Once you’ve set goals, priorities, and a plan for achieving tasks, it’s important to take a critical look at how you perform those tasks. Ask a coworker to observe your work habits for one week and provide some constructive feedback; you might be surprised at what you learn.

Without steps to cultivate and maintain good work habits, your time-management efforts will be defeated. The following tips can help you stay on track:

Conquer the clutter

Schedule 10 to 15 minutes each week to clear your work area of junk mail, old papers, and other accumulated clutter. Change habits that lead to messes. Keep cleaning supplies handy so you can take advantage of the odd free moment to police your work space.

Defuse distractions

Little distractions can add up to a major drain on productivity. If you’re spending too much time on the phone, keep an egg timer at your desk and hold calls to a reasonable limit. Learn how to terminate calls politely. If co-workers often drop in to chat, close your door. If you’re constantly walking around obstacles, consider a change of floor plan. Take steps to reduce distracting noise.

Know thyself

Rivers can’t be forced to flow uphill; nor should you try to work against your inner nature. Schedule the toughest work for your circadian period of peak productivity. Minimize the impact of suboptimal climate control with a fan or small heater. Perhaps better or different lighting would boost your efficiency.

Eliminate redundancy

Analyse every process you use to determine if any steps can be eliminated. Common problems include multiple signatures for approval, extra steps designed to circumvent systems or correct problems that could be addressed more directly, and generating multiple copies that are no longer required.

Group and separate

Tedious or redundant tasks can be grouped for increased efficiency: file all at once, bill all at once, order all at once. Large, multifaceted tasks, on the other hand, may be best tackled in small pieces. For example, sort that large stack of paperwork on Monday, process some on Tuesday, some on Wednesday, and so forth until it’s done. Using this approach, even the most daunting tasks become manageable.

Share the burden

Many hands make light work, especially when tackling tedious or large tasks. Performance of dreaded chores like the annual inventory can take on a party atmosphere when many are involved and frequent breaks are scheduled.

Seize the moment. We all have a tendency to put off minor, less important tasks, and we also spend significant chunks of time holding on the phone or waiting in line. Can you see an opportunity here? Make a list of tasks that take five, 10, or 20 minutes, and keep the materials you need to do these tasks handy. That way, when you’re put on hold or stuck in line, you can pull out that small job and finish it up.

Emulate others

Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. If someone else always seems to be ahead of the game, watch and learn. If someone else has a speedier way of doing something, copy it. If you’re having trouble getting specific jobs done, ask others how they organize and execute the task; perhaps you’ve overlooked some short cuts.

Make work fun

Introducing a bit of fun into your work will make the day easier for you and your customers. Challenge yourself to process one hundred pieces of paper every day for five days. Have a friendly contest with a co-worker to see who can process the most billing statements in an hour with no mistakes. If possible, flip your morning and afternoon schedules for a change of pace.

By incorporating these simple time management strategies into your work day, you’ll be more efficient, more organized-and much less likely to let tasks build up to a crisis level or slip through the cracks.