Last week, Phil Dobbie spoke to Richard Denniss, executive director at The Australia Institute, on National Go Home on Time Day. Well, it’s come around — today, November 25, is the day. And to commemorate the occasion, I thought I’d present a list of seven tips from Sage Business Australia — tips that will hopefully help you catch that early train home.

1. “Email alerts” can be evil. Turn your emails off for one hour a day. This allows you to hone in on the task at hand, pay full attention to it and complete it with minimal interruptions. I bet you can now complete your activity in half the time.
2. Company meetings are the key to employee happiness. Set a dedicated team meeting once a week or fortnight. Employees can bring questions or ideas to this meeting. This saves time and ensures both the employer and employee is not continually interrupted throughout the day with regular queries. This can also boost staff morale as there is a dedicated time for them to share ideas.
3. RAF — Read, Action or File. Here’s a simple system used for email management to ensure you aren’t double handling correspondence. Read: Look at each email and decide on the first view if it needs to be answered right away. Action: If the email needs to be answered, action it then and there and cross it off your to-do list. File: If the email can wait, file it in a suitable folder (by client or by employee) until you have time to action it. To ensure you don’t forget to complete the task, red flag the email for follow up.
4. Knowledge growth. Set aside 15-20 minutes a day for reading both online and print news. You save more time by concentrating solely on one task and absorbing all the information, than opening several news sites during the day and trying to read and concentrate on multiple tasks.
5. Your online diary can be your best friend. Block out your meetings in an online diary accessible to all staff and keep it up-to-date. This not only ensures you are on time to meetings but it also ensures you are never double booked.
6. The cc: in emails stands for “causes confusion”. Don’t cc: everyone on an email unless it’s essential. People can automatically assume that their inclusion means they must take action leading to double-up on tasks or outcomes. This impacts productivity and also creates an unnecessary volume of extra emails in inboxes.
7. Use your legs. Look beside you — your colleague could be sitting just metres away. If so, don’t send an email to them asking them to do something. Stand up and walk over to their desk. It saves you both time and ups your fitness levels.