Have you always wondered why some colleagues leave the office early on daily basis and your work hours always seem longer than them? This is not an unusual occurrence and should be examined in greater detail. One possible reason is that you have not mastered the art of increased Office Efficiency and this article aims to help you work faster, harder and more efficiently so that you can get more done daily.

Get Organised

I am sure most of us have encountered this situation where a room gets out of order. Sometime packing your room has both a therapeutic effect and also allows you to find your documents faster. Start by grouping your documents in relation to similar projects together and then arranging in some sequence that makes most sense to you. Documents that relate to past projects where applicable should be warehoused to reduce clutter in your room.

Grouping documents helps you improve your workplace efficiency and also clears your mind to embrace new projects and you generally work better with less clutter. I tried this method at the office and it made me feel better and more effective at the workplace.

Set up a system to improve productivity

Some people have done this to great perfection. If the work that you do is quite routine, setting up a work process system or process may actually speed up your work. FAQs on websites often have the same function so as to reduce the number of helpdesk enquiries that companies face. In the office, a pictorial manual of routine processes in an office can boost productivity and reduce training time.

An example would be to create standard form template letters and forms for the most frequent things you do every day. So for example if you generate a template letter of reply to some common query, you can create a standard form reply which will save you a lot of time. Some time spent working on this may result in much hassle saved down the road.

Categorise your work

I classify my work according to ease of work and urgency. When all things are equal, I clear the work that takes the shortest time to do so first so that I can focus on the matters that need longer time and clear them as well. If something is urgent that would occupy my time first obviously.

Pile the documents and projects into different piles and attack the smaller matters with fervour. It helps your mind relax as you gain many successes in clearing the smaller matters so you can focus on working on the larger projects thereafter. The mind works in a strange way and once you tell yourself that you are achieving a lot, this would result in you becoming more confident in your abilities and this may then result in an improved outlook to your work and increased productivity.

Spend some time looking at these three areas at work and you may start working faster, smarter and with more efficiency. Carpe Diem!