Question

• Evaluate own performance and gather feedback to identify areas that need improvement or additional support

Answer 1

Ans:-

Evaluating Your Own Performance

Clearly, it's in your best interests to take a hard look at your performance before your boss does. You also have to assess yourself from your boss's point of view. Maybe you'd understand someone who left 10 minutes early on a Friday -- but would your boss?

Robert Wilson is a partner in an employment consulting service called Job Bridge, as well as an author and a video producer of employment resources.

"At some point, you have to assess what you think is good and bad about your performance with what the supervisor thinks is good and bad, because he or she is the one that counts."

The following steps will help you help yourself:

Check Your Attitude

"Attitude is very important," says employment consultant Rick Waters. "I meet with a lot of employers, and they tell me the first thing they look for is a person with a good attitude. Doing the work properly is only part of the equation. The other part is your attitude.

"Do you come in late, leave early, spend time talking to friends instead of working, dress inappropriately, phone in sick when you want a day off, help yourself to company supplies for your personal use or are you rude to other people?

"Any of these things will earn you the reputation of someone with a bad attitude."

Be Reflective

"Every day on your way home from work, think about how the day went and what you accomplished. Ask yourself what went well, what didn't go well, and what you could have done better," advises Carol Coe.

She leads a group of teachers that help one another with self-assessment.

"Get in the habit of reflecting on your performance. Every week, set job-related goals for yourself. Do it in writing because that helps to clarify your thoughts. Then at the end of the week, view your goals to see how you did."

Kerry Mahoney, a university training and development coordinator, agrees whole-heartedly.

"If you are working on a project, ask yourself what went well, what didn't go well, and what happened. It's OK to make mistakes, but not the same mistake twice."

Assess Your Performance Against the Job Specifications

"There is no way you can assess yourself in a vacuum," says Robert Wilson. "At some point, you have to assess what you think is good and bad about your performance with what the supervisor thinks is good and bad."

1. If you have been given a job description, study it carefully and give yourself a thorough and honest appraisal. How are you doing compared to what your job description says you should be doing?
2. If there is no job description available, then write out your own specifications for the minimum standards for performing your job. Then, rate yourself on how well you have met those standards.
3. "It's very important to be both honest and thorough," says Wilson. "This is for your eyes only, so be brutally honest."
4. If there are different aspects to the job, break those tasks down into a list and write down what you have done to complete each task. Once again, this is for you alone, so there's "no need to sugar-coat the deficiencies," reminds Wilson.
5. "Write down the good things you have done, and also the things that you have been able to cover up. Then write the things you haven't done at all and where your below-average performance is sticking out there for all to see."
6. Compare your self-assessment with any physical documents that confirm your self-assessment.

Keep a File

It's important to keep copies of any documents that directly or indirectly give some indication of your performance level.

This could be letters, memos, reports, proposals or e-mail printouts that give some clue as to your participation in the departmental activity. Be sure to keep records of any occasions when you may have exceeded expectations or gone beyond the call of duty.

"Maybe you managed to help out when there was a crunch," says Wilson. "Keep records of it, because you may forget later on when it's time for your performance evaluation."

The record will be useful if you need to defend yourself against a negative review from the boss, or for documentation when asking for promotions or raises. It is also useful for updating your resume or for collaborating accomplishments for your next job.

"You should keep this file at home," adds Wilson. "That way, it won't be found on your day off and misinterpreted by people at work."

Find out the Supervisor's Expectations

1. "Make every effort to find out what the job involves from the boss's point of view," says Sylvia How, a lawyer specializing in employee relations. How is the workplace coach for I Village and the employee advisor for the Monster.com job board.
2. "Often on the first day, the boss shows you the ropes and invites you to ask for a meeting if you have any questions later on. Take him or her up on that offer."
3. "Establish communication with the supervisor right from the beginning," agrees Mahoney. "Ask if he or she is satisfied with your work and if there are suggestions as to how you can improve."
4. Try to discover any additional expectations that the supervisor may have, then meet or exceed those expectations. Look around you, talk and gather information.
5. For instance, if you are a cashier, some expectations go along with the job, such as showing up on time and being accurate.

