Once you analyze your time and decide how to prioritize your tasks, it’s time to finding a way to stay on task. Here is the best advice I have seen:
To-do List
To-do lists are omni-present in the world of time management and organizations. I still remember seeing my mom make these when I was a kid and my mom would pack the family for vacation! Same thing here: write down everything you need to do, so you don’t forget anything. People who say that they will remember are lying to themselves. It’s not even that they don’t remember that they need to do something. There is a good chance that it won’t spontaneously pop into their mind when they have a bit of time to take care of it.
Time Blocking
You know users of this technique… Their calendars are always completely full and a lot of those ‘appointments’ are not meetings. They are things they are supposed to be working on. I will be the first one to admit that I am not a huge fan, but I will try to stay impartial.
I compare this to playing calendar Tetris (I know, I am that old LOL): you make a list of tasks with their durations and put them on your calendar. Then you follow what your schedule says meticulously all day long.
Advantages: you always know what you’re working on and you don’t have to worry whether you will ‘ get round to it’. It’s on your calendar, of course you will! There is a lot of comfort in that reliability of a schedule. It’s also useful to deter people from scheduling you for more meetings (there is no more room on my calendar!) or interrupting (see – my calendar says I’m not available).
Disadvantages: there is little flexibility to this approach. I know, you should always build in padding. But life happens. You may need participate in a meeting during the time when you had another critical task scheduled. Some things may take a lot longer than planned. Or shorter. I have noticed that many time blocking fans get incredibly stressed out when they can’t follow their calendar to the t.
Pomodoro
This one is for the fans of intervals training in sports: you set a timer for 25 minutes (can be different amount of time, but this is the most common), work on a task as hard as you can until the buzzer goes off and take a 5 minute break. And repeat.
Advantages: you know there is a time limit to your focus. Remember Parkinson’s Law? Yeah, you know you won’t go past the pre-set time. A lot of people use it to train focus when they are easily distracted or suffer from ADHD. This method is also good for brain health, as it does provide for proper recovery.
Disadvantages: how many tasks do you have that take exactly 25 minutes? I can’t think of any. You may be left with tons of time to spare or be interrupted in the middle of a complex thought process. That’s why I propose a small variation to this technique: set the timer for the amount of time that actually makes sense for the task you are working on.
In my readings, I found a great suggestion for use of the Pomodoro Technique in improving oneself: start with smaller increments and over the course of several weeks, increase the focus time. Use it to learn how to stay focused for longer periods of time. As a person who regularly preaches about starting slow and building up to your goal, I love it!