One of the hardest things about working from home is keeping yourself productive and motivated. When the fridge is only three strides away from your desk, or the remote is within arm’s reach, it’s hard to keep focused on the task at hand. Distractions are everywhere, and that doesn’t stop when you get back to the office!
Luckily for us, thought leaders, psychologists and behavioural scientists have tried and tested techniques to keep us on task, in a state of flow and keep our productivity peaking. Here are a few great methods to manage your time and output effectively (without burning out!)
Pomodoro Technique
This productivity practice and renowned time management technique is one of the most recognisable out there. Earning its name through the founder’s use of a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato, the Pomodoro Technique was created by Francesco Cirillo after he found himself feeling overwhelmed and distracted while trying to complete study and assignments.
By breaking down study or focus time into small chunks that are rewarded by short breaks, Cirillo stumbled upon a productivity hack that is now used by professionals worldwide to make the most of their time.
It works like this – set a timer (don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be a tomato) for 25 minutes. You must commit to focused work with no distractions for this time period, and at the end, you get a 5-minute break! This cycle is simply called “the Pomodoro” and after every four pomodoros, you get a longer break of 15-30 minutes.
Here’s what a Pomodoro day might look like:
A day broken down into “pomodoro” time beats
This technique is effective because it uses the reward system in our brain, while also gamifying our tasks in a “time trial” style. It’s also a fantastic way to see where your time is being spent during the day and how you can improve upon your overall time management.
Pareto Principle (80/20)
One of my favourite things about time management techniques is their alleged origin stories and Pareto’s Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, has a variety of myths to how it was discovered.
An article I read said Pareto, who was an Italian economist in the late 19th century, came up with the theory that people in society were divided into the “vital few” (the top 20% wealthiest and most powerful) or the “trivial many” (all the other poor souls). Another article says he worked it out because he got good peas out of 20% of his pods and average peas out of the other 80%. The second theory wins my vote.
Basically, when it comes to productivity, the principle suggests that if you have ten tasks on your to-do list, two of those will provide more value than the other eight overall. The best thing to do is start by identifying what you think the most important task is on your list. Once you have that, think about the second most important and only focus on those two. If you have time, complete the rest, but make sure to tackle the two most important first.
A system called “Eat the Frog” piggy backs off the Pareto Principle by asking people to picture the most challenging, important task of the day as a frog. There are two rules for frog-eating in this system: firstly, if you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first, and secondly, if you have to eat a live frog at all, it doesn’t pay to sit and look at it for very long.
Actioning your two most important tasks will see your productivity peak, and if you have to picture that snarky email as a frog to get it done, then so be it. You do you.
168 hours
Developed by writer Laura Vanderkam, the 168 Hours Time Tracking Challenge is a great way to quantify where you’re spending your time and how you can put it to better use.
The challenge asks you to look at an entire week or 168 hours of your life in small increments. Starting the challenge at the beginning of the week, you are required to track plots of your time at either fifteen-minute or thirty-minute intervals to identify where your time is being spent.
I did this one recently and was mortified at how much time I spent looking at food posts on Pinterest and doom-scrolling the ABC’s COVID blog. It’s hard to keep it going but when you commit to doing the challenge for just one week, you’ll be far better placed to make the best use of your time.
Eisenhower Matrix
Named after (but not invented by) President Eisenhower, who was known for his immensely high output and strict organisation, the Eisenhower or Urgent-Important Matrix is a square divided into four quadrants that help you prioritise tasks in your day.
The quadrants are organised like so:
The Eisenhower Matrix
Do you have a task that (despite what your procrastination brain tells you) needs your immediate attention? Think things with a tight deadline, or a critical fix that needs to be actioned to continue operations. This goes into your “Do” quadrant and should be actioned as quickly as possible.
If there’s something that doesn’t have a pressing deadline but is still important to your work or goal, this goes into the “Schedule” quadrant and can be reassessed once your big, all-encompassing, important, do-or-die task is finished (eat that frog!)
The third quadrant can be a little hard to fill – these are urgent, but not important tasks and often are tasks that help others meet their goals. Tests using this matrix have shown that majority of people spend the greatest amount of time working on tasks that fit the criteria of this quadrant when instead, these tasks should be “Delegated”.
The final quadrant is the place where I personally spend the most time. The unimportant, not even remotely urgent tasks that keep me from eating the frog tend to grab my attention. Should I spend my time reorganising my Trello board for the sixth time this week? Absolutely. Don’t be like me – tasks that go into this quadrant should be “Deleted” from your schedule.
The Caffeine Nap
While many swear by this, I have to say I remain sceptical (which might have something to do with the fact I can’t nap at all). The believers, however, assure me that it works, and it’s backed by science.
The reason caffeine naps or “coffee kips” work, all boils down to a little chemical called adenosine. When you’re sleepy, that’s adenosine latching on to its receptors and causing your nerve cells to slow down and when you’re asleep, the level of adenosine in your system depletes. You know what else can attach itself to adenosine receptors? Caffeine.
Therefore, coffee naps work by pumping your system with caffeine and lowering your levels of adenosine by sleeping to allow for more receptors to be bound with caffeine instead.
To get the most out of your caffeine nap, try and doze off just after you’ve had your coffee and limit your nap to a maximum of twenty minutes. This is roughly the amount of time it takes for you to begin feeling the effects of caffeine in your system.
If you haven’t tried out any of these – be sure to give them a go when you’re next pressed for time and let us know which works for you.