There may be other specifics that the supervisor appreciates. Try to find out what they are. For instance, "If you are a cashier, there may be someone to bag the groceries. You might help with the bagging. This would be exceeding expectations," adds Ho.

Get Feedback From Others

The experts agree that getting feedback from other sources is very important to your self-evaluation.

1. "Ask some friends you trust if they agree with your evaluation. Or approach someone in your organization that is obviously doing a good job and is well respected -- perhaps someone from a different department.
2. "Tell them you are not fishing for compliments, but you are looking for an honest appraisal," says Wilson.
3. "It's important not to depend on just one opinion, though. You need at least two, and if they are very different, you will need three."
4. When you identify deficiencies, develop a strategy for eliminating the weakness. "If you have already done this, you will be way ahead of the game," adds Wilson.
5. In your records, write down what you have done to improve these areas and what the results of your efforts have been. During your formal performance evaluation, you will be able to show the supervisor what you have done.
6. "Your supervisor will be very pleased that you have gone this far on your own. He or she will be trained to help you work out a way to improve still further," says Wilson.
7. "Find a mentor," suggests Mahoney. Mentors are supervisors or colleagues, usually in a senior position to you, who offer guidance, feedback and advice from time to time. Look around your organization and find people you admire. Talk to them and see if they are willing to give you some guidance.

Be a Team Player

"Be a team player and not an independent merchant," says Ho. "You need to understand the dynamics of the group. If you are not a team player, you will get thrown out of the loop."

Newcomers to a workplace are not automatically accepted into the group. "The group has to rediscover how to work together," says Wilson. Every workplace has "unwritten rules" -- the expectations that don't appear anywhere in writing, but which people must abide by to be accepted as one of the team.

"Joining the team depends on fragile interplay, communication, ability, the hierarchy of who reports to whom and the egos of the people involved at every level.

"In some groups, you will find measures of fear, envy, jealousy, disrespect, and you will have to deal with those things as well," says Wilson.

"Really watch and observe how things are done," says Mahoney. Network, research, and talk to people. "And in the first few weeks on the job, it is a good idea to do more observing than talking."

"And be really careful about dating someone from work," offers Waters. "It is especially unwise to date someone that you supervise or who supervises you. A lot of people don't understand this and they get into serious difficulties."

Plan Ahead

Think ahead to where you want to go in the organization or in your career. Look for ways to increase your responsibilities. "If you are not busy, take the initiative and figure out how to get some new skills. Look for people who are busy and ask if you can help on their project," advises Mahoney.

Have a development plan for yourself and let your supervisor know your interests.

For example, if you are doing well in your present job but you are interested in learning public speaking, you might ask your supervisor if they would give you some added responsibilities where you will have an opportunity to practice speaking in public.

Self-Assessment

A performance evaluation is an important tool for keeping communication flowing between teams. Periodic evaluation is a chance for managers and employees to review the recent past and discuss expectations moving forward. An evaluation also serves as an opportunity to set goals, both as individuals and teams.

Along with the performance evaluation often comes the self-assessment. An opportunity for employees to self-reflect and consider what their strengths and weaknesses are, self-assessments are not only important to growth as a worker but as a person. By critiquing their own work and behavior, employees can gain insight that helps them improve.

For managers, self-assessments offer several benefits. They illuminate how the employee sees themselves in the context of the team and the organization at large. It also highlights any disagreements or misunderstandings between the manager and the employee. And, of course, self-assessments offer an opportunity for feedback to managers about what motivates and incentivizes an employee to do their best work.

"Modern employees are intrinsically motivated to work autonomously and by opportunities to learn and grow. So, from a management perspective, self-assessments – which contribute to autonomy and development – are incredibly valuable," said David Hassell, founder and CEO "Work product from employees who are intrinsically motivated tends to be more impactful and sustainable than work derived from extrinsic motivators, such as bonuses or fear tactics."

