I have found that meditation and mindfulness exercises can actually be helpful to this approach, since they help you learn to “acknowledge” and “eliminate” stray thoughts and distractions from your consciousness. But this approach has been around a long time, previously referred to as “time-boxing” or even “sprint sessions”.īut a key piece of this approach is to eliminate all your distractions and truly focus on that one task for the intended duration. The “Pomodoro technique” is a fairly popular approach, since it mixes both focused work sessions with “non-work breaks” (gives you a “reward” for your effort). This is a key approach I advocate for Email Management, but works for nearly any type of task or activity. I am also a big proponent of allocating only a specific amount of time to an activity. Great post and a really important aspect to personal productivity. Question: How do you use a timer to get more work done? You can leave a comment by clicking here. Hard stops prevent procrastination and build positive momentum in your day. Setting a time limit on your work can help you get unstuck from endless tasks. Get out of your inbox and get to your priorities.
Otherwise, you’ll end up endlessly slogging through your ever-filling inbox. Less Email – Use a timer to limit your inbox processing time.As well, another technique is to cut your allotted meeting time in half. You’ll discover that you will have shorter and more productive meetings. Put a hard stop stop on meetings to ensure that they end on time. Shorter Meetings – Just like work, meetings expand to fill the time they are scheduled for.Or 10? Start with a small interval, and before you know it you will have built the momentum to continue. Motivate Yourself – Can’t get yourself started on a task? Surely, you can do it for just 5 minutes.It is not about rushing through the job, although haste doesn’t always make waste. Get Things Done Quickly – Having a countdown clock drives your attention and task speed.Here are just a few ways that using a timer can improve your productivity: When you place a limit on your work time, you will surprise yourself just how much you can get done. The next time you have an important task to do, set a finite amount of time to get it done. You may feel like you’re rushing, but your increased concentration will surprise you. On the other hand, if you only give yourself 45 minutes, you’ll put your head down and concentrate. Using a timer to limit your work time motivates you to concentrate on the task at hand and focus your energy.įor example, if you give yourself two hours to write a report… it is going to take you two hours. Chris Brogan wrote a guest post about it on TMN a while back, and there are many apps and strategies that center around the Pomodoro timer. Using a productivity timer is a popular time management strategy. One of the best ways to limit the time you spend on a task is to set a timer and pick a specific end point for that work. Not only does this save time, but you make a conscious choice about how much time to spend on your work. One of my favorite strategies to be more productive is to spend less time on projects instead of allocating more.īy limiting the time you spend on a particular task, you “box it into” a specific period of your day.
You have probably heard the expression that “work expands to fill the amount of time you give it.” (Know as Parkinson’s Law) The activities and actions that you decide to spend it on. Rather, it is what you are choosing to do with it. You have the same amount of time as everyone else. What if I told you, that you were spending too much time on your tasks? More Time Means More Work In fact, if you had additional free time in your day, I would wager that you’d still get the same amount of work done. However, more time isn’t necessarily the answer. Then you would finish your tasks… meet that deadline… or finally catch up on your todo list. You say to yourself, “If only I had more time to get my work done.”