Penelope Trunk The Brazen Careerist

One of the best parts of a good job is learning new things and sharing ideas with other people. But most of the time we're not doing this. Most of the time we're buried under a to-do list.

I've developed some tips for adjusting how you get your work done each day, so you can make space for the learning and collaborating and big-picture thinking that makes us excited about our jobs.

Here are my tips:

1. Delegate stuff you like.

You can't delegate your unappealing projects because no one will want to do them. So find someone who wants to learn new skills, and teach him how to do your appealing projects.

Then you can get them off your plate, do your worst projects quickly, and line up to get something that will teach you new skills.

2. Don't use voicemail.

It's slow, you can't file it, people leave inaudible phone numbers on it, and reception is bad everywhere you need it to be good. Train people to not expect you to answer your phone and they'll stop calling.

Answer emails fast and answer voicemails after someone calls twice. It's rude, but you can be extra nice in email to make up for it.

3. Prioritize.

Not your to-do list, but your life. If you really know what's important to you, then it'll become clear to you what's important to spend time on and what isn't.

People who have too much to do are people who refuse to make tough choices. Knowing yourself better will help you make those decisions.

4. Go to the gym.

People who work out regularly accomplish more of the important things in their life than people who don't go to the gym. All the couch potatoes who read this statistic are going to sit on their couch and philosophize about what makes it true.

Why bother? Who cares why it's true. Just go to the gym. In fact, maybe people who go to the gym get more done because they don't procrastinate by philosophizing on the couch.

5. Don't use your in-box as a filing cabinet.

People who scroll through their email in-box all day looking for the next thing to do are people without a to-do list. Read your email, respond, file, or put it on a to-do list.

You should never scroll through your in-box because there should never be anything in there that you've already read.

6. Use software for complicated processes.

Things that fall into this category are maintaining a to-do list (try Ta-da or tasktoy for starters). Also, for all those links you've been saving, use one of the 10 billion bookmarking sites like del.icio.us or Searchles.

Do your banking online, too. This is so obvious that I almost forgot it, but it's a good way to gauge how on top of things you are. If you're not banking online, you're in trouble.

7. Do your top thing first.

The best way to work is to get your most important task done first thing in the day. To do so, block out the first hour of the day.

You'll be relieved for the rest of the day that you finished something that matters, and you won't have to stay late because all the really important stuff will be done.

8. Know what your boss cares about.

Get rid of everything else. If your boss doesn't think it's a priority then why should you? Your job is to make your boss look great. If your boss loves you she will help you meet your goals.

You can't make your boss look great if you spend your time doing stuff she doesn't care about. You'll find that you not only look better to your boss, but you streamline your workload as well.

9. Get a life.

If you have things you care about outside of work, you'll leave work to do them. Parkinson's law says that work expands to fill the amount of time available. In other words, if you know you'll be staying in the office until 10 at night, you'll have work to do until then.

Force yourself to leave before dinner. You'll figure out how to get your work done after a few weeks of being anxious and behind.

10. Use IM to be friendly, not efficient.

The reason Generation Y is so great at making friends is because they leverage technology to forge relationships. Instant messaging is great for this because it provides immediate satisfaction; who doesn't like that in a friendship?

However, adults are too busy to multitask all day. When the stakes are not a term paper in history but the family's mortgage, interruptions are more serious. So turn on IM when you're networking and turn it off when you are solving problems.

11. Send flowers.

This is such a quick way to say you appreciate someone, or that you remember it's a tough time, or that you noticed their accomplishments. You could take people out to lunch for all of these reasons, but flowers are no more expensive than lunch, and sending them requires a fraction of the time.

Of course, you still need to do lunch sometimes, but maybe on a busy day you could IM instead.