Despite its importance, writing a self-assessment is no easy task. Analyzing oneself can be immensely difficult, especially when that analysis is submitted to a supervisor for review. If you're having trouble getting started, these five tips will help you learn how to write a self-assessment.

1. Be proud.

One major goal of the self-evaluation is to highlight your accomplishments and recollect milestones in your professional development. A good self-assessment should point to specific tasks and projects that highlight your best work. When describing those accomplishments, employees should emphasize the impact those achievements had on the whole business to emphasize their value to the company.

Julie Rieken, CEO of Applied Training Systems Inc., said you should strive to connect your actions with a manager's goals. This type of alignment is encouraging to any manager and conveys that you understand your role within the larger context of the company.

"If your manager needs to hit a certain number, share how you played a role in hitting the number," said Rieken. "Accomplishments you list should connect with business objectives."

2. Be honest and critical.

Self-assessments aren't just about highlighting triumphs. You should also critically assess the times you came up short. Being honest means pointing out weaknesses that could be improved upon or past failures that taught you a valuable lesson. Recognizing your own flaws is important to demonstrating your ability to learn and grow.

Still, it's important to not be self-deprecating in your assessment. Timothy Butler, a senior fellow and director of career development programs at Harvard Business School, advised employees to use developmental language when critiquing the areas in which they need to improve.

"You don't want to say, 'Here's where I really fall down,'" Butler told the Harvard Business Review. "Instead, say, 'Here's an area I want to work on. This is what I've learned. This is what we should do going forward.'"

3. Continuously strive for growth.

It's important during self-assessments to never stagnate; humans are constantly adapting, learning and changing. Whether you've had a great year or fallen short of your own expectations, it's important to remain committed to improving and educating yourself. Taking a moment to list your goals and objectives for the coming year during a self-assessment demonstrates that you are not content to settle.

"The first step is to adopt a growth mindset and understand that adult human potential is not fixed. We are always in a state of becoming, and our potential increases or decreases based on many factors, including the environments where we live and work," Hassel said. "Adopting that framework prevents people from becoming too transfixed on their perceived failures and from becoming too attached to their triumphs."

Managers will also see a willingness to improve and take on new things as a sort of coachability. If an employee has been struggling, making room for growth could improve their performance. On the other hand, an employee thriving in their position requires growth opportunities to prevent boredom or stagnation.

4. Track your accomplishments.

When it's time to discuss your accomplishments in your self-assessment, providing hard data to show what you've done throughout the year is highly beneficial. Employees and managers generally know how you have performed, but having concrete numbers to back up any assertion strengthens the validity of your self-assessment.

"If employees ... spend 10 seconds a day writing down their one biggest accomplishment, success, metric hit, feedback received for that day, they'd have 10 times more data than they'd ever need for self-assessment," said Mike Mannon, president of WD Communications.

Hank Yuloff, owner of Yuloff Creative Marketing Solutions, agreed: "We teach our clients to keep a list of daily and weekly accomplishments so that when it is time for the self-assessment, there is very little guesswork as to how valuable they are to the company."

5. Be professional.

Employees should always be professional when writing self-assessments. This means not bashing the boss for poor leadership skills or criticizing co-workers for making their lives more difficult. It also means not gushing in an overly personal way about a co-worker or manager you really like. Whether you are providing critical or positive feedback, it's important to remain professional.

Being professional means giving the appraisal its due attention, like any other important project that crosses your desk. Dominique Jones, chief operating officer at BetterU Education Corporation, advised treating your self-evaluation like a work of art that builds over time. You'll be much happier with the result if you give yourself time to reflect and carefully support your self-assessment, she said.

"Use examples to support your assertions, and … make sure that you spell and grammar check your documents," Jones wrote in a blog post. "These are all signs of how seriously you take the process and its importance to you."

How to Write a Self Assessment

While keeping these tips in mind can help you with writing a self-evaluation, few things improve the process like seeing an example firsthand. To that end, we've created a sample self-assessment to help guide you as you create your own.

