Celebrating the 2015 Survey’s results and analysis, I’ll share a few thoughts of Stephen Dodd, CEO of OfficeTime thoughts and candid advice.
“Doing business is a very complex which requires more and more communications. Unfortunately we still use the same tools as we have been for the past 10 years at minimum.
Arguably, better tools would be the solution, such as team chat rooms like Slack or knowledge organizers like BaseCamp and Trello. A great choice is keeping better tabs on where your time is actually spend with a time-tracking tool such as OfficeTime. Although, these tools could often help, they are not the only magic bullets. Practicing better working habits also enhances performance. We’ve been told to work smarter, not harder — but what does that really mean?
Many business owners come into work and start working on the first thing they see, which is usually responding to emails. This is the infamous “Fire-fighter” mode which will cover the urgent and perhaps important but lots of time unimportant e-mails- just a waste of time reading them. The day gradually fills up with busy work. The smart owners take a step back to see the big picture. What would you feel good about accomplishing this year? What would help the business the most this week? What one thing could you do today that when you go to bed, would make you feel like you’ve moved towards your overall goal.
My advice is to block out time for that one critical thing. Do that one, big important thing first. Close email. Mute your phone. It’ll all be there when you’re done. We too often think that by doing all the little things that need to be done, we’ll get there — and all we have to do is get those things done a bit faster. In fact, we are more successful at reaching our goals by prioritizing and working on the important pieces. “
Until next time,
Yours truly,
Tommy Antonopoulos, Blogger for OfficeTime
PS: Get your no-cost trial the desktop version of our Time Tracking Solution at OfficeTime.net
PPS: How do you use OfficeTime?