MANAGING TASKS & TIME

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For the sake of your happiness, productivity and general success your goal should be to manage your days in accordance with your priorities, and have a method for keeping focussed.  It is not difficult, but many people do not operate to any plan or methodology, and it causes them to work at a low capacity.

 

Daily Routine to Improve Your Performance

 

Modern society loves multi-tasking.  The myth of multi-tasking is that being busy is synonymous with being better.  The exact opposite is true.  Having fewer priorities leads to better work.  Study world-class experts in nearly any field - athletes, artists, scientists, teachers, CEOs - and you will discover one characteristic that runs through all of them: focus.  The reason is simple.  You can't be great at one task if you're constantly dividing your time ten different ways.  

 

The first problem that anyone is confronted with is making the decision on what to do, and a natural desire to do something easy.  The best way to deal with this is not to leave time-use decisions to the moment we begin an activity, when our decision making might be distorted by short-term ‘comfort seeking’.  With any job where you are dealing with competing and changing demands, there is a need for a simple method of managing your work to operate effectively:

 

• At the end of each work day, write down on paper the most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow.  Do not write down more than six tasks.  It could be fewer.

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• Prioritise those items in order of their importance.

 

• When you start work the next day, concentrate only on the first task.  Work until the first task is finished before moving on to the second task.

 

• Approach the rest of your list in the same fashion.  At the end of the day, move any unfinished items to a new list of tasks for the following day.

 

• Repeat this process every working day.

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The above method removes the friction of starting.  The biggest hurdle to finishing most tasks is starting them.  Getting off the couch can be tough, but once you actually start running it is much easier to finish your workout.  The above method forces you to decide on your first task the night before you go to work.  Getting started on your priorities gets you moving in the right direction for success.

 

The primary critique of methods like this one is that they are too basic.  They don't account for all of the complexities and nuances of life.  What happens if an emergency pops up?  In practice, complexity is often a weakness because it makes it harder to get back on track.  If you commit to nothing, you will be distracted by everything.  Yes, emergencies and unexpected distractions will arise.  Ignore them as much as possible, deal with them when you must, and get back to your prioritised to-do list as soon as possible.  Use simple rules to guide complex behaviour.

 

There is nothing magical about the number of six important tasks per day.  It could just as easily be three tasks per day.  However, there is something magical about imposing limits upon yourself.  The single best thing to do when you have too many ideas, or when you're overwhelmed by everything you need to get done, is to prune your ideas and trim away everything that isn't absolutely necessary.  Constraints make you better.  

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Time Blocking

 

This is a time-management method where you divide your day into blocks of time.  Each block is dedicated to accomplishing a specify task or group of tasks, and only those specific tasks.  With days that are time-blocked in advance, you will not have to constantly make choices about what to focus on.  all you need to do do is follow your time blocked schedule.

 

Time blocking doesn’t have to be limited to work. For many people working from home during the pandemic, job and life have co-mingled in frustrating ways because there is no exoskeletal time structure imposed by a formal workplace. 

 

The answer is to block everything, including hobbies, leisure, and even relaxing.  For example, you might write ‘relax’ on your planner from 1.30 to 2pm tomorrow.  Since relax is no longer an uninvited guest in your schedule, it doesn’t throw off your rhythm, and your odds of being back to work at 2pm rise dramatically. 

 

One tip is to over-estimate your time to complete tasks.  Pad your schedule with extra time to complete and transition between tasks.  You might even create ‘conditional blocks’ of time you can tap into if you fall behind. 

 

Plan Your Activity

 

It is not enough to have a general objective to deliver some work, you need to have an ‘implementation intention’ to avoid procrastination.  It satisfies the brain’s desire for clarity when seeking to so something.  

 

Research has found that those who make a plan are more likely to deliver their intentions, because it clarifies when the moment of action should occur.  You set out beforehand, in a plan, where, when and how to act and this strengthens your likelihood of following through and taking the action to deliver. 

 

The plan overcomes other barriers.  It helps people to consider logistical obstacles and develop specific tactics to navigate round them.  The planning process helps to reduce the likelihood that you will underestimate the time required by a task.  Finally, the formation of an action plan serves as a commitment to act.  Research shows that breaking such commitments generates discomfort.  Consequently, plans are particularly effective when they are made as commitments to another person (manager, work colleague).

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