Strengths:

• I am a dedicated employee who understands not only my role and responsibilities, but the larger mission of our business. I don't simply strive to do my job, but to help make this company a success.
• I am a good communicator who stays on task and helps rally the team when cooperation is needed to meet a deadline or solve a problem.
• I am a creative thinker who can come up with novel solutions and improve upon conventional ways of doing things.

Weaknesses:

• I am somewhat disorganized, which often impacts my productivity. I have been learning how to better manage my time and intentionally direct my efforts. While it remains a challenge, I have seen some progress and look forward to continually improving.
• Sometimes I do not ask for help when I could benefit from assistance. I am always willing to help my teammates, and I know they feel the same way, so I will try to be more vocal about when I need a helping hand moving forward.

Core Values:

• I believe in teamwork and cooperation to overcome any obstacle.
• I value respect and transparency between employees and managers.
• I value friendship and building warm relationships within the workplace.
• I strive to be a welcoming and helpful presence to my co-workers.

Accomplishments:

• I never missed a deadline in the past year and, in fact, often submitted my work early.
• I've gone above and beyond my job description to ensure our team operates at an optimal level, staying late and helping others whenever it could contribute to our collective goal.
• I created and delivered a presentation, stepping outside my comfort zone to do so. It was well received and bolstered my confidence regarding public speaking.

Goals:

• I would like to continue developing my presentation and public speaking skills. As a weakness that I listed on previous self-assessments, it is gratifying to see that I have made some progress on this skill set and I would like to double down on the growth.
• In terms of professional growth, I aspire to enter a managerial role. I enjoy working closely with my teammates and considering the bigger picture, and I often help direct resources in an efficient way. I could see myself as a manager who helps facilitate teamwork and encourages workers to do their best.

Feedback:

• My manager is pleasant and transparent. I never have to guess where I stand. I appreciate the openness and direct communication so that I know what is expected of me and how well I am meeting those expectations.
• I would like to be more involved in decision-making at the team level. I believe each team member has unique insights that supervisors cannot fully understand since their perspective is different, and I believe involving staff members in strategic planning could greatly improve results.

Keeping things simple and using short declarative bullet points is key to writing an effective self-assessment. While the exact nature of your self-assessment might vary depending on your industry or your job description, this basic model can help guide you when writing a self-evaluation.

Making performance evaluations a regular occurrence

Performance evaluations help everyone know where they stand and how they're performing, including in relation to the goals of the organization. Often, workplaces engage in performance evaluations annually, but they should become an ongoing process to fairly and accurately evaluate employees and create a culture of constant communication and feedback.

"Self-assessments cannot merely be an annual event. They are part of an ongoing and regular practice of reflection," Hassell said. "If you look at a snapshot of performance, you are never going to see the truth. It's too easy to focus on a particular experience or event and then create an overarching story around performance."

Doing so will avoid "recency bias," or a type of tunnel vision that centers around recent events, rather than the big picture. It also creates an inclusive, give-and-take culture where employees are invited to participate in offering feedback to their managers as much as their managers offer them feedback. Overall, an inclusive and communicative workplace has a greater chance of succeeding.

"Managers who adopt a coaching or mentorship role can provide external reflections and much-needed perspective so employees can see failures as learning opportunities," Hassell said. "They can also enjoy the praise of a job well done but not dwell on past triumphs, because every company has a continued need for peak employee performance over time."

Nursing Self-Evaluation Examples

Nurses have a lot of responsibility, including the assessment and care of patients. There are times when decisions are made without a doctor's supervision. Because people's lives are on the line, it is important that nurses exhibit the ability to honestly evaluate their own performances. Every year, a nurse is responsible for creating a self-evaluation that demonstrates her ability and worthiness in order to earn a raise. Nursing self-evaluation examples serve as a template for successful evaluations and career growth.

Why Self-Evaluation Is Important

Most employment scenarios involve some type of annual evaluation. The nurse's appraisal answers usually determine pay raises and promotions. They assess the quality of work and even the temperament to do the job effectively. While the evaluations process often requires a superior to go through a checklist of details, as a nurse, the self-evaluation is critical to the process.

