Wish you could accomplish twice the tasks in half the time?

Want to kick back for half the week and groove to Phil Collins while still getting high-fived by the boss come clocking off time?

Leave all the thankless, ineffectual and repetitive tasks to those dandruff-dusted, bottom-feeders in your office and use my following tips to working less, but doing more…

1. Kill off the dead weight tasks

List out all the tasks you could be doing, and then get really, really ruthless. If you look at a task and think: ‘By finishing this it will amount to nothing in the grand scheme of things’, then bin it, delegate it or automate it. However, if you look at a task and think: ‘By finishing this I will be worshiped as a god on Earth’, then keep it.

This is the real secret to productivity. It’s not so much about doing more, but making sure what you actually do do has a big impact.

2. Work on one task at a time

Getting more stuff done by juggling a few tasks at the same time is a complete fallacy. It just breaks up your focus and gives you an excuse to sideline one task for another.

Instead — like a Jack Russell at a postman’s trouser leg — grab hold of the most important task on your list and focus one hundred percent on getting it done before you start something else.

3. Create a To Do list

You may associate To Do lists with that kid from school with the briefcase and the note from his mum about his ear infection which meant he couldn’t go swimming. Well heads up, because that pale nerd was onto something.

Firstly, a To Do list provides a constant reminder of what you should be working on. And secondly, anyone who says they don’t get a fuzzy feeling of supreme self-congratulation inside when they cross something off their list is a big fat liar.

Create two lists. One with the big overall projects, and another with your daily tasks.

4. Set yourself a deadline line, then shorten it

Time spent to finish a project will always spread to fill the deadline set.

If you give yourself two weeks, you’ll spread the work over the two weeks (or in reality, leave it until the final few days to blast through it). Set your deadline for one week and you’ll blast through the same amount of work but have it finished a week earlier.

5. Begin the day by completing your top task

If every day you got to your desk and before anything else — before checking email, before checking out your friends’ utterly banal Facebook updates, before going through your RSS updates, before going to flirt with X from dept. Y — you just jumped right into your top task for the day and work on it until it’s completed, you’d soon get it finished.

Then you can join everyone else in your office playing the ‘pretending to be busy’ game for the rest of the day, smug in the knowledge you’ve actually achieved something.

6. Just dive right in and do something

By choosing to work on the important projects, it’s inevitable you’ll hit some brick walls along the way. Instead of giving up and working on something easier (like Keith in the Swindon branch would), it’s time to man-up and just dive right in.

The quicker you have something down in black and white, the sooner you’ll start to ask questions, the sooner you spot problems and solutions, the sooner you’ll start to understand it and the sooner you’ll figure out what needs to be done.

7. Pushing your project through (Part 1) — learn to do as much as you can yourself

Other people can be a real pain in the backside, especially when you have to rely on them to get something done.

How many times have you gone, cap in hand, to beg for Operations or Marketing to help complete a stage of your task, only to be told: ‘We’ll add it to our list’. This of course translates as: ‘We’ll forget about it until you mention it again, at which point we’ll fob you off once more, you sad loser’.

The way around this is to try and learn to do as many of the necessary tasks yourself. Sure it may take some extra time, but you’ll be learning a new skill which you will benefit from in the future.

8. Pushing your project through (Part 2) — Make your priority a company priority

If you’re still going to need to rely on other departments within the company, ensure that the “Powers That Be” agree your task is a company-wide priority. Doing it this way means that other departments will be made to work to your timescale, not theirs.

9. Pushing your project through (Part 3) — Publicise the date when the changes are going live

Still having trouble getting other departments to march to your drumbeat? Just announce that whatever you’re working on is going to go live by a certain date. You’ll be amazed how suddenly everyone jumps up and takes notice.

10. Pushing your project through (Part 4) — Outsource

Still stuck in the quagmire that is other people? Consider outsourcing it to get it done.

It will either get your task done quicker by using outside help, or it will motivate the department being sidestepped to pull their finger out to avoid being made obsolete (who’s the loser now Operations!).

11. Don’t sweat the small stuff

Do you have people in your office who respond to every idea or project with whiny questions like: ‘But what if X, Y or Z happens?’.

Simply be polite with these people and then just completely ignore them (whether you secretly let their car tyres down too is your call).

The secret to getting stuff done is not to endlessly stall your project fighting problems that haven’t happened yet. Instead just get the basics in place and release your beast out into the wild, warts ‘n’ all. You can fix the actual problems that occur as you go along.

12. Learn to say “No”

Finally, when Bill from Sales ask you for a favour, or Mary from Customer Service pops in with a small request, learn to say “No” politely but firmly.

Cartridge Dave’s article round up

“Work less, do more” was the title of this article, but you might be thinking: ‘Hang on you big lying badger, you’ve just told me to work harder on big important projects. When am I going to get my sweet, sweet Phil Collins time?’.

Well, here’s the thing. Productivity is not just about finishing things quicker. It’s about making sure the things you do finish have a big impact.

That way, your colleagues will spend six months working on untold numbers of projects and have nothing really to show for themselves at the end. Meanwhile you spent the same time just working on (and completing) one or two important projects, meaning you brought home the bacon.

Achieve this and your boss will be giving you countless high-fives while he turns a blind eye to your end-of-the-week Phil Collins sessions.

Got your own tips for increasing productivity? Leave them as a comment below…