails (work globally so the emails don't every really stop). I read a full trail, decide if there's an action for me anywhere. If no, it goes to the "read" email folder (don't have subfolders as most of my emails can be categorised in 2-3 ways, I just use search function). If there is an action for me, if it's straightforward (find a certificate, check a shipment tracking etc) or if I need assistance (I have been asked a due date or tech info I don't have) I deal with it immediately, responding to email with answers or forwarding on. Anything more complex gets flagged by global region. I usually spend 3 hours in the morning doing this, then pm is spent on the "big ticket" items, but applying the same process to emails coming in, but a bit more brutal to minimise the interruption (so a yes/no answer would be sent immediately, but a certificate would have to wait). I then also factor in lunch, where I revisit the small tasks, and mid afternoon coffee break, where I revisit the small tasks. Means I can break up the big task and have fewer "interruptions", but still handle the small stuff in a timely manner. Also as per PP meeting guy, if someone phones to ask me to do something I try to do it while they're on the phone.

I am the same at the work and home. It calls good organization and time management

With constant interruptions you need to be assertive.

This. I rarely say no, but I will say, "not now - can you come back at 3pm?" I have found that because I don't always have an instant yes, people are more respectful of my time, because I will focus on them when I do give remember time.

As for meetings - they routinely start 5 minutes late with us, because people aren't there. Drives me up the wall. A couple of people who organise meetings do them for 55 minutes, so they have time to get to the next one, but they also chair them well and move things along.

Plus our teleconferences rooms - they give a 5 minute warning, a 2 minute warning and then the screens go blank, whether someone's in the middle of speaking or not. You can start them early if there isn't a preceding booking, but they will not let you overrun. It does help focus people.

I'm like this.

Always have the mantra in my head - why wait? Get it done and out of the way.

In my job, I have set tasks that MUST be done by a certain time and checked and rechecked - this is every day/ As I solely take over the work of 3 departments after a certain time of day.

Then there are adhoc tasks which still need to be done on top of what needs to be done every day. So I literally fret until thinks start getting ticked off.

So I don't wait, don't keep people waiting and will chase.

I've become like this since discovering the bullet journal method (just the tasks not the pretty stuff all over instagram)

When you're moving uncompleted tasks on each day it really gives you motivation to address the little tasks as they come in.

Also, Trello.

Trello is amazing. I have lots of smaller tasks in my role alongside the big projects (lead on content marketing in high ranking university). I have to balance two main stakeholders interests that pull on my time, and lots of editing and review tasks with regard to all forms of content that go out. I make sure I add all tasks to Trello because I get so many and work with timely, competing priorities that even a quick fire response to a couple of emails isn't feasible when something has come on my desk and has to be posted at 9:24. That's why I try to set two times a day to sit down and react to quick fire tasks. I also do a lot of writing and reviewing where I use chunks of time and ignore emails. If anything was urgent my team are a couple of metres away and would shout. Urgent requests are unlikely to come from elsewhere.

I record a lot of this on Trello, use checklist functionality and complete lists. This means that when one stakeholder whines about being second to another stakeholder, I provide a comprehensive overview of everything that has actually been done and incorporate the smaller tasks that they respect that do take up time. I check Trello every morning, prioritise for the day, add to complete list quickly tasks that take 30+ minutes. I jump a lot between content priorities so clicking on a Trello that has all the information for that content piece including snippets from emails where comments have been made by different stakeholders - really helpful and much easier than sorting through email chains.

I also use a lot of the GTD technique as follows....

Crucially, I don't use email inbox as a to do list. Set aside time to process my email and paperwork and take a decision then on whether something needs action. If not, file it straight away. If it'll take less than 2 mins, action it straight away. If it's a longer task, move it to a trusted to do list and out of the inbox. I use outlook tasks, and often set tasks to appear on the list a set day. Then they're out of your head until you have to work on them.

Doing everything as it arrives may look efficient but can mean you never get to the important stuff / are constantly in reactive mode and not in control of your own time.

I also turn off the pop up box for new email so that I remain in control of when I deal with email as opposed to being interrupted as therefore save time from not constantly switching tasks.

Some have mentioned memory being important. I disagree. The brain is for having ideas, not for organising or filing, and that's why it's important to have a trusted, external organisation system so you're not constantly trying to rely on your memory.

I by no means have a perfect system and am always looking for ways to improve it!

I'm placemarking for tips! This thread is very interesting!

AlternativeTentacle - huh?

:)

My extremely effective and efficient methods are:

Bullet journal with an ongoing to do list.

As soon as I an back with my laptop - turn all 'to dos' into diary appointments for the time that the task is going to take. And be quite strict on logging what I have done in that time. So if a task is booked for an hour and it took half that, slide the to dos around so that a smaller task can be done straight after.

I allocate tasks by 'urgent and important' [hopefully keep most of my tasks out of this one as I have already pre-empted what is coming], important but not urgent [main bulk of work], urgent but not important [if not important why do it?] and neither urgent nor important [again why do it?]. Stephen Covey's 7 habits time management. It really does help to focus the mind on the stuff that needs doing.

