Work Less - Be More Productive

I believe time management and money management are closely related. American businesses are demanding incredible amounts of work from their employees in order to compete in the increasingly competitive global market. As Christians, who value God and family, we need to strike a balance with increasing work demands and our core values. This requires most of us to have very good time management skills. The Bible gives straightforward advice about time and money balance. Proverbs 23:4 "Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint".

As an Engineer at an aerospace company, I constantly deal with time management challenges. Many of my co-workers and bosses work huge amounts of overtime to stay on top of all the work.  The following practices can be utilized to remain valued at work while doing less overtime.

The 20/80 Pareto Principle
Studies have shown that 20% of most tasks create 80% of the value. The other 80% only adds 20% value. Learning to find and do the 20% can make you five times more efficient than average. Become a priority freak.

Establish boundaries
I think it helps to set fairly rigid boundaries about how much overtime you will work, or what hours you will work, or how far you will drive, etc.. Having boundaries creates an urgency to get the important work done and to resist low value activities. If you have 4 hours to write an important note, it will take 4 hours. If you have 10 minutes, it will get done in ten minutes. God will protect these boundaries if done to support your Biblical core values.

Manage Information Flow
This is the information age. Many jobs now require that we process huge amounts of information to determine what action to take. Much information that we receive is not the 20% that adds value. Study and develop good information management processes.

Manage Email
Email is now critical to communication. Communication is critical in the information age. Many people get 100 messages a day. I set up four levels of inbox folders and use Email filters to automatically sort my mail into each level. About 50% of my email (email I am CC:ed on) gets routed into the lowest priority folder and I do not read most of them. I can do this because I know these are part of the low value 80%. Spend some time to develop your own email sorting rules and don't feel you must read all of them. Be bold.

Work the Bottom Line
The most valued employees are the ones that contribute directly to the bottom line goals of the company. The more you contribute to broad tasks that affect the bottom line, the more valued you are, regardless of your overtime level. Also, the more the managers will let you decide what tasks you should work on. A good time manager will constantly find ways for the entire company to stay on the 20% tasks and eliminate the low value tasks.