Wudatime

Every new working day comes to us as a too long to-do list and not enough time to put the check on all of the items. As we explained in earlier posts, organization is the key to optimize our time. But it is not enough to make accurate lists of everything we are going to do, even though it helps. It is necessary to take into account our predisposition to do so.

Our energy varies over the day. Who hasn't felt as if he was the king of the world at early morning working all out? And, however, he felt lost between the screen lines when the sun was going down?

To avoid being beaten by our own fatigue, there are two key words: energy management. Every person is a different world and we must know ourselves to maximize our capacities in our best hours. This will help us also to take advantage of the hours you are more unfocused.

Generally, our energy declines throughout the day. That's why a good way to order our wonderful to-do list is the following:

1. Work hard. Do at first those tasks that demand more attention, creativity and, in short, those that demand yourself to squeeze your brain. After a delicious breakfast our mind finds itself more awake and nimble, so it is the perfect moment to carry out the hardest work. It can be maybe planning the strategy or develop our projects. Knowing to prioritize our day thinking about which time our mind and body work in unison will improve our productivity.
2. Communicative peak. Midday is coming and you start to smell the memory of the sandwich you prepared to yourself this morning.  As lunchtime approaches we start to feel more distracted. But don't worry. You can take the edge off your hunger. Instead of roaming around the office and talk with your colleagues, why don't you use the time to do those calls, answer emails or prepare the presentation to impress that precious client? In those ours we feel awake and willingly to communicate after an intense working morning with ourselves.
3. Light work and preparation. The last hours of our working day are always hard and we often have our sight and mind really tired. It is a good moment to do tasks that don't demand a lot of effort from our mind like, like, for example, those that require a lot of repetition of the same action. Its going to be also useful to have a “low energy tasks” list. Among them usually there are:  organizing your work space – both physical and virtual -, watch a tutorial that tells us tricks about some kind of app or software that we often use, make backup copies of our projects, classify our contact list, etc. It is also important not to forget to go through the work we've done. We should ask ourselves questions like: Have we finished all the tasks we set out? Is necessary to look over the times we had assigned to each task? The time we set for the breaks was the appropriate?
4. Finally, it is also a good moment to plan the next working day. We have to do a new tasks list, go through the timetables and leave everything ready for meetings. This way we will lose less time when we start the new day and we will be able to take the maximum advantage of our most creative hours.

To make sure that this organization tips are useful, it is important to have in mind a key element: breaks. Without them our planning lacks of veracity and it will be really difficult to give our best. It’s preferable to dedicate shorter time to breaks and do them often, than try to be focused too much time. This will make us need the longer breaks that will distract us from our work. The frequency between them changes along the day. Probably, at first thing in the morning you won’t need so many of them. But, during the afternoon, don't worry if you feel like stopping every hour and a half. Even if it doesn't seem like it, we will do better.

The key is to put second your time to your energy. If, as well as having a detailed tasks list, you order them in a way that you will be able to do all of them, your productivity will skyrocket.

So remember, to make the most of your working day: start with the things you're the best at, with your most complex and creative work. Continue satiating your need to talk doing your public relations tasks. Finally, do the lighter and more repetitive work. And before switching off the lights, leave everything ready so as not to waste you charged batteries the day after.