PPB March 2021

glued to your work computer. The better you become at optimizing your work hours and making the most of the time you have outside of work, the more balanced and calm your whole life will become. Gaining more conscious and mindful control of how we spend our time is the closest we can come to slowing the relentless flow of sand through the hourglass. These tips can help you maximize those precious moments you do have. Prioritize self-care time. This includes making time for seven to nine hours of sleep a night, designating time to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner (at the table, not at your desk while you work), and factoring in adequate time for family and leisure. Working nonstop allows us virtually no down time to catch our breath, take care of personal needs or mentally recharge for the rest of the day. Personal tasks should not be deemed unimportant when they are essential to our very survival. We simply need to overcome the knee-jerk urge to put ourselves last. If you are a leader, infuse play into your employees’ workday. Infusing appropriate play into the workplace is time well spent, because it can promote a positive culture, which leads to improved productivity and stronger relationships. Even though many people are working from home, you can still enjoy some team-building fun and camaraderie. Host themed Zoom business meetings in which everyone dresses for the theme. Mail your employees small care packages with coffee and donuts. Host online birthday or holiday celebrations and regular “happy hours” so people can chat, share what they’ve been up to and bond. If you are an employee, establish what the “workday” means to you and your boss. It’s common for employers to call or email you after hours, but it is up to you to decide whether or not you’re available after hours. Never has this been truer than in the new normal of COVID-19, when people are more likely to work day and night. If you choose to be off-duty on nights and weekends, that is your choice (and your right). Just make sure you respectfully address your “workday” limits to your boss upfront, so everyone is clear on the boundaries. Don’t stay on your email all day. Constantly checking your inbox is distracting and slows you down. Designate a few times in your workday to check email so that you remain in control of your schedule and aren’t being reactive to new messages as they appear. Step away from the internet. Surfing the web is a huge time-waster for most people. An innocent little break often turns into an hour (or more) of wasted time that you can’t get back— especially when you should be working or headed to bed to get some rest. Shut off access to the internet at a certain time each day to avoid getting lost in cyberspace and take breaks from recreational internet use—about a month—to focus on other aspects of your life that may need attention. Minimize distractions and the tendency to multitask. Instead, focus on each daily task one at a time. For example, if you are working on a project for work, don’t start thinking about the dinner menu. You will find the task at hand will take longer. Set achievable goals each day. Even the most thoughtfully constructed to-do list will be useless if it is too ambitious. What’s the point of writing down unachievable tasks? We’re not superheroes and shouldn’t try to be. Make your daily goals small enough that you can actually get them done. Remember that you can always do more if you have the time. Listen up! Active listening consists of being present and engaged when communicating with another person, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. It’s very common to forget to listen after you speak your thoughts in a conversation, and you often lose important information as a result. When you are talking with a coworker, manager or anyone else, be sure that you turn off that pesky inner monologue and focus when it is the other person’s turn to speak. This is especially important in a work-from-home scenario when you are having far fewer face-to- face conversations. Stop shuffling papers. Most of us waste a lot of time shuffling papers from one pile to another. Even when you are varuna / Shutterstock.com Photo illustration by SPARK Publications | MARCH 2021 | 73 THINK