5 Hacks to work Efficiently and Smartly under Pressure
Pressure in every professional and personal environment and work reduces our judgement, decision-making, focus and performance. It becomes the biggest impediment to personal success. Therefore, nipping the bad in the bud becomes very important. The attitude and reaction to conditions of high pressure can make all the difference.
Make the Best of Your Commute Time:
People who manage to strike the right balance between their work and their personal life realize that every minute is important. You can further translate into hours of overtime every minute you squander away in a day. You have to make the most of your commute time to prevent this. How about getting an update on a project so you have an accurate picture of the project status by the time you get there.
Read more here: 5 Hacks to make the best of your commute time?
Schedule your tasks efficiently:
Simply put, don’t bite more than you can chew. It’s great to be ambitious, but that doesn’t mean that with a lot of tasks you can cramp up your schedule. Try to focus on one big task every day that gets you closer to your long-term and short-term goals and make sure you clear it up in the daytime.
Place on the waiting list other smaller tasks and take them up once you finish the main task you’ve planned.
When you move your focus from planning more tasks to actually performing one task a day, you will find that the job stack has slowly but steadily begun to shorten.
Also, don’t leave the bigger and more complex tasks for the last time, take them first. Brian Tracy, author of “Eat that Frog” delves deeply into the importance of first performing complex tasks. The tasks you most fear are the root of your problems, and even a larger pile would look less intimidating once you’re done and dusted with them.
Invest in tools that suit your needs:
Whether you’re looking for digital solutions such as Wunderlist, Evernote and Google Calendars, or a tried and tested day planner or desk calendar, find a solution that works for you. Sometimes the easiest is the best efficiency device. Once you settle on Google Calendars, you may even experiment with several different tools as they would let you keep in sync with your friends’ and family’s schedule. Think about your big-picture needs and challenges when choosing a tool.
Do you often forget about smaller tasks?
An integrated system of reminders can help.
Are you juggling your family’s multiple schedules?
A shared Google calendar is a simple, free solution to keep the schedules of all in sync.
Set aside the digital distractions:
There’s one more thing about your productivity that can come in. Any assumptions?
It’s distractions.
There are plenty of distractions out there that can take away your attention. Some of these include phone calls, Whatsapp’s frequent pings, and pop-up alerts from various social media sites.
If you add to your Facebook or Instagram feed the number of minutes spent scrolling down, you’d find it hard to meet your daily or weekly goals. There is only one way to combat these distractions, i.e. to shut down notifications, to minimize the use of telephones to as little as possible or only during your break times.
Breaks are equally necessary:
It sounds counterintuitive, but when you’re completely wiped, think about it: how successful are you?
It is important to be an effective entrepreneur — and a working member of society— to take downtime and refresh. You need time to rest, to clear your mind, and to be ready for the following day to dedicate yourself 100%.
If you find it difficult to make time for yourself, try to add it to your schedule. Because you should love what you do, you can get so heavily involved in the work that you might lose time. To remind yourself of unplugging, you need to start adding downtime/fun activities to your calendar.
Work & Grow!
