It is important to control your workday, which may also include managing routine tasks that you may find boring. Most jobs have at least some routine tasks, but it is important not to ignore them, but try to simplify them so they don’t take much time to complete – so you can spend most of your time working on important items that will help the company (or clients/customers).

Utilize some of the “Time management & organizing techniques” described in the June 5, 2018 article. 

Look carefully at the number of meetings that you have to attend each week, to see if some of them can be eliminated or at least shortened. Often, “standing” (re-occurring) meetings can become unproductive over time, since the original objective for the meetings may have been lost. Just reducing the number of people that are required to attend a meeting can sometimes make the meeting more productive for the remaining attendees. Make sure each meeting has a focused agenda that matches the original reason for calling the meeting. Look for ways of shortening the amount of data shown or any long presentations in meetings; much of this information may be better shared using other media (like email, or wall charts in a shared conference room).

Look for ways of expanding your current job duties to do important activities (see the July 19, 2019 “Rebranding yourself at work” article). 

Try to answer the question: “What can I do with my skills & background to help the company or its products/services, or clients/customers?” Then look for useful activities that you can perform that later may become part of your regular job duties.