Work Smarter, Not Harder: Learn from History
Every efficient business conducts a post-mortem after significant projects during the year. You've probably done a slew of them yourself. But have you every post-mortem'd an entire year? That's a curious recommendation from Lifehacker.
Here's the idea: Make time to look back at last year's calendar -- your projects, deliverables, responsibilities, goals, and other activities. Think about what you planned and what actually happened. Compare that to your current activities. A short exercise like this can help you avoid repeating last year's mistakes or re-falling into the same subtle traps that you've been bitten by and already forgotten about.
You probably already have all the tools you need to do an analysis like this -- status and activity reports, calendars, and project plans. You can do this on your own or put a small post mortem team together to roll up conclusions and recommendations. This looks like something that can be done fairly rapidly but have unexpectedly big payoffs.
Ave you ever done something like this? Sound off in the comments, and tell us about what works and what doesn't when reviewing last year's calendar.
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