Working smarter with technology and collaborating with others can increase your productivity.
Break through the paper barrier to save time, avoid error and simply be far more efficient.
When it comes to productivity, technology is not only the answer but also part of the problem. We all had great expectations about improved productivity when computers were first introduced to the workplace or smartphones arrived, but for many of us this didn’t seem to happen.
Frustratingly, the potential is real. Technology can make us more productive, but to achieve the potential you must embrace it. That means ditching the paper to-do list, your meeting notepad and your sticky notes.
Email clients such as Gmail, Lotus Notes or MS Outlook all have calendars and task reminders built in. You probably also have a tool like Evernote or OneNote on your PC, and when away from your desk, mobile technology like smartphones and tablets.
So with all of these tools designed to help us to organise ourselves, why are we still so wedded to paper to manage our work? Why do most people use an electronic calendar for their meetings schedule, but revert to paper list to remember what they need to do, or still take a notepad to meetings?
Focus on value
The key to working smarter with technology is to focus on the right level of value. If we just see the benefit of a technology as merely helping us capture information, we probably will not move away from paper.
If we also see benefit in how tools help use that information, there is more reason to change. But if we understand the power of sharing and collaborating with that information, we make the shift to embrace the technology.
‘Technology can make us more productive, but to achieve the potential you must embrace it.’
About 15 to 20 years ago, we believed a diary was just fine, but when workers realised how much more could be done with meeting information in an electronic format, they changed their thinking. Being able to zoom in and out of your schedule, attaching a meeting agenda to the event and moving meetings without making a mess or mistakes – brilliant!
But the real brilliance lies in collaborating with other people’s calendars to organise meetings. Now you can see others’ schedules in real time, and ensure the right meeting information is in everyone’s calendar at the same time.
I work with organisations where everyone uses an electronic calendar to manage their meetings. Yet, only 20% would use an electronic task list, or a tool like OneNote to manage meeting notes. Are they looking at the wrong level of value again?
Take note…
Working with a leadership team in a tech company recently, I was focusing on their use of OneNote to manage meeting notes. One of the managers was very wedded to her paper notepad, and proclaimed at the start of the session that she was unlikely to move away from it. Yet she had a tablet PC that actually allowed her to either type meeting notes into OneNote, or write them on to the screen using a hi-tech pen. Her rationale was that when it came to making notes, it was easier to just use pen and paper. She was not wrong, but her focus level was on capturing, not on using or sharing.
When she realised she was missing out on the ability to search her notes across many meetings, or to schedule meeting actions straight into her task list and collaborate using shared notebooks in OneNote, she began to change her tune – and her tools.
So, you have some powerful technology at your disposal. To work smarter with it, you need to value it, embrace it and practise using it. Do this, and I can promise productivity gains you thought were just the stuff of dreams.
Dermot Crowley, Author, “Smart Work” (Wiley)
This article first appeared in issue 12 of the Inside Small Business quarterly magazine