Nurses often work long shifts late at night and sometimes alone with patients. This means the superior evaluating the performance may not have firsthand knowledge of what you do well and what areas need improvement. One of the qualities of a good nurse is a detail oriented nature, so you make sure nothing gets missed and the correct information is relayed to doctors, physical therapists and family members. This is why the self-assessment is so valuable; a nurse must demonstrate the appropriate level of self-awareness to be effective. It also gives superiors insight into job satisfaction, successes and goals for the future.

Common self-evaluation items include:

• I complete accurate nursing assessments.
• I report changes in patient condition to the physician.
• I check on patients hourly.
• I re-assess pain levels after treatment.
• I know the requirements of my license as set forth by the Nurse Practice Act.

Standardizing Evaluation Checklists

Every medical facility has its own standards for self-evaluation. There are standard questions and topics that are covered, but try to get a sample of the evaluation checklist ahead of time if you haven't seen it. These should be available through human resources, or you can ask another nurse about the questions on the checklist. The checklist will rate things either on a scale of 1 to 5 – with 1 being seldom and 5 being often – or Always, Some of the Time or Rarely.

Most checklists are looking at the technical aspects of being a nurse. The checklist is designed for you to rate yourself on regular duties such as completing nursing assessments, noting changes in patient care and relaying changes to a patient's doctor in a timely fashion. It reviews whether or not you check on patients according to a set schedule, complete forms, deliver medications properly and apprise family members as needed.

Most of the self-assessment focuses on how frequently you do things. This can be broken down into various categories. Think about your daily duties, and start to keep an account of your own performance with things like tending to patients, coordinating with doctors and other care providers, and updating the paperwork required for nurses. The evaluator is looking for consistency in your habits that ensures quality patient care, and reduces the likelihood of errors and safety hazards to yourself and others.

Examples of Nursing Goals

Nursing performance evaluation examples often include more comprehensive answers. Aside from the checklist, a self-assessment provides an area for you to write out goals and achievements. This is the high-altitude view of your current position and where you want to be a year, five years and 10 years from now. Take the time to note the big accomplishments you've made, the recognition received and any awards you were honored with. If you have testimonial letters from a family, highlight what patients and their families say about your care with their quotes.

Note any committees you sit on as well as any additional courses or certifications you are taking or have earned. This shows the evaluator that you are being recognized for good work, taking ownership of an area by sitting on a committee to make things better and that you still want to learn. All of these areas reflect highly on any nurse, particularly understanding the hours that nurses must put in just to get the job done. Don't be afraid to toot your own horn in the written section and explain your goals and the process you must follow to get there.

If given enough space, consider reviewing previous negative evaluation comments, and describe where you have improved or had been potentially given an inaccurate evaluation note. For example, if you were given a negative report previously by a superior for not always completing the end-of-day reporting, you could note that the department was short on staff by three nurses during that period and you were performing extra duties to ensure patients were cared for properly.

Technical Aspects of Evaluations

Whenever you compose anything that goes into your professional employee file, make sure it is written well. This means taking the time to type it up, if possible, and checking grammar and spelling. Proofreading your work will catch many simple mistakes that might get perceived as a lack of attention to detail. With word processing programs and spell-check, there is no reason to make little mistakes that take away from the great work you do.

Organize your thoughts clearly and concisely. Remember that your evaluator probably has dozens of evaluations to complete. Use bullet points if appropriate to segment data into easily digested sections. Do everything you can to demonstrate your professionalism. At the end of the evaluation, state clearly that you believe your performance warrants a raise, with one or two sentences justifying it. The rest of the report should back up that claim.

Getting Peer Feedback

Some organizations require peer feedback, while others don't. Even if peer feedback isn't required, don't hesitate to ask those in your department for feedback. It helps you be impartial to your own performance and identify areas where you can improve. Evaluators don't expect people to be perfect. Being able to accept that you have areas to improve upon shows maturity and confidence. It also gives you the chance to demonstrate growth for the next evaluation. Therefore, look beyond your own nurse self-evaluation answers and ask other nurses.

