Workability
Method at work
I.M. Soni

What characterises you at work? Method or muddle? Finesse or fumble? The choice, as well as the answer, must come from you. If you muddle, fumble, the following steps may help improve your self-organisation. Mark your time carefully, allotting your various commitments to what you might call time-slots in your work. Lay aside a chunk of time for self-improvement activity.

Order in life or work does not come from disorder or chaos. Adherence to a plan soon brings order out of chaos. A calm sense of mastery will soon possess you.

When you develop the habits of tidiness and orderliness, you take an important step towards getting work done in a systematic manner.

Make a start by weeding your office table and drawers. Put things afresh. There should be a place for everything and everything should be in its place. Train yourself to return things to their place. Prompt action and filing are the secrets of efficiency.

Keep a desk diary. Enter apt deadlines for very task or assignment. This ensures you forget nothing and leave nothing to chance or memory. You meet your responsibilities.

Bring more method, discipline and organisation into your work and you will have more time. You are whiling away time because of a muddled and random approach.

You have been a spend-thrift of time. Much that you do calls for cutting out. Do not trivialize your time. Time is symbolically represented as bold. Hence, the phrase: catch time by the forelock!

Grasp it. John Ruskin, famous prose writer, kept a small stone on his work-desk on which was inscribed a single word: “Now”.

Adopt this as your motto, and delay, muddle, fumble, floundering become past experiences. You feel confidence that you are well-organised.

There is a tendency to put off tasks you dislike. In fact, you should be prudent to give such tasks top priority. Tackle them while you are fresh. Tell yourself, “This is nothing. I shall break its back.”

Go back to the school-time story: break your bundle of sticks by snapping them one by one. Do not think of 10 tasks at one go. Take one, deal with it, and pass on to the next.

Mountains look formidable from a distance. Approach them and you see many small pathways leading to the top!

As your reputation for being efficient grows, you will be asked to organise things at a bigger level. Work along with same lines you have adopted for your own self.

When work pressure increases, delegate. Delegation is an important technique in overcoming work hurdles. Many find it difficult to do this and do everything themselves, which brings in confusion, even inefficiency. Trust others and you will be rewarded.

Regularity and punctuality are the two other hallmarks of a efficient person. Draw a line between the two. You many be regular, not punctual. You may be punctual yet irregular.

Following these two are real steps to organised working. Respect your own time as well as others. Swing into action. An ounce of action is worth more than a pound of mental laziness!