As part of our campaign with AustralianSuper to help you take your career to the next step, we’ve teamed up with lifestyle blogger and influencer extraordinaire Lisa Clark, to bring you all the insights into the constantly shifting world of fashion and beyond. Today Lisa runs us through how best to multitask your way to a better you and the tricks she uses to stay on top of her career.
Multitasking, what a god given blessing! At any moment whilst working it isn’t rare for me to be typing on my laptop, reading text messages on my phone and playing with my Spotify and the best bit – I do it all with ease. Knowing how best to multitask (and YES, listening to music is an important task for some!) is so essential to my job and my career and if you want to get ahead in your endeavours, it should be for you as well!
Every day I am juggling numerous tasks, I’ll have a blog half done, shoots locked in throughout the day, meetings with potential clients and I feel like I am ALWAYS waiting for the postman to bring me products to shoot. My career consists of early morning starts and late night finishes, BUT I wouldn’t have it any other way. This is the career path I have chosen and I bounce out of bed every day with a thirst for success, I really am lucky.
There isn’t a person among us who has the time to focus on a single task at a time. The phrase ‘not enough hours in the day’ couldn’t be more true or apparent to me, daily, in my work life. Multitasking increases productivity and efficiency and increasing these in turn increases your likelihood of success.
Simply put, become better at multitasking to get a better life and career! Here are a few of my tips to be a top tasker in no time…
Wake up early
There CAN be more hours in the day, but you have to make them happen. Getting up earlier will give you access to the quiet time to do those pesky tasks you have been putting off. Think about it – wake up an hour earlier 5 days a week and that’s 5 hours of “spare time”. We all have the same amount of hours in the day as Beyonce… think about it and MAKE IT WORK!!!!!
Make a list
Write it down. Plan your day either in the morning prior or even better, do it the night before. Knowing you’re on top of your next day’s tasks by writing them down the night before is a great way to make sure your time is spent as effectively as possible. Once you’ve made the list it’s important to keep it visible. Post it somewhere in a prominent spot so you know exactly where you’re at, what you’ve done and what you still need to do.
Prioritise
Getting your priorities right is paramount. When you have your list that you’ve prepared make sure the most important tasks go first. Writing an article with a deadline or finishing a project for work is more important than deciding whether the Bondi shoreline looks better filtered with Valencia or Lo-Fi. Getting the important things out of the way leads to having a more productive day and life. Doing meaningless tasks first creates stress by leaving the important things to the last minute, so avoid, avoid, avoid!
Organise
Once you’ve organised your list into the most important to the least important, start to pair off tasks which can be done at the same time. Chances are you can figure out that in fact Lo-Fi was the best filter all along whilst simultaneousl getting a pedicure. Save a few minutes by making phone calls while in transit between meetings, as this will create more time for you to complete the more important tasks on your list later. Bundle similar tasks together and it will help you move more fluidly between closely related activities.
Delegate
Never be afraid to ask for help. It can show humility to ask for someone’s assistance if a certain task may be beyond you or if they will be able to achieve it in a far timelier manner. If you ever feel overwhelmed with a certain task asking a peer or co-worker can often be the best course of action. People are often more than willing to help if you approach them with honesty and politeness.
Remove Distractions
Regardless of how good your list is or how well you’ve prioritised and organised similar tasks together. If you are constantly distracted by meaningless disruptions all of your prior work will be in vein. My main one is to turn off pop up notifications from your social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. As nice as it is to know people loved your photo and filter choice, being notified of it every 2 minutes is going to get you off track. Put systems in place so that when you need to focus your attention on a task you can, interruption free.
Now that I’ve given you all the tips to become a pro multitasker I’ll share with you some of my favourite apps to help organise my life, keep me on top of my daily tasks all while maintaining a healthy social life and keeping up appearances.
WordPress
I love all things blogging. With this app all I can easily write content for my blog, edit posts and comments, upload and post pictures from my phone and best of all it has a multitasking feature that allows you to switch between browsers while using it. Multitasking heaven!
Evernote
It’s great for making lists and you can record notes while performing other tasks using other apps. Unlike the generic ones that come with your phone, it lets you make several note types including text, photos and audio,.
Invoice To Go
Such a great app, I can set up my invoice template, add a few of the client’s details and email out my invoices within minutes. It also gives me the opportunity to have all my invoices in one place come tax time, easily look at what I have earned that month and also remind me to chase up any tardy payments. Awesome!
If you’re just starting out in your career, a few right moves early on can help set you up for life. For more stories in our AustralianSuper KickStart series, click here or go to AustralianSuper.
