Time management: Being productive has nothing to do with being busy

This is practically a routine, admit it: you get a new one task at work. Gets an email that needs to be answered. The phone rings. You are called to a meeting. The daily news is very interesting. Remember the accounts need to pay today … and ends up taking a lot longer to do the job – and worse, fraying more. If you identify with this situation above, you are probably suffering from the syndrome busy professional who is not productive. Most of the time, being busy is not synonymous with productivity, it’s just lack of planning and time management.

In fact, if you’re getting dozens of tasks a day, and ending almost no satisfactorily, it is almost certain that it is the wrong tasks. The truth is that, to become productive, it is necessary to prioritize tasks according to their importance and deliver more in less time (and no longer work in over time, as they think).

A former New York Times article cites some studies that have made the how long accounts the fact that Americans work. According to research from Microsoft, the 45h work week, 16h are unproductive. Ie more than a third. Since America Online and Salary.com, say the professionals work only three of the five days of the week. If this scene is played these days, you may be his accomplice. Check out some signs that you may be thinking beeeem busy, but very productive:

1. Many meetings

Meetings do not leave the complex jobs are completed. They either do creative work. And it’s no secret that they prevent you to focus. It is from meeting to meeting unfocused that hours and hours of work are lost.

2. Accumulation of tasks

You proud to do many things at once? Make no mistake, be multitask (or know how to do various things) is not synonymous with putting all their skills into practice at once. Schedule your time to perform only one task at a time and you will be much more productive. Tip: close tabs on your browser that are not being used (especially social networks) store the phone and, if possible, listen to music with a headset. So the focus will come naturally.

3. Excessive edition

You receive an e-mail to evaluate a project or add more detail in a document. What do you do? Many people spend too much time editing emails, documents, spreadsheets … Try performing the task with the utmost attention and can trust, just so you do not need to spend much time correcting and editing.

4. Very little fire to lull

Some professionals living putting out fires – and they are a sign that the planning was not effective. Ensure that you are separating the important emergency room. You may have to say no to an urgent task to keep the focus on an important task.

5. Only perform trivial tasks without time management

Small and unimportant tasks are usually completed quickly because they are easy to execute. As can be good to build your daily rhythm of productivity, you can indicate that you are sabotaging the most complex activities. Make sure you are not spending your whole day in just trivial things.

6. Email all day

If you do not get out of your inbox all day, I can guarantee you is not productive – except if in your job description main activity is reading and answering e-mail. Take a few minutes at the beginning, middle and end of the day to solve the cucumbers by e-mail and try to stay away from him when you are in the middle of another task.

Also, use an online manager helps you eliminate a lot of e-mails because all communication projects is done within the tool from sending files to the distribution of demands for his team.

Runrun.it is the tool of choice for more than 150,000 companies in the world, thanks to its unique ability to automate paperwork from day to day and increase by 25% the productivity of professionals. Try it free now.

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