How you can make your job easier and stop throwing away company money

How you can make your job easier and stop throwing away company money
Photo by Mathieu Stern / Unsplash

You are expensive.

Every hour you work costs your company $20, $50, $100 ... maybe more.

It adds up fast.

Stop using inefficient tools

You wouldn't run your car without motor oil. So why in the world are you designing web pages without an external monitor? Or writing proposals on a broken keyboard? Every minute you waste not having the right tools costs the company money.

The math is simple

If you make $100K per year, a 10% loss in productivity costs the company $10,000. Now think of all the ways you lose time by having a computer that's too slow. Or the extra steps in your workflow because you haven't upgraded to a needed software package. Are you 10% inefficient—or way more?

Saving money is smart—wasting time is not

Most businesses ask employees to spend company money wisely. This makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, limping along with the wrong tools isn't frugality; it's burning a ton of expensive salary in wasted time.

Just ask

Requesting the tools you need is not greedy, profligate, or uncouth. Quite the opposite: it shows that you've made a smart cost-benefit analysis. As a manager, I'm always thrilled when someone tells me there's a way for them to work faster.

Take pride in your setup

Working at peak efficiency is part of your job. But over time, it's easy to let your tools fall behind. A small investment in upgrades can have huge returns.

Make it a point to do a quarterly evaluation of your own productivity and request the tools you need to do your job better.