Managing Your Day Effectively

Planning your tasks each day is a vital part of successful business. If you are easily distracted, especially if your job involves spending a lot of time using the Internet, you will need to ensure you manage your time, tasks and distractions effectively.

Here are some tips I've found useful for managing my time:

1. Divide the day/tasks into time slots and don't allow yourself to go over time.

   This helps you to focus your attention on the task. If you know you only have a certain amount of time to do a task, you are much less likely to tolerate distractions.

   There are many good, free dedicated task management software programs, but here are some simpler free tools for those who find task management a task in itself:

   • Online Stopwatch (requires Adobe Flash plug-in), as you have probably guessed, is an on-line stopwatch. It has a countdown or count-up timer that you can set to any time and lets you know when your time is up (or down) with a satisfying old-fashioned alarm bell. You can customise the style of timer and alarm to suit your tastes and download a version to use on your Windows desktop so you don't need to visit the website (better if you are distracted by surfing the Web).

   • Mobile phone timer. Although I said "free tools", and mobile phones aren't free, most of us have a mobile phone anyway and won't need to go out and buy one to take advantage of this tip. Most mobile phones come with free countdown timers with alarms. Depending on the complexity of your phone you may have dedicated task management software for this purpose, otherwise you can just make use the simple timer to alert you when your allotted time is over. The advantage of using your phone is you don't have to be near your computer to use it, which is great if you often work away from your computer.

   • Mozilla Calendar (Sunbird). If you want to go for some proper task management software that rivals the features of Microsoft Outlook (minus email features), Mozilla Calendar is an excellent option. It is packed with great features but is still pretty simple and easy to use. You can create an event or tasks and set a reminder alert to tell you when the event/task is due to start or finish. If you want email features included I recommend using Mozilla Thunderbird for email (you can import your emails from Outlook/Outlook Express after installing it) and then installing the Lightning plug-in (from the same link above) which offers the same functionality as Mozilla Sunbird.

2. Don't be distracted by new ideas. When new ideas occur to you while you are working on another task, don't switch to a new task, find a place to make a note of these ideas (such as dedicated Notepad file) and come back to them when you have finished your current tasks. It has been said somewhere that it takes about 20 minutes to get back to the level of efficiency and concentration you were at before you became distracted or switched tasks.

3. Don't multitask. Being able to multitasking was once thought of as the holy grail of efficiency (very much by one of my ex-bosses who often tried to force me to do it) but not any more. Cognitive studies have shown even simple tasks are impacted negatively by multitasking¹ and one psychiatrist claims multitasking is actually a myth.² Another report says regularly multitasking can actually decrease your cognitive ability!

   Instead of trying to do more than one thing at a time, focus all your attention on the one task at hand and don't be distracted until you have finished it or your time is up (see point 1 and 2 above). If you do not finish your task in the allotted time, and it is not urgent or your next task is more urgent, find a sensible stopping point and come back to it later or another day.

   Read more on multitasking:

   • 'Infomania' worse than marijuana

   • Multitaskers bad at multitasking

   • Think You're Multitasking? Think Again

   • Bad At Multitasking? Blame Your Brain

   • Multitasking Teens May Be Muddling Their Brain

   • Is multi-tasking a myth?

   • The Myth of Multitasking

   • Is multi-tasking bad for your brain? Experts reveal the hidden perils of juggling too many jobs

   • How (and Why) to Stop Multitasking

For those of you who struggle with time management, take heart—with dedicated and continual application of good time management principles you can train your brain until such behaviour becomes more natural to you. You may struggle at first and later too but with astute use of productivity tools you can become a time-management master.



 

1) Gladstones, W. H.; Regan, M. A.; Lee, R. B. (1989). "Division of attention: The single-channel hypothesis revisited". Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Experimental Psychology 41 (A): 1–17. (credit: "Human multitasking", Wikipedia)

2) Hallowell, Richard. Crazy Busy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap! Strategies for Handling Your Fast-Paced Life. 2007. Ballantine Books (credit: "Human multitasking", Wikipedia)