Simplify the most complex tasks at work – Photo: http://1.bp.blogspot.com
I had just gotten the job and on my first week, I got assigned a new project. When the Director said during my interview that I was expected to be drinking from the firehose, he wasn’t joking…It was a new, complex process I knew nothing about, and somehow I had to make it simple enough to make it past my new job nerves, and past my new Manager…
As with time management, performing any task at work requires understanding it first. And in the era of automating and delegating everything for productivity’s sake, it requires understanding it FAST!
1. Get a “can-do” attitude! Attitude is everything, especially at work. When confronted with a challenging task, or a new project you know absolutely nothing about, fix your mind first, as my grand-mother would say! Remember, if you think you can, you’re right!
2. If you can draw it, you got it! As an auditor working with different processes at different companies, it would be easy to get confused by the complexity of businesses everywhere. So I took a cue from my toddler: anything, anything is so much simpler if you can draw it. Whether you scribble on a piece of paper, or build an elaborate flowchart on Visio, get to drawing and visualizing the task at hand!
3. Now it’s puzzle time! Once you’ve garnered your can-do attitude and drawn your task, process or project, it’s puzzle time! Now that you can visualize all the pieces, it’s easier to mentally assemble and disassemble them to pinpoint the areas you need to focus on.
After all, it’s NOT rocket science!
How do you simplify complex tasks at work?
The Corporate Sis.
