Employees often spend hours at the office or at home on their computer without feeling any advancement in their productivity. A big reason why is the tasks that they spend time doing while they’re at work. According to surveys of knowledge workers in the UK, people spend over 60% of their time doing administrative tasks or busywork rather than working on their actual jobs.
There are a few reasons why busywork is such a plague on UK offices. One is that a lot of basic administrative tasks take up far more time than they’re worth. People spend hours of their day doing tasks that don’t add value to the company but require a lot of involved work.
The right digital tools can simplify your job activities and make you more productive in terms of adding real value to your work. Here are a few insights into how digital tools can make your workday easier.
Replace Manual Paperwork with Digital Tools
The bane of most employees’ existence is paperwork. Filling out paperwork until it meets the exacting standards of the faceless bureaucracy takes up a lot of time. So is filing paperwork, organising paperwork, and looking for paperwork that is absolutely crucial but has been misfiled.
Switching to digital tools instead of manual forms can save you hundreds of hours each year. Replacing manual forms with OutOnSite job sheet software, for instance, simplifies record-keeping for trade workers on the go. You can fill out the job sheet wherever you have access to the software, file it digitally, and then store it in the software cloud.
Filling out forms online is much easier than managing paper forms. It also makes organising important paperwork much easier. If you misplace an important piece of paper, your business could be in a lot of trouble. Digital tools store important forms so you never misplace them, and you always have a backup through the software, no matter what happens to the copy on your computer.
Use Organisational Software to Manage Different Projects
If you spend half of your time at work figuring out what you need to do instead of sitting down and getting it done, then your team needs a better way of communicating. Organisational software is an important digital tool that can help a team manage multiple projects.
While tools such as Trello and Notion started out as organisational programs useful in IT, they are helpful no matter what industry your company is in. These programs are simple to use, even for people who are not very tech-savvy.
Organisational software means that everyone on your team can see exactly which projects you are working on, reducing the time you spend answering simple questions or communicating with each other. These software programs also minimise the need for writing up reports after every project, since all of the information is already on the organisational software.
Take Your Accounting Digital to Save Time
One of the most time-consuming tasks in any job is accounting and finances. There is a copious amount of paperwork involved with managing the finances of a business. The risk of error is also great—one wrong number could lead to a tax investigation, unpaid wages, and bankruptcy for a business. The pressure is particularly high on small business owners or tradesmen, who have to manage their accounting on top of doing their actual jobs.
Digital tools considerably simplify all finance-related tasks and make it easier to complete your accounting work. Instead of managing paper files with job sheets and other important documents, you can store all of your relevant paperwork on accounting software, accessing it easily when you need it.
Digital tools also make it easier to fill out accounting paperwork. Most accounting software will fill out the paperwork for you once you input the necessary information. This is a lot simpler than trying to figure out how to fill out paperwork on your own merits.
For confusing tasks that require a lot of busywork and fall outside of the normal scope of your work, digital tools are a big help. They are particularly useful if you have to wear a lot of hats in your day-to-day life.
How Digital Tools Can Help You Do Your Job Faster
Digital tools are the fastest way to cut through busywork and make your job activities go faster. Online software programs help teams coordinate between different projects and simplify communication, reducing the time you spend on emails and messaging. Software programs simplify the process of managing paperwork, especially for complex processes such as accounting.
Digital tools can help anyone save time and effort at work, from the CEO at a massive corporation to a local tradesman filling out job sheets for their business.
