By J. Mason
Online Career Tips Editor
Creating extra work for yourself sounds about as productive as stubbing your toe on your desk. When things are slow it’s best to move on to new ideas and projects, or help others out. Repeating tasks can occur when you’re trying to multitask, you repeat the same mistakes, or your process isn’t efficient. It’s important to keep the repetition in check if you want to be productive.
Even in a creative position there are times when tasks are tedious in nature because they’re redundant. Let’s say you have to update pages on a website, create a monthly analytics report, or upload new content to your blog, it becomes an assembly line type of process. One of the errors you may get with these types of scenarios is expecting a different outcome each time. Just because it’s repetitive it doesn’t mean the results will be the same each time. To keep things from getting dull you can set new expectations with items that are routine.
When working on a monthly report review the old process and parameters. Feel free to remove outdated or useless information, and of course explain why it’s being removed. For other tedious tasks make sure to turn off distractions while you’re doing them. You don’t want to repeat mistakes you made the month before. It also helps to add a more formal review process onto even the most trivial items. The process gives it a bigger sense of importance and in your mind the value changes too. When we think of something as not being worthwhile it’s reflected in the quality of work we return. Give these items a bigger emphasis to see a faster change in results.
How did you do on last week’s bad habit, not following up? It’s better to be safe than sorry. If there’s a glimmer of doubt that your follow-up isn’t on par with your peers then step it up. If the follow-up is overkill someone will be sure to let you know.
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