It’s here! A new year and fresh opportunity to set goals for yourself and your team. In a recent survey, we asked some of our customers to share their top goals for 2014. What we found echoed my goals for myself this year: to become more efficient (TVID: 1AF-5D9-9E6). Luckily, Smartsheet is the perfect tool to help turn this goal into a reality.
As you ring in the new year and begin to tackle your goals, here are a few tips and tools to help you become even more productive and efficient in 2014:
Power in numbers: it’s one thing to set goals for yourself, but goals are entirely more powerful when shared with your team. Make sure your team’s priorities and goals for 2014 are outlined in a sheet and shared with everyone – and then use that sheet to track your progress. It’s incredibly motivating to see progress and will encourage your team to keep up the good work.
Check out this template for a goal tracking outline.
We’re all short on time, so when you’re able to get everyone around a table – or phone or computer – to meet, make that time count. By keeping your sheets updated and sharing them with your team, it’s easy for anyone to get a status update on launch progress or hiring updates so you can eliminate wasted time in status meetings.
When you do get together with your team, keep your meetings on track by organizing your agenda in this sheet.
Have you ever found yourself exasperated when you realize that you’re putting in a ton of hours flipping between and coordinating the different tools you use. If you find yourself using multiple tools to keep your team updated or track your progress, there’s never been a better time to pare down than the beginning of the year.
Instead of updating your project plan in your sheet and then drafting an update email to your team, try updating your sheet and then keeping team members in the loop by sending a row or using an update request if action is required. By letting your sheet do the talking, you can avoid email altogether.
Plan out important timelines by going backwards from a hard deadline. Starting with a date and then planning from there breaks down big projects into small chunks that are easy to accomplish. Think of it this way: if you wrote “launch new website” on top of your to-do list, it would probably never get done without a detailed plan.
Make the insurmountable possible by breaking it into smaller pieces and sharing responsibility with your team. Check out this post from our support team to learn how to create your own workback schedule in Smartsheet.
It sounds so simple, but delegating can be challenging if you don’t have each step of a project or process clearly thought out and documented. Once you’ve gotten everything organized in your sheet, be sure to take the next step by sharing with your team, assign responsibility, and setting alerts.
Save time and keep your team on track by automating reminders and you’ll be productively humming along in no time!
I’ll admit it. Once 3 o’clock rolls around, my attention span and ability focus is in danger of succumbing to shiny object syndrome. To help take advantage of the time of day when your brainpower is a little depleted, create a sheet of quick tasks that you can easily check off. You’ll be able to stay productive without giving it a second thought.
Hint: to make this sheet easily accessible, save it to your bookmarks with a secure sheet link. With your 5 minute sheet visible in your browser all the time, you’ll remember that you have it as a resource, even if you’ve gotten distracted by the Huffington Post or sucked into a YouTube vortex.
Make it easy to unplug when you’re done for the day.
Here’s what Kristin Komassa from Colliers International has to say about her team’s vacation time: “I’ve seen my colleagues take their first ‘relaxing’ vacations in years, thanks to Smartsheet. A few years ago, it was just too hard to leave the office – if a crisis emerged with a client and a property, we didn’t have the information on hand to deal with emergencies. Now when a team member goes on vacation and something happens – as it always does, our team knows where to turn to quickly and professionally address whatever may arise.”
Giving yourself a break will help you recharge your batteries, whether it’s during a weeknight or a tropical vacation.
Just think, with all the time you'll save, 2014 has a great shot at being the best year yet!