Working In Blocks: Control Your Stress And Improve Your Productivity At The Same Time
Do you find yourself frantically trying to make and return numerous phone calls, send and read 100's of e-mails and IM's, attend meetings and conference calls, finish reports and, on top of all that, figure out how you are going to make that quarter-end number? Welcome to the club -- and it's a big one. The real question here is: what can you do to alleviate these issues in a technology-laden environment?
A study done at Microsoft last year looked at how long it takes people to return to a task when they are interrupted by an e-mail or instant message. The average was 15 minutes. More than a quarter of the people did not return to the task at hand for two hours! Moreover, when people did finally start working again, they did not reach their earlier level of concentration for an additional 10 minutes. When you take all of this into account, you realize multi-tasking can be a colossal time consumer.
So what can you do about it? While it's not realistic to tell the boss or client you have to reschedule the forecast or conference call because you are feeling stressed (since being unemployed is much more stressful), you should focus on the things you can control.
By segmenting your activities into specific time blocks during the day, you will no longer being a slave to e-mails and IM's. Set aside a block of time in the morning for attending to important e-mails. Once that time block is over, it is off to focusing on the next block. This could be a group of 20 phone calls you need to make or a report you have to finish. Be committed and disciplined in the time you block out: Don't check e-mail or instant messages during other time blocks. In fact, close both of them and turn off any notifications. Stay focused on the block at hand and commit yourself to just getting it done. Over a week, you will accomplish a lot more and you'll have a much lower stress level.
Kevin is the Founder of Build the Career You Deserve, a company devoted to empowering professionals with the vital tools and information necessary to find the job they want and build the successful career they deserve. Sign up for his free e-zine (read by over 21,000 professionals worldwide) -- Build the Career You Deserve -- for insider tips on how to do just that.
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