Do you want to accelerate your career? Make sure to stay on top of your game with new and innovative ways to be noticed, remembered and appreciated.
Have you ever been given the horrendous task of making the impossible happen for your boss? Did your boss ever need something last minute and you had no choice but to make it happen? Here are a couple of ideas to help you make the impossible seem like a piece of cake.
Taking a Deep Breath
I know that when you’re given an impossible task this is the last thing you want to hear – but trust me! By calming yourself down, taking deep breaths and focusing your mind, you’ll be able to zone out the stress and the irrelevant things that undermine you, and dedicate your energy to being logical and effective. Scouring websites and calling your entire network to get what your boss needs can’t be effective if you’re stressing out. The chance that you may miss something important increases in these situations. Make sure not to lose your focus… and take on the challenge!
Network Network Network
To make your life easier, it is always important to have the right friends in the right places that can give you advice and support when you’re in a sticky last minute situation. Using these connections, whether regularly or in specific situations, will keep you ahead of the game. Efficiency and resourcefulness is always appreciated even though it may not always seem like its been noticed.
Deligate
Sometimes you want things done right, so you do them yourself. This is wonderfully effective in a small company, but if you’re a high profile assistant, you have to delegate the mundane tasks and make yourself irreplaceable for the more “complex” tasks. Make sure you can focus on the complex, know the cases inside out in case they need information. This will help your boss notice your dedication, abilities and work and hopefully eventually commend you for your efforts.
Be Organised
Time is money! Don’t lose time moving from one side of the office to the other if you’re wasting your steps. Try this new concept created for manufacturing companies, but easily applicable to the office space.
LEAN.
Step 1. Focus on your customer/boss
Make sure the transfer of information doesn’t take unnecessary time. If your boss needs files on a regular basis, don’t file them in a separate room. Keep them as close and organised as possible so when you get the memo you can pass them on immediately. Essentially, how can you fulfil the needs of your boss better, faster, and with less effort.
Step 2: How does the work get done?
More often than not, we don’t think about the process behind completing our check-lists for the day. What most don’t realise, is that often, we do things in inefficient or illogical ways out of habit. This often makes the process tedious and repetitive. Do you swap between desktop windows two or three times before figuring out which one you need? Maybe reconsider the order of your pages, change the priorities or colour code them to make the work as simple to complete as possible.
Step 3: Remove inefficiency and waste
Manage, improve, and smooth your processes and flow to eliminate non-valued-added activity. For example, wasted time, wasted movement, wasted inventory/paper due to printing one sided instead of double sided, printing instead of forwarding, time wasted waiting for approvals, delays, mistakes and duplication of efforts.
Step 4: Data
Test out your process, collect data (count the number of clicks it takes to do something), highlight and eliminate errors, and seek continuous improvements in value. Keep an eye out for proof; don’t assume an improvement has been made of you’re not seeing improvements.
Step 5: Group effort
Encourage others to take on the LEAN challenge in their departments too. The only people who know how their departments can be improved, are the people working in it.
Step 6: Constant process
Things will always change depending on upcoming projects and LEAN will have to be reconsidered every time to mention the sustainability of the process.
Changing the way you do things around the office will seem complicated at first, like a waist of time and an extra thing to think of – but if you’re being more efficient, you’ll be trying less hard to do things and essentially be saving time.
On a more fun note…!
Christmas is around the corner – Here are some gift ideas, for your boss or colleagues!
Give them an experience
Organize a company outing with your colleagues. This experience and winding down with your work friends will create a better in office atmosphere as well as make them feel appreciated.
And for your boss…
Is the pressure building up as we reach the end of the 4th quarter? Perhaps the gift of meditation or “me time” will be greatly appreciated. Take something off their plate, or encourage them to join you in a sport class or yoga class. Letting off some steam can be very beneficial to decrease stress levels.
