Are you leaving office on time?

While some people enjoy staying late, many would want to get home to their family and friends. I am one such – a typical super early morning person!

Wanna know how?

When I arrive at work in the morning is when I try and finish most of my work. I try and set a target and finish it by lunchtime. This way half of my battle is won.

Once I am done with my lunch, I make sure I’ve replied to all those queries that are awaiting my response. I always try to keep my emails and calls to the point and straight forward and mention everything you need to. This way I don’t have to deal with unnecessary back and forth interaction on the same subject.

I often get off my computer every once in a while and stretch. Improve the circulation, drink water, take a bathroom break, chit chat with my colleagues. After which I remind myself of my target once more and focus again.

When there’s about an hour left to go, I check what is left to do. Since I’ve finished most of my work in the morning, I almost always have much less to do in the last hour, except for a few last minute emails.

I then set a rough target for the next day, which makes me worry less about work, when I’m at home.

Finally, when it’s time to leave, I don’t take my work home with me, no matter how much I love my job. I take a break sit back and relax. This ensures that I am super fresh for the next day.

According to me making “working late” a habit is merely foolish, both on your part and your superior who asks you to do so. The stress of working too late builds up over time, and you end up turning yourself into an irritable person which in turn affects your personal and family life.

Here’s something that I’d suggest:

1. Automate the common or repetitive manual tasks. There are some parts of your job that you’re going to do over and over and over —sometimes every day. Sometimes these tasks are dull, repetitive, and boring. When it comes to tasks that you do all the time, you can easily increase efficiency at work by systemizing and automating them.
2. Create email templates for the regular emails that you need to send.
3. Set goals for every task, or else it will be a long never ending task. Like if I am working on a task, I will move to the next only after reaching a particular milestone on the current task, especially when we multi-task.
4. Keep your work space well organized. This benefits your productivity. You’ll always know where things are; you won’t have to go digging for important papers or information every time you need it if everything has a place instead of being shoved into drawers or on the desktop, if computer is your work space. This also eliminates distractions and automatically increases productivity and efficiency in the process.
5. Limit your meetings. Not all meetings that happen are important. Internal meetings can be a huge waste of time. A short meeting can be useful for discussing a controversial issue, but long meetings — beyond 60 to 90 minutes — are usually unproductive. Try very hard to avoid meetings that you suspect will be long and unproductive. When possible, politely decline meeting invitations from your peers by pointing to your impending deadlines.
6. Reduce your reading. You don’t need to read the full text of everything you come across in the course of your work, even if it comes directly from the boss. Though reading a long article from cover to cover might make you feel productive, it might not be the best use of your time. Most likely, only a very small part of that article is vital to your work.
7. Don’t respond to every email. When you read an e-mail, decide whether or not to reply to it, and, if you need to reply, do so right then and there. I have found that about 80 percent of all e-mails, whether internal or external, do not require a response.

Few people want to spend more time in the office or at work than they have to. According to me, it’s very much possible to increase efficiency at work without increasing the time we spend there.

We all deserve time for ourselves, family and friends and we should not forget that there is a world beyond the office that needs our attention too.

Focusing on results rather than hours will help you accomplish more at work and leave more time for the rest of your life. You can either choose to work till late, like most do v/s work efficiently. The length of time spent in office can never determine the level of hard work.