Your peers are the best resource for information. Be open to their feedback, both positive and negative. Keep in mind that if the evaluator does question something in your self-evaluation, she will go to your peers for confirmation of facts. It's best to know what they will say before they are asked. You don't want any unexpected negative twists when seeking a raise.

Self-Evaluation Journaling

A journal isn't required in the self-evaluation process, but it serves as a big asset for many nurses. Nursing can be quite stressful, with emotional highs and emotional lows. Journaling helps nurses get the emotions out of their heads so they can more effectively deal with some of the heaviness of losing a patient or dealing with a major catastrophe.

A journal also becomes a document for you to go back to and reflect on your abilities and performance. If your review demonstrates that you aren't conveying information to a doctor regularly, your journal may point to a time when you did and the doctor berated you or ignored the situation. This could have led to an aversion of talking to that doctor, but maybe you are still communicating effectively with other doctors. The journal helps serves as a diary of events that could have affected performance during different periods of time.

TIPS for Quality Improvement:-

Escalating healthcare costs, heightened awareness of medical errors, and a higher-than-ever number of insured Americans have drawn attention to the need for quality improvement in US healthcare. Today, many efforts around patient outcomes and safety, care coordination, efficiency, and cost-cutting are underway and care redesign initiatives are being evaluated to guide future healthcare quality improvements. The following tips may aid you in your healthcare improvement efforts.

1) Analyze your data and outcomes

As noted management expert, Peter Drucker, famously said, “If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it.” Before you can begin to make improvements in health care, you first need to know what opportunities exist for improvement and then establish baseline outcomes. Next, look at trends and statistics from electronic health records, outcomes studies, and other data source to identify key areas in need of improvement.

Escalating costs have drawn attention to the need for quality improvement in US health care.

2) Set goals

Based on findings from the above exercise, set concrete and measurable goals in the areas you identify as most in need of improvement. These should be precise and quantitative in nature. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) outlined six aims for improvement, or pillars of quality healthcare that can guide your improvement goal-setting. Healthcare should be:

• Safe: Avoid injuries to patients from the care that is intended to help them.
• Effective: Match care to science; avoid overuse of ineffective care and underuse of effective care.
• Patient-Centered: Honor the individual and respect choice.
• Timely: Reduce waiting for both patients and those who give care.
• Efficient: Reduce waste.
• Equitable: Close racial and ethnic gaps in health status.

3) Create a balanced team

An effective team should be comprised of members from different backgrounds, with varied skills and experience levels. Forming a balanced team is one of the primary steps in the improvement process. The team should include a senior leader who can advise, provide oversight, and advocate for the team; a clinical expert who has the background necessary to make informed clinical decisions; and a project manager who can accomplish day-to-day tasks and keep the team on track.

4) Include Human Factors Inputs

As defined by the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, human factors is a body of knowledge about human abilities, human limitations, and other characteristics that are relevant to design. Human factors engineering is the application of human factors information to the design of tools, machines, systems, tasks, jobs, and environments for safe, comfortable, and effective human use. These relate closely to quality improvement.

Some key human factors principles include avoiding reliance on memory, standardizing procedures, and using protocols and checklists. According to theNational Center for Human Factors in Healthcare, consideration of human factors in the design of healthcare systems and processes has many benefits, including more efficient care processes, enhanced communication between medical providers, better understanding of a patient’s medical condition, reduced risk of medical device and health IT-related errors, improved patient outcomes, and cost-savings.

5) Create an executable plan

To accomplish your goals in a timely and effective manner, you must create an achievable improvement plan. This includes specific measures, protocols for attaining those measurements, and specific definitions for improvement which will be taken from your goal setting and data analysis work. Be sure to have an organized system for tracking your data and measurements. The Health Resources and Services Administration provides detailed instructions and steps to developing and implementing a healthcare quality improvement plan on their website. You can also view our guide on project management for healthcare professionals.

6) Become Familiar with the PDSA cycle

The IHI recommends the use of the Model for Improvement as a framework to guide improvement efforts. According to IHI, the model, developed by Associates in Process Improvement, is “a simple, yet powerful tool for accelerating improvement.” The core of the model is the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle, to test quality or improvement-related changes in clinical settings. By planning then enacting a change, observing results, and then acting on what is learned, one is able to discern which changes are effective. This cycle essentially mimics the steps of the scientific method, but is adapted for action-oriented learning.

