Managing endless tasks

 Have you ever wondered why you are ever drowning in pools of endless assignments and annoying tasks, yet you never seem to come on top of them?  The truth is no matter how hard you work, tasks will be following you right left and center. 

Brian Tracy, in his book, Eat That Frog, stated categorically that there shall never be enough time to attend to all tasks, but there is always time to do the most important tasks. This means that, for you to increase productivity, either at work place or at home, you must struggle to eliminate all forms of distractions. Let me share with you a few techniques that can help you achieve that. 

1.       Plan your time. It has repeatedly been said that failing to plan is planning to fail. Planning, by no debate, is one of the most powerful techniques of time management. You can generate a list of items you plan to do either the night before you retire to bed or the first thing when you wake up in the morning. Although both methods work perfectly well, I recommend the former because it gives your subconscious mind time to work on your plans overnight. When you wake up in the morning, you might be surprised to have fresh ideas and insights to start with.

2.      Don’t be a jerk of all trades. As stated earlier, minimizing distractions is key in maximizing time usage. Remember the law of excluded alternative, choosing to do one task means not doing another. As you work on a certain task, concentrate single-mindedly until it is completely finished before moving to the next assignment. Don’t move back and forth from one assignment to another. There is nothing that lowers productivity more than multitasking. In fact multitasking does not exist. Multitasking means task shifting and the transition time used to acclimatize to the previous assignment is indeed the major source of time wastage.

3.     Make use of your power hour. The power hour refers to the time when you are at your best. This is the time when you experience minimal distractions and can work continuously without being disrupted. It can be in the morning, afternoon, evening or even at 2am when everyone in the house is asleep. For most executives, including me, they make use of their mornings before they report to their respective jobs and block between 1-2 hours at home to work on their most important tasks.

4.     Make use of your ‘hidden’ time. This is one of the most wasted time. It is the transition time used to change from one task to another. This can include, the time you are waiting outside the CEO’s office, the time you are driving to work, the time when queuing to receive a certain government service and so forth. Am calling this time hidden, because most people do not even know that it exists. Why not make use of this time productively? For example, you can listen to educational audio programs that can increase you overall productivity at work, for students, you can watch videos on your smart phones as you queue to be served at the office, as you sit outside the CEO’s you can read 10 pages of a book, in the plane when traveling overseas, you can use it to accomplish some important task. This is the real interpretation of maximum productivity.

5.      Eat the biggest frog first. Mark Twain said, ‘If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning, and if it’s your job to eat two frogs, its best to eat the biggest one first. This is something to do with task prioritization.  The frogs are the endless tasks that keep on trickling down your tight schedule without mercy. The biggest frog is basically the biggest task, the one that you are likely to procrastinate. The task that will have great consequences when you do or don’t do it. This is the task that you should start it early in the morning, it’s the task that should be on top of all your priorities. In fact, you schedule the power hour and carry out this task.

These are some of the most common techniques. We shall look at more techniques in the future.

©Time Coach