It is possible to work faster without sacrificing quality. And no, this is not a joke, a joke, or impossible. A task can take less time if you make a plan, minimize distractions, and collaborate intelligently.
In this article, we tell you what strategies to implement in your day-to-day life so that, in addition to finishing your responsibilities faster without compromising the level, you have time left for yourself! Whether you want to rest or devote yourself to your hobbies.
How to Work Faster Without Sacrificing Quality?
Here are the main points to remember to work faster with quality.
1. Collaborate intelligently
In recent years, “that meeting could have been an email” has become such a popular phrase, and even a meme. In a survey conducted by Korn Ferry, 67% of workers expressed that excessive meetings prevent them from getting their work done. Excessive meetings are just one example of inefficient collaboration at work. There are also problems stemming from internal chat systems, overwhelming email threads, and even confusing tasks.
Today, with many teams working remotely from distributed locations, improving transparency and minimizing over-communication is important. One way to do this is with a collaboration tool like Hive that brings all team communication systems, documents, and tasks into a centralized dashboard.
2. Stop multitasking
You can’t be a supervisor, essay writer helper, accountant, or project manager at the same time, can’t you? Ever wonder how you can be working on 5 things at once but never accomplish anything? That’s because multitasking is a productivity myth. It has been shown that it takes 40% longer to accomplish tasks when multitasking.
The alternative? Monotasking. As you can imagine, this refers to doing a single task at a time, for shorter intervals that correlate to the average human attention span of approx. 18 to 20 minutes. If you have trouble focusing on a single task, stay away from distractions. Turn off your notifications, close unused browser tabs, and pay attention to how much faster you can work when you focus on one thing.
3. Make a plan
You can reduce the amount of time between tasks when you schedule your weekday in advance. These three stages will assist you in organizing your work:
- Make a list of everything you have to get done today. This will assist you in keeping track of the work at hand and preventing overburden. Just be sure that your plan is doable and attainable. In the time you have available, you should be able to complete everything you had planned.
- Make a to-do list that only contains the major, time-consuming tasks. If you add microtasks as well, your to-do list will become overloaded, causing unneeded tension and the impression that you will never get anything done. Rub a job off the list as you complete it.
- Make long-term plans. Plan for any upcoming deadlines and vacation days to ensure that you finish your assignment on time. You may enjoy your breaks without worrying about work if you prepare in advance. Add reminders to your calendar to help you stay proactive.
4. Use a timer while you work
This is a simple trick to work more quickly without compromising quality. You may monitor how long you spend working on each job by using a stopwatch or timer. When you give yourself a specific amount of time to complete each task, you push yourself to complete them faster.
The Parkinson’s Law in business states that “work expands to fill the time allotted to it.” This implies that if you don’t have many chores to perform, one of them will take longer than it should. In this approach, you give the impression that you have been working all day while wasting a lot of time.
You might take longer than necessary to do a task if you don’t allocate a specific time for it. Therefore, to expedite your job throughout the day, create precise timed goals for each assignment.
5. Set incremental goals
One way to increase productivity and motivation is to set small milestones that lead up to the overall goal. These smaller goals will give you something to work toward in the immediacy, which boosts motivation and keeps you from getting lost in the big picture. To work faster without sacrificing quality, this is a must.
Goal setting is not only a best practice for work, it is well known to influence success. Doing so creates momentum, as having a goal identified stimulates your desire to get there as quickly as possible.
6. Minimize distractions
Try to minimize distractions while you work. For example, you can turn off the television or radio unless it is for music that helps you concentrate. You might also consider turning off your phone or putting it on vibrate. A good way to avoid temptation is to keep your cell phone out of sight. If you have it at hand and are looking at its screen, you will turn it on just to see if you have something, and you are tempted to enter the networks without realizing you lost half an hour.
If you work from home, close the door to avoid being disturbed by others. However, if you do not have a room to yourself, you can use headphones with music so you avoid being distracted by the noises and chatter around you.
7. Group similar tasks together
When you focus on related tasks, you spend less time switching between different tasks. For example, you can dedicate a certain amount of time to answering all your emails or schedule a list of phone calls in succession. Then, you move on to uploading information. Then, you move on to customer calls. And so on.
Every time you start a type of task, you need to think about what you have to do, and you may need different types of tools for each task, which means wasting time. If you do all similar tasks together, you avoid it. Try it!
8. Take time to disconnect from work
This is a great tip to finish this list of how to work faster without sacrificing quality. Setting aside personal time to disconnect from work can increase your productivity. Schedule a break during the day and week, and focus on doing something you enjoy during that personal time.
For example, you could spend the first few hours of your day doing something that matters to you, such as yoga, taking a walk, or playing with your kids. This should help you clear your mind, put you in a better mood, and keep you focused during work hours so you can work faster.
You should also try to disconnect from work-related thoughts on the weekends so you can come back to work refreshed and ready each week. It may be useful to set up separate email accounts, i.e., do not have personal and professional emails in the same mailbox. This way, you will limit your access to professional messages during the weekend.
How do you manage to work faster without sacrificing quality?
There are many ways to work faster without sacrificing quality. By testing these measures, we suggest you can see which ones you feel more comfortable with and which are more effective for you. The important thing is that you find a way to stay focused and improve your productivity.