Ah, January. A time for making New Year’s Resolutions. February – a time for breaking them!
If you want to make a New Year’s Resolution for your communications job that will make your working year simpler, and a resolution you’re likely to stick to, then consider one of these:
Don’t check your email first thing in the morning
It’s tempting, but you’ll only get sidetracked. Instead, tackle that big project on your to do list. The one which will take away your biggest stress.
Use a cloud-based app for your “to do” list
Make it one that the whole team can share. Consider an app like Trello where you can track individual and team tasks.
Delete, delete, delete
Most communication professionals are information hoarders. And most of it is not needed. Clear out the files, delete old versions, archive. if you only stick to one new year’s resolution, this might be the one!
Introduce version control for documents
Nothing is more inefficient than searching through old versions of document. There are lots of great systems that can do this for you like Australian-based edocx, Google Docs or Office 365.
Use collaborative document editing
Our team works across Australia and New Zealand so we’re not always in the same room. But we can work collaboratively on live documents as if we’re working side by side.
Know your numbers
Ok, we’re all word people, but modern-day communications and engagement professionals need to be numbers people too.
Get to know your data.
Google Analytics is a must for website statistics. Twitter also has features that will tell you who is reading your tweets and when.
There’s also a host of tools to analyse your team’s work capacity and utilisation rates.
Celebrate Successes
In a work world where it’s always busy, it’s easy to forget to celebrate. But make the time to recognise big and small wins.
Get creative
Use visualisation, virtual reality and interactive tools or software to bring your content to life.
Resolve this
New Year’s resolutions are often hard to remember, let alone stick to. Hopefully one or more of these will make your year less stressful!
