There is a lot of information out there about how to improve the odds of having good days at work. When employees are having great days, higher-quality work gets done and with speed. Employees feel good too. It’s a circle of goodness!
With this end-goal in mind, I offer these tried-and-true tips that you can test and implement at your own practice. We all deserve to have great days at work, don’t we?
Reduce Constant Interruptions to Create “Flow”
Interruptions have a huge impact on employees’ ability to get into “flow”. Flow is that state where you are happily working away, time is flying and you are getting things done. You feel energized because the work is, quite literally, flowing. You feel productive and satisfied.
There are a few things that stop flow, and interruptions are the worst offender. Making simple changes to how your firm operates will improve the odds that employees can be in a flow state more often.
Tip: Create dedicated 90-minute work blocks. Experts recommend 90 minutes because that’s the optimum amount of time an adult brain can focus without needing a break. During these blocks, employees do not interrupt each other’s work, and they save questions until the end of each block.
Reduce Evening “Pounces”
A “pounce” occurs when a well-intentioned manager sends one of their direct reports an email after hours. The employee is enjoying their off hours and doing whatever they need to do to recharge for the following work day, but then PING! - in comes an email that feels urgent and needs to be answered. That pounce makes the employee’s heart rate rise and they scramble to answer it quickly. It's especially vexing if the answer needs researching - there goes the evening!
Tip: Schedule emails to arrive during working hours only. This is such a simple thing to do. It allows managers and night-owls the flexibility to create and send emails to anyone in the firm (and thus get it out of their brain), but it doesn’t create a pounce for the recipient. Everyone wins.
Reduce Daily Non-Value-Add Tasks
There are a lot of things that accountants and bookkeeping professionals take for granted as being “just part of the job” - but are they? Where was it written that you have to repeatedly chase clients for documents? Or search for documents you need, in multiple places, every day? These non-value-add tasks are not satisfying, and over time they add stress because they take away from the joyful parts of your job - advising clients and helping them be more successful.
Tip: Look for technology that takes the burden off you. It's the 21st Century and there are fantastic solutions that will help you get clients to send documents securely, the first time you ask, and also aggregate them in one secure, quiet space for all assigned staff to see and use in their work. No chasing, no searching!
Design Your Day for Success
This last tip has to do with your own innate rhythm. When do you feel most energetic? When do you enter a slump? Once you identify these rhythms, you can use the data to your advantage.
Tip: Schedule the “hard stuff” when it's best for you. Block off time on your calendar each day to do complex work. Doing so prevents you from getting pulled into meetings that are perhaps easier for you to deal with, but that then drain your energy for doing the challenging tasks on your plate. Reserving time for the hard stuff means you are guaranteed that time is available for you to focus deeply and do your best work.
In summary, you have more control over your days than you think! All it takes is a little structure to achieve those better days.
Liscio has been helping accountants and bookkeepers have their best days for over four years now. If you would like to see how Liscio can help you delight your clients and help staff have much better days, please book a personalized demo here.