If you need to find more time at work, then check some of your daily habits. There’s a good chance you’re innocently wasting time on low priority tasks. These tend to grow over time.
In this week’s edition of our weekly productivity series, we talk about three areas where you’ll likely and easily find more time at work.
What Productivity Questions Does This Video Answer?
- How to find more time at work?
- What are good time management tips?
- Do I spend too much time online at work?
- Do I talk too much to coworkers?
Video Transcript for Find More Time at Work
Your time is a resource but are you spending it wisely. Have you ever scraped a jar that’s almost empty? Maybe it’s a jar of peanut butter and you know there still a little bit inside, so you scrape, and you take all this time and maybe you get just a little bit of the peanut butter out. Sometimes you spend a lot of time, scraping that jar, for not very much return on your investment.
Sometimes we do that very same thing at work. Where we do something, that’s not necessarily bad but we spend a lot of time on it and as a result there’s less time for our most important tasks.
How many times an hour do you need to check your email? Simply going in and checking it every five minutes, may not be working out for you too well. Are you in a job where everything is that urgent? And the response has to happen that quickly?
In most cases the answer is no. So decide, okay, how many times am I going to check my email every hour or every morning, every afternoon. Try to pick a schedule and stick to it.
Now if you find that you’re missing all these things, then you can go back and to a more frequent checking of email. But in most cases you can get away with it.
Another thing you need to be aware of is how much time are you spending with just chatting with your coworkers? I think it’s nice to get to know your coworkers, find out a little bit about them, and build teamwork.
But at a certain point you may be chatting a little too much and maybe some of those conversations would be better after hours. So just think about how much time you’re spending talking to them and is it coming at the expense of your not being able to get other things done.
Final thing, let’s talk about the Internet. Internet is a cool thing. I like the Internet but are you spending a lot of time repeatedly checking on news, sports, other things that aren’t necessarily related to your job?
Now sometimes it’s nice to take a quick little break, check things out, if it fits your office policy of course. But if you’re doing it constantly, again the minutes can add up.
So maybe track how much time are you really spending online for kind of, fun stuff. And see if that time might be better invested in other places. Sometimes you can gain a lot of time, by just being a little more efficient as you go through your day. It reduces the stress and increase your productivity.
About Ken Okel
As a motivational speaker, Ken Okel works with leaders and organizations to boost productivity, performance, and profits. At conferences, conventions, and company meetings, he engages audiences with new ways to maximize their time at work. To see a sample of his keynote and workshop presentations, visit his video page.
