5 ways to ensure you spend your time on the right tasks at work

Managing work time effectively just the starting point. Once you find extra space on your calendar, you should focus on what gives you the most bang for your buck. 5 business leaders tell us how to make sure you spend your time on the right activities.

Business 1. Pay attention to the big rocks

Nigel Richardson, European SVP and CIO at PepsiCo, told ZDNET that it’s important for experts to manage energy. Your business won’t improve if you get tired from trying too many things.

Richardson said he needed to make sure his energy was directed toward what he called the big rock. “What are some things that make a difference?”

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These large stones should not only be important to you, but also align with your broader organization’s objectives.

“I’m sharing with my team the five most important things I’m working on,” he said. “Then we go through a very rigorous process of documenting things every week, every month. We check, ‘OK, did we spend the right amount of time on those things?'”

Richardson said people who don’t focus on the big stones can get distracted by smaller activities that don’t add value.

“Managing your energy, being clear on your focus areas, and sharing that with everyone involved will help everyone else know your goals and execute with great discipline.”

Business 2. Categorize your tasks

Toby Alcock, CTO at Logicalis, said it’s easy to think that once you’ve checked off a completed task on your list, you can move on to something else. However, it is important to work more quickly and less slowly.

“Oppression and tension are always the biggest traps for any leader,” he said. “It’s common to think that if you get the most important things done, you’ll get strategic time back.”

Mr Alcock said professionals climbing the career ladder would find their diaries a complex mix of strategic activities and day-to-day requirements. It’s important to categorize those tasks.

“My role is strategic,” he said. “You have to look at the horizon and understand what’s going to happen next. But like everyone else, I sometimes get stuck with urgent demands, like color-coding my diary. , doing simple things feels powerful to me.”

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Alcock also told ZDNET that networking with connections, colleagues, and colleagues helps understand important activities.

“Operating in an ivory tower means you’re bound to fail,” he says. “We have 7,500 people around the world. They come up with great ideas and we want to work with them to see what they do for our customers. I think it’s important to intentionally set aside strategic time to focus on the right activities. ”

Business 3. Take a data-driven approach

Tim Lancelot, head of sales enablement at software specialist MHR, says it’s easy to get overwhelmed with tasks in today’s professional environment. One way he avoids sinking is to make sure he understands how smaller issues fit into broader business concerns.

“You start with the whole and move on to the parts,” he said. “Before getting into the details, make sure he gets a 30,000-foot perspective. From there, get to the point where you can make measurements. Be data-driven in your decisions.”

Lancelot said facts and figures that prove the importance of a business problem can help make smart decisions quickly and effectively.

“Don’t be overwhelmed by the number of challenges you face,” he said. “We can use data to objectively say, ‘By some measure, this is the biggest problem to solve.’ This approach helps us spend our time and resources as effectively as possible. It means.”

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Lancelot told ZDNET that this methodical attitude helps him spend his time on appropriate activities.

“Don’t try to solve 10 problems at once,” he said. “At least make sure he solves one problem to an acceptable level before moving on to the next problem. He may go around the loop and solve that problem to a deeper level later.”

Business 4. Focus on long-term goals

Jessie Sobel, vice president of strategic growth initiatives at Freshpet, says the best way to ensure you’re spending your time on the right activities is to choose a few priorities.

Sobel’s role at Freshpet is to identify new business opportunities. She focuses on prioritizing initiatives that she believes will help the company grow.

“A big part of my role is focused on not only considering some long-term initiatives, but also implementing them and executing them. ,” she said.

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But even someone like Sobel, whose core roles and responsibilities are well-defined, must deal with other ancillary issues. “Businesses have daily needs, but they are just a combination of daily work life.”

Sobel told ZDNET that he’s keeping his eye on major prizes as much as possible, such as Freshpet’s recently launched custom meal proposition, which uses Ordergroove’s API technology to create personalized orders.

“This project isn’t necessarily just about market opportunity,” she says. “It’s also about managing some of the capabilities that we’ve built on the digital platform. It’s also about knowing where to build some of the resources within the organization.”

Business 5. Follow your passion

Richard Wazacz, CEO of foreign exchange specialist Travelex, told ZDNET that being passionate about an activity makes it easier to focus on areas where you can gain experience, proficiency and credibility.

As CEO of a fast-growing company, Wasatch uses his entrepreneurial talents to ensure that his time is spent on value-added activities.

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“I always come back to the question, ‘What is the biggest problem facing my customers and colleagues? What role can I play in solving that problem?'” He said.

“That approach may be aimed at making sure you hire the right people, or it may be aimed at creating the right environment, rolling up your sleeves, looking at the data, and coming up with a hypothesis for the problem. I’ll check to see if I can stand it.”

Spending time on the right activities requires a blend, Wasatch said, and “there’s no magic answer, like assigning percentages to different things.”