Small Adjustments = Big Changes

Most of life’s plainer truths are universal. But plain is not always simple, and simple is not always easy. One of these truths, and a mantra here in The Anywhere Office, is that small adjustments can produce big changes. You hear this professed repeatedly in talk about weight loss and fitness, and in professional sports. You know, ’20 minutes twice a week’ and you can lose 10 lbs. in a month, or the interview with the ball player who just changed the way he gripped the bat and doubled his batting average.

When addressing the changing world of work this same basic truth applies; look at your time management. Cell phone, email, txt msg, voice mail – the amount of time we spend in business communication is massive. While much of it is vital and necessary, some of it is simply unruly. Now imagine making one small adjustment to the way you handle this information that saves you 20 minutes a day: maybe you set up an email filter to organize your incoming mail better, or set up an autoresponder to answer a frequently asked question or distribute a one sheet instead of doing it manually. The math becomes fun and staggering at this point, 20 minutes a day is more than an hour and a half a week, 6.5 hours a month, 78 hours a year – the equivalent of practically 2 full work weeks! And that’s assuming the adjustment you made impacts only ONE person’s time.

A small adjustment could be learning about a new tool or service, or discovering a feature of a program or device you are already using. Or it might be implementing a new collaboration strategy, or evolving a conference call into virtual meetings. It’s not just about saving time – it’s about embracing the tools and technologies available and letting them work FOR you, it’s about achieving better results from your efforts and reassessing the value of your time. Our entire tip book series and much of our training materials are conceived around a collection of these small adjustments: tools, strategies, services, and resources that can improve the way you communicate and collaborate.

Try this, download our free tip book ‘Mobile Work Tips‘ – it is comprised of 5 tips from each of the books in the series (email, laptops, virtual teams, home office, palm pilot) – and implement one tip that relates to your work. Then, pay close attention to the results. What’s sweet about embracing this simple truth is that you can start NOW. Getting a handle on your time or transitioning to a more virtual workstyle doesn’t have to be approached as a huge, monstrous task. It can be achieved through a series of small adjustments.