In a world where everything is moving so fast, the least you would want to be is be poor at timekeeping. Poor time management doesn’t only mess up your plans, but also leads to procrastinating agendas for the following days. Here are some tips to help you with time management; Create a to-do-list According to Cecile Imbabazi, a business manager at a local audit firm, the essence of a to-do-list is for the purpose of a well-structured work plan, hence assisting business people to see their current load and implement all the necessary tasks. It can even become a common practice almost for everyone, and it solves many problems concerning the high workload, she says. She carries on that this method involves recording or taking note of tasks that you need to complete, but in order to make effective to-do lists, you should have separate to-do lists for personal and professional work to focus better. Imbabazi stresses to jot down tasks in your to-do list as soon as they come to your mind, revise the list on a daily basis, limit yourself to three to five tasks and also assign due dates to all your tasks. She also notes that the to-do-list should have timing for every planned activity, division of all the tasks into different categories, and encompass extra time for every task. Take breaks Imbabazi carries on that taking a break improves focus and concentration, and offers the opportunity for an employee’s mental reset. She also notes that some people don’t have breaks during work due to excessive workload, not being acquainted with the positive effects of a break and business cultures, where employees feel guilty toward colleagues and management when they rest especially when there is a lot of work to do. “Every employee is entitled to a break so as to relax and after a break, work can resume with more vigour and incentive. Work without breaks can lead to burnout, with time,” she states. Career experts advice that taking breaks at work not only increase productivity, but also gives the mind and body time to recharge, be more creative, and cultivate healthier habits. A 2011 University of Illinois study found that the human brain’s attentional resources drop after a long period of focusing on a single task, decreasing our ability to focus and hindering performance. Handle distractions Distractions are known to lower one’s productivity and energy. They affect people’s ability to focus and stick with projects or tasks long enough to see them through. According to Imbabazi, many employees are unmotivated, unproductive, and overly stressed due to noise and have little capacity to think and work creatively and constructively. To her, sometimes loss of focus can be due to the continuous buzzing emails or phone notification about social media updates which impel works to check, and by the time the day ends, you are exhausted and have used like three hours on other unplanned for programs. A 2016 survey of 2,000 US hiring and HR managers by CareerBuilder showed that the top distraction culprits included smartphones (55 per cent), the internet (41 per cent), gossip (37 per cent), social media (37 per cent), co-workers dropping by (27 per cent), smoking or snack breaks (27 per cent), email (26 per cent), meetings (24 per cent), and noisy co-workers (20 per cent). Avoid multitasking According to Workplace Wellness Systems, employers have long been encouraging multitasking as a way of increasing employee productivity, but research shows it may do more harm than good. Several studies have shown that high multitaskers experience greater problems focusing on important and complicated tasks, memory impairment of new subject matter, difficulty learning new material, and increased stress levels. Science shows that the brain can effectively process only one or two ideas or tasks at the same time. When two or more tasks of the same magnitude are juggled, the brain’s normal reaction is to slow down.
