Deal with distractions, free hours of your time

HAVE you ever reached the end of what felt like a busy day and wondered what you did all day? Chances are that distractions derailed you.

Here are some top tips for managing distractions:

GET DISCIPLINED

Start your day with a clear, big-picture goal. This serves as a waypoint; a reference against which you can quickly test whether what you are doing is a high-impact activity or not.

For example, one of my big-picture goals is to focus on generating revenues. I can spend hours on a marketing brochure and wonderful words but these are useless unless I have meetings with prospective clients lined up.

I am inclined to do the latter, but my waypoint serves to remind me to get meetings with clients in my diary above all else.

Let go of control, delegate properly and allow others to do their jobs. Focusing on the outcome you want is one effective way to delegate. Not everyone will do it like you would, but as long as the parameters, timelines and desired outcome are prescribed, there may be merit in giving others the freedom to work in their own ways.

GET ORGANISED

Structure your days so you have time allocated to both work and play. You will be less tempted to check Facebook instead of working through a proposal if you know you have set aside guilt-free “downtime” later for you to deep-dive into social media.

Arrange your workspace so it helps you focus on the task at hand. For example, remove all unnecessary items from your desk, including paperwork, notebooks, snacks and any unfinished business.

If you need to do something that requires critical thinking, switch your telephone and e-mail notifications off for the duration of the time that you have given yourself to focus on that task. The world will keep spinning and life will go on in the time that you are offline.

None of us and nothing we do, are so important that we cannot achieve this for a limited period.

GET ASSERTIVE

The world we live in is “always on” and our perception is often that people demand constant access and immediate responses from us.

It will serve you to outline your working preferences to your colleagues and to explain what those preferences enable. For example, The Unlimited is a financial services provider that sells insurance, rewards, medical and lifestyle products. They are big, they are busy! They also have a company practice they call “no e-mail Wednesday”.

They do not use or respond to e-mails on Wednesdays because they believe it allows them to better connect with their people and clients. They have come under pressure both internally and externally but they stand firm. Sorry, no e-mails on Wednesdays!

If you are experiencing time management challenges in your workplace and want practical tips for dealing with distractions, contact deirdre@theofficecoach.co.za