7) Communicate goals and progress

Once your plan is underway, be sure to communicate with your team and with your organization at large. Share milestones both large and small as well as setbacks. Congratulate those who have contributed and made an impact on your progress. Your plan is more likely to succeed when staff are engaged.

8) Research other organizations and collaborate

Certain websites such as Patient Care Link allow consumers and healthcare industry workers to view hospital data and trends. Review data and see which organizations excel in a particular area in which you’re looking to improve. Research online and in the literature, and reach out to see if you can learn from their quality improvement programs. Most organizations are open to sharing this information for the greater good of patients.

Improve Your Work Performance

There are some way to improve your work performance.

1. Set clear milestones

Setting clear milestones is important in both personal and professional life. As human beings, we have a habit of shooting for the stars and the same reflects in the goals we set. Now, it’s ok to be a little bold but when it comes to “goals”, it’s much better to think clearly and be realistic.

Tips: Setting goals is often an overwhelming process. So what you need to do is break your big personal and professional projects into smaller chunks and set your goals accordingly. Doing this will help you stay motivated and keep your energy levels up throughout the journey. Further, setting clear goals will make it easier for you to keep track of your progress. Allowing you to celebrate every small victory you achieve. While setting milestones, keep the following tips in mind:

• Keep your eye on the deadline
• Save all the important dates on an online calendar
• Improve your project evaluation skills
• Treat every milestone as a learning experience

2. Plan and prioritize

If it seems like you’ve heard this point before, you’re right. Organizing, planning, and prioritizing are a crucial part of our daily routine. In fact, there are several articles over the internet that provide valid reasons for the same. These are some simple workplace habits and time management tips that help you get things done in time and improve your overall work performance.

Tips: Before you start your day, go through the list of tasks or activities you have planned for the day. Now, use a project planning tool to establish a due date and priority status for each one. After that, take the most urgent and essential tasks into consideration and get them completed as soon as possible. Here are a few tips that may help you along the way:

• Understand the difference between “urgent” and “important”. Always focus on tasks that need immediate attention
• Try ordering your tasks by estimated effort
• Uncertainty is a reality. So, be flexible and adaptable – but keep priorities in mind

3. Plan your meetings well

Meetings are powerful, but they are widely misunderstood. Planning and scheduling meetings is a common practice in almost every workplace. That’s why it is important to carefully plan each meeting in order to make it “most effective”.

Tips: Take all the time you need to plan your meetings, but keep them short. Make sure that all the necessary elements are in place before the meeting starts. Set a clear agenda for the meeting and communicate the same to all the participants so that they can come better prepared. Additionally,

• Before sending invites for the meeting, ask yourself if it’s really needed
• Check everyone’s availability and pick the best time for the meeting
• Provide as much detail as you can for pre-preparation
• Save a time slot for meeting and sum it up in the given time frame

4. Communicate better

Communication is a two-way street. Effective communication is a practice that makes you certain about things at work, learn new and improved ways to achieve better results, and finally, improve overall work performance. Remember, every opinion matters and it can certainly help you take your work performance to a new level.

Tips: Consider injecting a powerful team communication app or tool into your workflow. Evaluate the various choices available in the market, including team messaging app, discussion boards, group chat apps, video conferencing tools, etc. Identify what tool or software would work best for your team and then use it to successfully collaborate within the workplace. And while doing this, keep the following points in mind:

• Don’t just start evaluating the available option, put a proper collaboration strategy in place first
• Consider which tool will meet your long-term business requirement
• Analyze feedback from customers who have previously used your preferred tool

5. Conquer difficult tasks first

This point is directly related to our above point “plan and prioritize”. Obviously, you can’t do every task or activity at the same time. That’s why it is important that you figure out what tasks should be completed first and what tasks can be postponed or delegated during the project planning stage.

