It is possible that more than once your workday has been extended many hours more than you had planned.
Perhaps it happens frequently and you feel the weight of the clock on your shoulders. Why is the day no more than 24 hours? It is a fairly common question at a time when labor pressures – demanded by the company or self-imposed – are all the time haunting us.
That is when we enter the challenge of productivity. How to get more done in less time?
Amantha Imber, founder of Australian consulting firm Inventium, dedicated to providing advice in behavioral science, has devised four strategies that can help manage time in a more efficient way to have a better quality of life.
During the last three years, Imber has interviewed people in all labor sectors to Trying to figure out how we can proactively structure our days to get more out of them.
In those conversations, you’ve heard time and again that it’s unhealthy to let other people’s priorities determine your own.
“Productivity does not have to do with how many hours you work or how many pending tasks you can mark on your list”, says Imber in dialogue with BBC Mundo.
try to do what you need to do to work efficiently. ”
These are four strategies that high people use productive, according to studies carried out by Imber.
1. Align work with your “chronotype”
The “chronotype” is simply a way of referring to the biological clock. It has to do with the natural sleep-wake cycle we go through during the 24 hours of the day.
As each person has their own chronotype, it is important to determine which are your moments of greatest and least energy during the cycle.
According to Imber, close to 10% of people are “larks” that feel more energetic in the morning.
At the other end of the spectrum is the 20% of the population that are “owls” or people who do their best work at night.
Most of the population is somewhere in between. They typically experience a energy peak before noon , an energy drop after lunch, and a second boost in the late afternoon.
Here The key is that you organize your day considering that biological clock, in such a way that the activities that demand greater concentration or that are more relevant are done at your moments of greatest energy and that you stop the most routine activities (such as answering emails, for example) in those moments when your energy drops.
2. Plan the working day at the end of the previous day
A productive day doesn’t just happen. It requires planning. If we write down what we want to do, when and where, it is much more likely that you will achieve your goals.
An effective way to do this is write down your three priorities for the next day , that is, those things that you cannot stop doing.
The next step is to complete the list of everything that comes, ideally hour by hour.
And also It is convenient to add at the end tasks that are minimal to do between meetings or at any waiting time.
At the end of the day, what helps the most is meticulous planning.
3. Develop rituals
These are rituals related to where and when to work according to the type of tasks.
By doing it constantly, your brain will associate those physical and temporal signals with that s tasks. Why is time and space important?
Basically because it helps us to change the mental “switch”. For example, there are people who, when they need to solve complex problems or creative challenges, use certain routes to walk and think.
Others prefer to separate tasks between one office space and another, something that helps to break the monotony and also influences the attitude with which we approach certain challenges.
And if you work from home, it helps a lot to define what to do where in the house . Or divide the space between the morning and the afternoon.
The important thing is to create rituals doing the same type of activity in the same place or at the same time.
By For example, you can attend zoom meetings in the bedroom, answer emails in the living room and concentrate on an armchair.
After practicing it for a couple of weeks, a flow will be generated that makes it easier to achieve the objectives in less time.
4. Avoid blocking your calendar at 100%
A completely blocked day can give you a false sense of productivity. You will not have time to solve unforeseen events or for moments of creativity or social contact with members of your team.
If your calendar seems to be always full, deliberately schedule a time to do nothing.
You can use this time as a time for unexpected tasks that arise during the day or to take a short break that can help you clear your head and continue with more energy.
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