If your current time-management
system involves 5-hour ENERGY drinks or three to four cups of
coffee per day, it's time for a change. But cutting back on your work is likely
not an option: In this competitive job market, taking on more responsibility
and exceeding expectations is a given if you want to advance in your career.
"Usually, self-care, such as
sleep and exercise, suffers as people prioritize work and other
responsibilities, but this can have a negative effect on health and
productivity over time," says Joyce Marter, co-owner of counseling service
Urban Balance, LLC. "That's why it is important to have some systems in
place to prioritize goals, overcome procrastination by focusing on payoff, set
a schedule or routines with boundaries and manage time effectively."
Working longer and harder might
seem like the logical way to get more done, but there are better methods for coping with
work overload.
Productivity experts have come up
with effective ways to accomplish more in less time. Check out these four,
great time-management techniques that many have sworn by:
1. The Pomodoro Technique. The idea is to break down work
periods into 25-minute intervals, because that's how long our minds focus
effectively. The creator of this method, entrepreneur and mentor Francesco
Cirillo, calls these intervals "pomodoros."
The technique gets more complicated
as you delve into it, but you begin it by first deciding which tasks you need
to accomplish. Next, set the timer to 25 minutes and work free of distractions
until it rings. Then, take a five-minute
break. Every four intervals, take a longer break (15-20 minutes).
2. 18 Minutes. This technique is the brainchild
of Peter Bregman, chief executive officer of the global management consulting
firm Bregman Partners and author of 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master
Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done:
--Five minutes in the morning:
Sit down and think about what you need to do today to make it successful.
"What can you realistically accomplish that will further your focus for
the year and allow you to leave at the end of the day feeling that you've been
productive and successful?" Bregman writes in his book. "Then take
those things off your to-do list and schedule them into your calendar."
--One minute per hour: Refocus.
Set an alarm every hour and when it beeps, "take a deep breath and ask
yourself if you spent your last hour productively," he writes.
"Manage your day hour by hour. Don't let the hours manage you."
--Five minutes in the evening:
Turn off your computer and review how the day went. Ask yourself questions
like: How did the day go? What did I learn?
3. COPE. Personal productivity expert
Peggy Duncan suggests the Clear-Organized-Productive-Efficient technique.
"My system incorporates getting to the root cause of why you don't have
enough time and what you can do about it," Duncan says. "You have to
totally revamp how you work." Start by analyzing how you're spending the
day by logging your activities and eliminating
time wasters. Then, organize everything around you and then
prioritize your tasks and get the main things done without multitasking.
Duncan also suggests systemizing
all of your repetitive tasks. For instance, email templates are great for
reaching out to many different people for a common purpose.
4. ABC & Pareto Analyses
Combo. Marter
recommends this classic business-management combination of the ABC and Pareto
analyses techniques. For this combo to work you have to categorize each of your
tasks by either A, B, or C:
A: Tasks that are perceived as
being urgent and important.
B: Tasks that are important but
not urgent.
C: Tasks that are neither urgent
nor important.
Starting with the A column, apply
Pareto Analysis by highlighting the work that will take the least time in this
group. "Pareto Analysis suggests that 80 percent of tasks can be completed
in 20 percent of disposable time and the remaining 20 percent will take up 80
percent of time," Marter says. "Productivity will be higher if the
tasks that take less time are completed first."
In other words, get the easy
stuff out of the way first for maximum productivity. Then, move on to group B.
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