You must prioritize to be successful at work. When you drop the following things from your to-do list, you’ll stop wasting precious time and energy and become more effective where it counts.
1) After you suggest a new time- or money-saving measure to your supervisor and your supervisor expresses a preference for the current method or system, drop it. Pushing further could cause you to be perceived as an aggressive know-it-all by the person who’s doing your performance evaluations and you don’t want that.
2) Unless you’re the manager, unproductive co-workers are not your problem. It’s permissible to directly address an underproducing coworker once if their work is affecting your performance, but from then onward stay in your lane.
3) Don’t bother mastering multitasking. The data shows that we tend to accomplish more when we focus on one thing at a time.
4) Refrain from the urge to respond to every email as it hits your inbox. This relates to #3. Email should be an assist to–not a distraction from–your work. If your emails are not so time-sensitive that they can’t wait a few hours, make a habit of checking your email at set intervals throughout the day.