There's that report to clean up, those conference guests to follow up on, and a note to wrap up for your boss.
"When we analyze all our tasks, we realize that many of them, inherited from processes that have never been questioned, are completely useless or bring no added value", underlines coach Sandrine Meyfret, leadership specialist and time management.
Missions without impact, carried out in the shadows, which eat up precious time to carry out more valuable tasks and make known its results - the famous "doing and making known", essential for progress.
“We often do what makes us visible after all the rest, continues Sandrine Meyfret, where it should be integrated into its agenda, considered as tasks in their own right.”
To discharge
How to achieve it?
First by putting his agenda and his priorities flat.
“It is about identifying what is necessary, important or urgent, and defining how much and in relation to what, to distinguish it from what can be delegated, planned or postponed.
The Eisenhower matrix is an excellent tool for establishing this diagnosis, identifying what can be delegated or pushed back.”
Exercise which allows first of all to regain control of time and to release it again, rather than remaining locked in a tunnel of “priorities” which are not always priorities.
In the same spirit, to get out of the lie "of course, it only takes five minutes", it can be good to measure precisely, for a week for example, the time that one devotes to his various tasks.
In video, the keys to taking your place in the office... and your career in hand
Enough to build up his tangible arguments for negotiating with his manager and suggesting that he put an end to certain well-established, but useless habits - those reports that no one reads or that weekly meeting at which you do not speak - at the profit from something else.
"Explaining to your boss that you devote so many hours a week to tasks that have no added value or that are not really our responsibility, to say what you feel and why, is to show assertiveness", continues our coach.
All this, in your interest as well as in that of the company… therefore of the manager.
Read also"Management has become an injunction to joy": why it would be healthy to get angry more often at the office
Change deadlines
One cannot, despite everything, get rid of an uninteresting but indispensable task.
“The possibility of delegating stops where there is no one left to replace us,” continues our coach.
This does not prohibit certain arrangements.
First by adopting a reflex: reminding colleagues and managers, when they entrust us with a file, that we are already dealing with another.
Which to treat the fastest?
Which deadline to postpone?
These are the right questions to ask - and to which the manager is responsible for answering - to keep control of his agenda and his own priorities.
step into the light
Another possibility: separate unrewarding missions into several tasks, to be distributed within the team, or organize a rotation.
The preparation and follow-up of two regular meetings require five hours of work per week?
A colleague can probably take over every other week… but you still have to ask for it, in the right way.
"We can talk about it in a meeting, for example, suggests Sandrine Meyfret, recalling that we are fully aware of the importance of this task, but that it takes us too much time and that we have imagined this solution. .”
Read alsoFinding the right word, bouncing back from hurtful remarks…: the keys to a hellish repartee
And then ?
What to do with this regained time?
First, use it to say what we already do.
“It's fundamental, insists Sandrine Meyfret.
It is not a question of gargling, but of remembering that our manager does not have a crystal ball, and that it is important to tell him regularly what we have done with his day and his week.
We can get into the habit of a quick point with him, or take the initiative of a new
report
- which can fit in an email - to keep him informed of the progress of our projects.
A way to always exist in his mind, and to increase his chances of inheriting strategic, transversal projects, or of being consulted on certain important decisions.
Visible tasks, in short, and valued,
Read also “I lead a football team, why?
”: how to pimp your answers to the question “and what do you do?”
Expand your network
It is also a question, beyond its sole missions, of developing its network, of seeing and being seen by the right people.
“No one, or almost, can do without it.
The network works internally, with its partners and suppliers, its colleagues from other companies, etc.
Without it, job offers never reach us.”
Hence the importance of identifying those you already know, those you need to meet, and the right approach to deepen or initiate the relationship - seek advice for a new file, discuss a future project... sometimes difficult to clear, but essential: visibility is a muscle that strengthens with consistency.
Hence the importance of devoting a regular time slot, an hour at the beginning of the week for example, to your agenda,
In the same way, we spot interesting personalities all the better - and we get spotted by them - all the better if we participate in cross-functional or collective projects.
A major skills sponsorship program, the creation of a corporate foundation, a call for tenders of an unprecedented dimension... Companies, and a fortiori large groups, regularly engage in this type of project , which mobilize departments or entities that are not used to working together.
Whether you encourage it or join it along the way, joining one of these cross-functional projects offers a valuable opportunity to gain visibility with new colleagues and contacts.
Among which are undoubtedly hidden potential partners, executives, current or future,
who might notice you and need you later.
Especially since new missions mobilize new skills.
A way to take risks, to prove to yourself that you have succeeded and to gain self-confidence.
You need it to dare to make yourself visible.