Contents
How to stop wasting time at work: this is a work «Marie Kondo»
Organization
Planning the day, avoiding interruptions and taking a moment to check your mobile and email are some keys to being more efficient at work
procrastination. Mentally repeat pro-cras-ti-na-tion with me. The word is forceful, it sounds like something old or from another era that can even lead us to evoke images close to … torture? (put what comes to mind when listening to it) Although it is a term little used in the usual vocabulary, it is something we do on a daily basis. Yes, you too. And if you don’t believe it, read this unofficial definition: “Procrastination is postponing or postponing tasks, duties and responsibilities for other activities that are more rewarding but less relevant to us.”
And now let’s go to causes. Why do we do it? And let’s go even further. What really leads us to waste time and be inefficient? The key is that we live in a world with multiple stimuli that catch our attention and, somehow, that makes us their “slaves.” As José Miguel Sánchez, manager coach, motivational speaker and author of “The experience of resetting” or “Powerful as a child” explains, we have learned, erroneously, that we must pay attention to all those stimuli that surround us and that makes we are at their mercy and we are not the ones who decide when we are going to attend each one of them. The result of this is, he explains, that we find it difficult to focus on what we have to achieve and we become “inefficient.”
Signs that I am not efficient
When we start to feel frustration, anger with ourselves and, on certain occasions, sadnessIt is when the time has come to change something because, as José Miguel Sánchez indicates, “what you are doing is not working. Are emotions (frustration, anger, sadness …) are caused precisely by the feeling of not arriving, of not having time to finish what we started and, ultimately, they are behind what leads us to procrastinate, to leave things for morning.
I want to organize myself better, where do I start?
The expert says that when we are able to connect with the calm and serenity necessary to face a task, productivity increases. And that the more difficult a task is, the greater the need to focus on it.
But focus, connect with calm and gain serenity it is not achieved by snapping your fingers. These are some of the tools that work for him and allow him to better organize tasks and time at work.
time management techniques
- I spend 10 minutes before the start of the day or at the end of the previous one to plan the day, in writing and with a global vision
- I schedule my daily activities based on weekly, monthly, or even yearly goals.
- I build this program around essential topics, the important before the urgent, with rare exceptions
- I pay attention to my biorhythms, that is, at the times of the day when I am better, I do those tasks that I like the least and when my performance tends to drop, I dedicate myself to the one I like.
- I set a couple of achievable goals each day, aligned with the global goals
- I divide the tasks into 30-50 minute intervals according to their complexity. Between each interval rest between 5 and 10 minutes.
- I avoid interruptions. If I am with important subjects, even more. For this, I assign specific times for the mail, phone or whatsapp to avoid seeing them at all hours. An example can be to see the mail and / or telephone in blocks of 2-3 times a day
- I say “no” to everything that now is not a higher priority than what I am doing
- I group related topics together to achieve greater efficiency on important topics
- I establish deadlines for tasks and except for due dates on the day, if I have not finished the task in that established time, I move on to the next
- I have a contingency plan for those unforeseen events that will surely occur
And all these techniques must be followed, in addition, taking into account a maxim in which the expert insists: «Let’s not try to multitask. Our brain doesn’t work like that.
Physical order matters too
Is it important to have an orderly workplace? And the folders on your computer? For years, many companies have implemented a policy of “zero paper”, in order to be more environmentally friendly, and create a routine of order and cleanliness of the workplace. To this must be added a tendency to establish rotating positions, that is, a system that means that no one has a table or assigned position, but can sit wherever they find a place. To achieve this, it is necessary that after each shift the jobs are without a trace of the person who has occupied them. It is a strategy that, as José Miguel Sánchez affirms, not only works in order to meet those objectives but also contributes to creating powerful habits.
As for virtual folders, the expert explains that the brain needs order, to know where everything is and to access information quickly. Therefore, spending time with that organization is something that, he reveals, will help save time in the future. Some examples of how to organize those folders could be: important, urgent, postpone, by months, by the person it is for or where the task, equipment, etc. comes from. “Everyone can have their own organization and classify their folders with different names, but what we cannot stop doing is organizing them to access them quickly,” he proposes.