5 tips to help organize your work day

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Simple tricks that will save you if you constantly don't have enough time for anything.

1. Prioritize

There is a very simple yet effective way to categorize your affairs according to urgency and importance. This is a circuit called the Eisenhower Matrix. It was invented by Dwight Eisenhower, American president, general of the US Army and just a very productive person.

I have two types of things: urgent and important. Important things are rarely urgent, and urgent ones are rarely important.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

The Eisenhower Matrix has four sections. The horizontal axis shows the urgency of the case, and the vertical axis shows the importance. The matrix allows you to easily organize all your tasks into categories: “Non-urgent and not important”, “Urgent but not important”, “Important and non-urgent”, or “Urgent and important”.

Try to prioritize the Eisenhower Matrix and you will be amazed at how much time you spend on urgent but not very important things. For example, endless messages from colleagues or phone calls that only distract you from urgent tasks.

Make time for the right things. If there is something important and urgent, do it immediately. Plan important, but not urgent tasks, estimate the approximate time for their completion, and decide when you will do it. Unimportant but urgent matters can be delegated to someone else. Postpone non-urgent and unimportant tasks for later or refuse them altogether.

2. Make Time for Deep Work

Venture capitalist Sam Altman once said, "Digital Distraction is one of the biggest psychological problems of our time." Just think: we check our smartphones on average 50 times a day. And, according to the scientist and writer Cal Newport, this significantly impairs our ability to think clearly and be creative.

In his “To work with the head. Patterns of Success from an IT Specialist”he introduces the concept of“Deep Work”. This type of work implies complete concentration and immersion in a specific task. No distractions - maximum effort and concentration. This is the only way you will be able to perform really difficult tasks with the proper level of quality.

Newport cites the tactics used by his colleague, University of Pennsylvania professor Adam Grant. He devotes the fall semester to teaching, and the spring and summer to research, and never mixes the two. During intense research, the professor exposes himself to complete isolation so that the students do not interfere with him.

It is likely that you do not have the opportunity to go the same way and hide from sources of irritation for several months. Don't be discouraged: you don't have to immerse yourself in "deep work" for an entire semester. Newport create your own schedule based on your personal preference.

Decide at what time you feel the most energized and alert, and do the most difficult work exactly then, turning off your smartphone and refusing to check email. For example, Newport himself begins to work early in the morning, but never does so after 5:30 pm.

3. Estimate meeting times

Paul Graham, co-founder of the startup incubator Y Combinator, that there are two types of work schedules: the "manager" schedule and the "creator" schedule.

The first option is for organizers and bosses. In their opinion, working time is easy to manage. You need to divide the day into hourly intervals. And when a new task appears, you just set aside a couple of hours for it, marking it in the organizer. Thus, if the "manager" needs to schedule a time for a business meeting or brainstorming session, he looks at his calendar, finds an unoccupied hour and gathers his colleagues.

But for the "creators" such meetings, even those planned in advance, are a disaster. After all, creative people, programmers, writers or artists, do not divide their schedule as "managers." They usually have to use at least half a day to complete tasks, and in one hour they only warm up at best. And when, in the midst of their labor activity, the “creators” have to break away and go to a meeting with colleagues, they fall out of their rhythm and then it is very difficult for them to return to the task.

The manager's schedule and the creator's schedule work just fine on their own. But when they intersect, problems begin.

Paul Graham

Therefore, if you are a manager, find out in advance from your subordinates when it is better to organize joint meetings so as not to interrupt people from work at the most inopportune moments.

4. Control your energy consumption

Tony Schwartz and Jim Loer in Life at Full Power! argue that the main resource for a productive worker is not time, but energy. You can spend a whole day on a difficult task, but if you lack the physical and mental strength, you will stagnate and do nothing useful. But when you have enough internal energy, you can deal with a difficult matter in a couple of hours, and devote the rest of the day to something simpler.

Schwartz and Loer distinguish four types of energy: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. And if you miss any of them, your productivity will drop.

• Physical energy directly affects your ability to react to the environment and make the right decisions. Lack of this resource is associated with poor nutrition, lack of sleep and fatigue.
• Emotional energy affects the ability to properly manage your emotions in stressful situations.
• Mental energy allows you to focus on one task and not get distracted. A person with a large supply of it can concentrate even in a stressful situation, when everyone around him is trying to distract him.
• Spiritual energy allows you to see the goal in your activities in order to maintain motivation. She fuels enthusiasm, tenacity and commitment.

To maintain all four indicators at the proper level, eat right, get enough sleep and exercise (exercise stimulates brain activity). And use simple techniques to replenish energy.

Life is not a marathon. Life is a series of sprints.

Tony Schwartz

A good method to alternate between full immersion work and short rest is the Pomodoro technique, which fits perfectly with Cal Newport's concept of Deep Work. The principle is simple: we measure 25 minutes with a timer and do one important task all this time without distractions. Then - a break for 5 minutes. During this time, we replenish energy. Then we repeat the cycle four more times and take a long break for 20 minutes.

5. Eat frogs for breakfast

It has ever happened to everyone like this: you come across some task that you need to complete, but you really don't want to do it. You start to postpone it, and as the deadline approaches, it hangs over you more and more, distracting from other things and making you worry once again.

Popular writer Brian Tracy calls these problems "frogs." And he recommends not putting them off until later, but doing them as early as possible.

If you eat a frog in the morning, the rest of the day promises to be wonderful, since the worst for today is over.

Mark Twain

After getting rid of a difficult task, you will feel satisfaction, get a boost of positive energy for the rest of the day, and you can move on to the next items on your list with a clear conscience.