Emails pinging in all the time are bery distracting. So I check them when I first go in and then apply the 4 Ds. Delegate it, Diary it for a time in the future, Deal with it there and then, Delete it.
Then I turn off notifications while I get on with other things, and check periodically depending on how busy I am. I also turn my.mobile phone off when I get home so dont hear work emails coming in.

Bullet journal (the Ryder Carroll one, not the artsy fartsy ones on Instagram) I'm just jealous because I could fuck up a stick man helps a lot!
Also having a a good memory is key, especially when you're arranging stuff for other people. I work in a very disorganised industry (just the nature of what I do) and I'm relying on other people being organised (they never are!) so I have to keep myself organised and know little details about all the clients to keep things running smoothly. Having a notebook with quick notes can make all the difference.

And Evernote (I know! A bullet journaller using digital systems 😱) is an excellent app. You can sync is across your devices and keep all sorts in there. Just don't get bogged down in maintaining it - save what you need and be ruthless.

Most responders on this thread give the impression of having work that consists just of email and filing - ie generic admin.

What about the actual serious brainpower work, that requires time to do? ie the content of whatever the job is.

"Bring me a report", well, presumably that has to be produced / created / written?

After all, if all you are doing is re-routing emails, someone will find a way of doing that automatically and your job is gone.

You just crack on and do your job. We are just giving pointers on how to deal with the stuff that wastes time

Place marking

with brainpower stuff, I do half hour chunks.
firstly it's impossible to really concentrate for longer.
secondly I have time critical stuff to deal with as well. i.e. I get a query that I have to answer within 2 hours. so I deal with those between the half hour brainy stuff.

oh, and for reports: we use databases. so it's tables and percentages etc worked out by the database and then me or colleagues writing a summary for easy digestion.

Fascinating. I only get a few emails. But Dh, a site manager, gets 100's per day.

Great thread. I am highly efficient but we have inadequate IT systems here. Stuff takes several minutes to load (I switch on my computer at 8.30 but it'll be 8.40 before I read an email) and screens freeze regularly. So frustrating.

I also get irritated with people who take an age to respond but who seem to have plenty of time for chatting and numerous coffee runs, and with those who ignore emails posing tough questions, hoping they'll just go away.

@topcat2014 I'm a Communications Manager. The vast majority of my day is taken up with what you deem 'proper work' - writing copy, planning campaigns, briefing designers, creating and analysing reports, undertaking research and market analysis etc. But that doesn't stop me from being able to keep on top of my emails, which is what this thread is about. I find that people who say that their work is too complex to keep on top of emails are often just looking for an excuse for the fact that they're disorganised. Not always the case of course - my previous role was in a very meeting-heavy culture and my manager found it a struggle to stay on top of emails as he was in meetings pretty much all day! But that just highlighted to me how important it is to develop skills to quickly and easily deal with your emails and not allow them to build up.

Peach, people like your manager who are constantly in meetings and get a steady stream of emails through out the day seem to be frequently checking their phones and responding to emails during the meetings.

Is that good time management?

@blueshoes I think it depends on the circumstances. My manager definitely attended a lot of meetings that were a total waste of time - this particular organisation held meetings for everything, it was very weird. I suspect he fired out a few emails in those and I can't say I blame him. But it's very frustrating when people aren't listening in an important meeting because they're checking emails.

This wouldn't work for my job. A lot of administrative tasks are repetitive and can be completed straight away, but if you have to come up ideas or do research it's just not possible to do the job well if you are rushing. So I don't think your colleague's approach is desirable for every profession.

Agree with pp I think those sorts of admin jobs will be replaced by technology in the near future. I also agree that in some cases not dropping everything to complete every little task can earn your more respect in your job as it seems like your time is more valuable. Replying immediately can give the impression you are sitting there with nothing to do, which couldn't be further from the truth.

Men can be masters of doing this in the workplace: inflating the difficulty or time of a task so that by completing it quickly and easily, they garner a lot more praise from their superiors than if they had been honest in the beginning about how long the task would take! It sometimes doesn't work in your favour to be too efficient. Something to consider.

Proactive, motivated and extremely good organize person. No magic just fact

Colour coded flags for my emails. Red needs doing today, blue can wait. Once dealt with, filed away in named folders same day. Deadlines set as reminders in diary: set to show 24hrs before deadline expires/ due. Any email from Finance or my Boss I've set the font to show as purple as they are who I report to. I do 5min jobs like emailing a report or approving someone's Leave in morning as I get lot of at my desk queries first thing so can't devote time to big stuff in peace. Stuff that needs more time is done pm. One thing the team I support like as its one less email they dont have to open is one line requests in email title, so no actual email text. So I send 'Gentle reminder:Monthly Report due tomorrow' in title space. Then on blank email below, Rgs, CSIBlonde.