Brandon
How do you focus and manage your time wisely?
It's very hard to focus, even though it's quiet. I easily get bored. It's also hard to manage your time. I always procrastinate. #studying-tips #focusing #procrastination
10 answers
Evi Vierendeel
Evi’s Answer
Hi Brandon,
What a good question. I think this is one even the best CEO's have had trouble with in the past.
The advise I would give you is taking some time to investigate into multiple ways of time management. You have people writing it all down and than plan it into their calendar. You have people who use methods like the "Pomodori technique". You have people that take work with mindfulness. You have people that go Mindmapping before stepping into action.
Take a half an hour on Google, search terms like Time Management, Procastrination, .... The results you find in that half an hour you start investigating into detail. Take some time for this. A good method is not something you find in a day, it is mostly a result of trial and error.
All the best of luck with this.
Kind Regards,
Evi
Emani Terry
Emani’s Answer
Procrastination gets the best of everybody!
The best advice I could give is to find what works best for you! There are different strategies that can lead to successful planning and tasking:
Reward:
For every thing or task you need to complete, you can reward yourself based off how much you get done.
Pacing:
If your mind tends to get overworked by too much thinking, you can space out your tasks to complete over a course of hours, days or weeks by catching a break in between. During those breaks, you can watch your favorite show or do your favorite activity to relax your mind.
Although these may all sound great, sometimes it will boil down to procrastination. Just remember that things must get done; however, it shall pan out for you.
Kajal Ramtekji
Kajal’s Answer
Hey Brandon,
The first thing i would do is try to understand in which situations and when do you tend to procrastinate. If it is something you are really not interested in, it makes sense. That being said sometimes we all have to do things that we may not be very passionate about.
I have used this methodology discovered by an italian scientist and it is called POMODORO. The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. This is significantly improved my time management and best thing is you can get this application on any app store and it has the preset timers. Please do check it out! Hope this helps!
Shruti Murthy
Shruti’s Answer
Hi Brandon,
Short span of attention and focus is quite common in this digital, fast-paced world. And we all do procrastinate at some level depending on the task. But it's really about taking that first step. The fact that you have recognized it and reached out to help address the issue is recommendable. You have already received some great advice here. I would add to that. Begin with some initial analysis about your behavior - have you have noticed certain pattern when you procrastinate? Is it specific to certain tasks or time of the day or does it go beyond all that logic? By giving some thought to the root cause, I think you will enable yourself to address the broader issue. Stay positive and keep working on improving yourself.
All the best.
Shruti
Candace Cohen
Candace’s Answer
I recently attended a seminar on Time Management. We were given a four quadrant model to help manage our time wisely as well as figuring out tasks that were "time sucks". In the model we wrote four categories.
•Crisis: Urgent / Important
•Productivity: Not Urgent / Important
•Distraction: Urgent / Not Important
•Waste: Not Urgent / Not Important
List all of the tasks that you have to complete daily to see where you are spending the majority of your time. Ideally you want to spend 75% in the Productive column(planning and preparing), 5% on items that are in the Crisis column(putting out fires), 15% Distractions ( emails/phone calls) and 5% Waste ( socializing). Before doing this I found that the majority of my time was putting out fires, by taking time to plan more before the start of each week and/or day, I am able to minimize the time sucks and head off lots of distractions, so I am able to be more productive each day. Hope this helps!
Crisis
Imane Faouzi Zizi, APMP
Imane’s Answer
Hi Brandon,
Time management is indeed a very important skill that you can develop over time and that will help you to become more effective and productive in your daily tasks.
My first advice for you would be to use a daily planner where you can organize all the tasks of your day and try to stick to it. once you have completed an action, you mark it as complete and you go to the next one.
Personnaly, I use my Outlook calendar to plan all my meetings and even if I don't have a meeting, I Schedule other tasks using Outlook to block some time and get them done.
Second, take the first 30 minutes of every day to plan your day. Don't start your day until you complete your time plan.
When you are working, make sure you block out other distractions like Facebook and other forms of social media unless you use these tools to get your work done. This will also help you to minimize procrastination :)
If you need more detailed time management techniques, Google is your friend ! :)
Good luck
Imane
Rachel Resnick
Rachel’s Answer
You will need to focus on stress and time management. In order to manage stress you have to manage your time wisely. <span style="background-color: transparent;">You have to set a routine for yourself and stick to it for the most part. Once you get into the groove of a routine it will be much easier for you to manage your time and have enough time for everything you need to do (including relaxing). Make yourself to-do lists on a weekly basis, use Google calendar or a planner to keep track of events, deadlines, and due dates. In addition to setting a routine and sticking to it, plan out relaxing activities into your day. Or set aside a time, after everything is done for the day, that you can have "me" time. I have also personally found it essential to not only find time for myself but also make use of that time in a way that is best for me and my holistic wellness. I have found the HeadSpace app to be an essential tool in helping me relax and generally feel more relaxed throughout the day, Guided meditation, even if you have a busy schedule, will make you feel more at ease and relaxed throughout the day as a whole (not just when you have the time to relax and focus on that "me" time).</span>
<span style="background-color: transparent;">Set a routine.Use Google Calendar.Set aside Me TimeWrite weekly to-do lists and use a planner.Find a peaceful and restful activity that will help you feel relaxed.</span>
Jyoti Rao, MS, CMS
Jyoti’s Answer
Dheeraj Nagpal
Dheeraj’s Answer
Procrastination is a normal human behavior we always try to leave the hardest task for later.
The only way around it is to tackle the hasdest task first after thorough planning.
Yasmina Assaoui
Yasmina’s Answer
Hi Brandon,
It's a good question that we all came across at some point in our careers :)
There are indeed many time management techniques you could experiment, prior to picking up the approach you're most at ease with.
My personal take on this is to simply break down my to-do-list onto a series of smaller tasks or actions and put a provisonal completion time against all of these. This way, I have visibility on top-priority actions that cannot be procrastinated or postponed to later so when I'm sat progressing a top-priority action, I make sure distractions are turned out to reach my goal faster. When I finish a given action, I make sure it shows as complete in my list, also to end my day with a greater feeling of accomplishment. That's in a few words how I gained control over time.
All the best
Yasmina