Performing Daily Audits to Increase Your Productivity

Remaining on task is going to be dependent partly upon how well your schedule is arranged. To get there, you will have to perform daily audits and make small adjustments. This could take you a week or two, may be less. All that is required is an honest look at the way you have arranged your tasks and how they are arranged in relation to others.

This step will expose areas where you have lumped activities and areas where you need to give yourself more time. This is where 30 minute time slots will prove if they need more time on your schedule or should be moved altogether.

These daily audits are a part of another important concept in business, Continuous Improvement. How smoothly your day is running can be changed during this process and most importantly, this is where you can see any positive or negative gains and assess what you can do to change them. Depending on your craft and business, big differences in your productivity may be seen just based on when you schedule certain tasks.

So what are some criteria you should use to audit your schedule?

1. How easy is it for you to transition from one task to another?
2. Do your transitions require physical change in location or just shift in thinking?
3. Do you like the way your schedule is arranged?
4. Have any changes in your life required you to change some things around?
5. Are you seeing positive changes?

All of these questions must be considered when you perform your audits. All of them will help you take an objective look at the way your schedule is now and how it may be affecting your productivity. If you are finding that transitioning from one task to another is an issue, move it elsewhere. Schedule things together that are in close proximity OR in some cases, schedule them so that you may have a break from one task and begin one that is unrelated -- giving your brain a breather.

If you are not in love with the way your schedule is arranged, that is actually enough reason to make changes. It is your schedule and if you do not like it, you are not likely to adhere to it. Additionally, a new responsibility or external schedule shift may cause you to alter your schedule as well. Finally, do you feel positive and see positive changes in the way your workflow is going with these changes? The entire goal is to show improvement, not add more headache. Scheduling properly can make your workflow more efficient and increase your productivity. The daily audits will allow you to always make adjustments that are needed, as they come. Give yourself the flexibility to make improving your productivity an ongoing process, employing these steps systematically to see maximum results.