Tips: Try ranking each task in your to-do list according to its specific importance and urgency. Keep the “most important tasks” at the top and start checking off items in your list from top-down. The idea behind this tip is very easy – if a task seems somewhat torturous to you, ease off your mind by getting rid of it as soon as possible.

6. Don’t lose focus (eliminate interruptions)

Workplace interruptions or distractions come in all shapes and sizes. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been interrupted or who interrupts you the most during the day. What matters is how you avoid workplace interruptions and improve your work performance. Remember, workplace interruptions are dangerous. They make you lose focus, waste time, and in the end, disrupt your work management and cause a delay in projects.

Tips: If you want to avoid interruptions or distractions at work, then you need to stay away from your phone or email. Turn off the notification and keep your eye on successfully completing the tasks at hand. Also, learn to say “no” when necessary. You can and you must say no to anything or anyone who can interrupt your day. Apart from this, here are a few easy habits that will help you stay focused at work:

• Turn off distractions during work hours (smartphones, social media sites, office chit chats, and more)
• Take short breaks between work – listen to your favorite song or go for a short walk

7. Acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses

The word “perfect” is too good to be true. There’s no way for you to be perfect in everything. We all have weak spots and it’s important to acknowledge them in order to identify improvement opportunities. Additionally, every individual has his/her own strengths i.e something that they are exceptionally good at. Now, in order to bring improvement to your everyday work performance, you need to cherish your strengths and overcome your weaknesses at the same time.

Tips: Never settle for “quite okay” when you can achieve “awesome”. Be your own critic and keep evaluating your performance for potential improvements. If you’re pretty good at something, then do whatever you can to be the best at it. Wondering how to figure out your strengths and weaknesses, here are a few ideas that you may want to try:

• Find patterns in your performance
• Decide what you enjoy the most at work
• Practice Reflective Best Self (RBS) exercises – find out what other people think about you
• Make a note of how you respond to situations that require action, thought, and insight

8. Be aware of your limitations

While it’s certainly important to constantly find a way to polish the areas you are not doing so well, it is also important to be aware of your own limitations. Never fall victim to habits like multitasking or procrastination. Work on one task at a time and do everything to keep it less stress and less prone to mistakes or rework. Keep things clear in your head and you will be able to accomplish much more than expected, much faster.

Tips: Understanding your limitations isn’t easy. In fact, you will never be able to understand them until you go beyond them. In simple words, you have to draw a line between being productive at work and being stressed at work. And how will you do that? Well, here are a few things you can try –

• Say “no” and keep the peace
• Back off when things get relentless
• Don’t be too ambitious, be realistic
• Discover your sweet spot and avoid burnout

9. Finish what you start

Another thing that is likely to affect your productivity and performance at work is leaving things unfinished. Do you remember how many times you’ve started working on something and then abandon it shortly after? If this often happens to you, then it’s time to change. Don’t make it a habit to leave things in between. If you’ve started a project or task, make sure that it reaches the last, final stage with utmost quality.

Tips:Set rewards for yourself. Make it a habit to celebrate success and reward yourself whenever you successfully complete a project or task. Doing this boost your work performance and you will always have something to look forward to at work.

10. Use the right tools

It’s a proven fact that when you provide the right kind of tools, your team’s overall performance improves by leaps. Recent research and studies reflect that the majority of organizations are shifting to cloud-based tools and technology to leverage their many benefits. It has also been predicted that in the coming years IT will be a strategic enabler of modern businesses – and 81% of organizations are agreeing to it.

Tips: Keep yourself and your team up-to-date with the latest tools and technology. Explore the multitude of choices available in the market and evaluate the best concerning your specific business needs. Find a cloud-based project management software that simplifies project management, facilitates clear communication, eliminates conflicts, and keeps your productivity high, every day. Here are some basic questions that will give you a better idea of how you can find the right tool for your business and your team:

• What are your business’s key processes and how they can be improved using online tools and apps?
• Are you already using a business tool? If yes, then is it delivering results as per your expectations?
• How much are you willing to invest?
• What kind of training or support services do you expect?