Exactly How To Spend The Last Hour Of Your Workday
Try
these 60-minute “soft projects” to wrap up every day of the week.
It’s 4 p.m. and you’re having a hard time focusing. So you stare at your
computer and click in and out of lots of tabs. But when you look up, you see
it’s only 4:03 p.m. Then, you get a glass of water, which takes all of seven
minutes. You’re not feeling inspired to tackle something important, but ducking
out early—or sitting at your desk and twiddling your thumbs for 50
minutes—aren’t options either.
The answer is soft projects. They don’t
demand much attention, investment, or effort, but they’ll still get you through
that final hour.
Sure, this may sound like a dream problem to
someone who’s buried in piles of work, but if it’s your reality, it absolutely
sucks. If you have a smaller-than-usual workload, or are lacking motivation,
the feeling of being trapped at work—with time passing agonizingly slowly—can
be especially strong.
How can you beat this? The answer is soft
projects. They don’t demand much attention, investment, or effort, but they’ll
still get you through that final hour of the workday—and help you make some
progress on your to-do list. Bonus: They’ll also make you look busy (read:
dedicated) to your boss.
But since you can’t just reorganize your
workspace day after day, here’s a list of what you can do to be
productive. As a bonus, we paired each task with a
certain day to maximize how much you get out of it.
The average person spends more than three
hours a day checking work-related email. And I’ll
bet that number is even higher on Mondays, when you’ve let your inbox lie
dormant all weekend.
And while you’re right to stay away from
writing tricky messages when your brain is fried, getting
your inbox organized doesn’t take a ton of focus, and it can
help cut down on wasted time in the long run.
Here are easy ways to get started:
- Unsubscribe from any newsletters you never read.
- Create folders (or labels) for different types of
emails, such as ones from different departments, or based on who they’re
from, or what projects they’re related to.
- Delete or archive old messaages that are just
cluttering your inbox at this point.
- Mark the emails you still need to take action on.
Sometimes people avoid starting something new
after a certain time of day because they know they won’t be able to finish it.
If you have a four-hour task, the last thing you want to do is get started only
to break your train of thought in the middle when it’s time to go home.
In this instance, I suggest you start
thinking about how you’ll go about it and getting organized. How often have you
started that four-hour project to realize you actually don’t have everything
you need or you have questions? A short burst of proactive research could equip
you with better information—and spare you that time when you’re more motivated
and ready to work on the project itself.
Pull this off early in the week and you’ll be
more likely to put those plans into practice over the next few days.
Being a better professional isn’t all about
executing tasks and planning projects. It often pays to take a step back and
work on your knowledge, skills, and reputation—and it doesn’t take much effort
to do it.
Work on becoming more of a
thought leader in your industry by catching up on the
latest content in your niche. Get up to speed on any new developments and
engage with others by sharing articles on LinkedIn and starting discussions.
It’s a great way to feel productive during your midweek slump.
There’s research that implies that creative, intelligent people tend to be messier.
However, there’s also a
study that shows that clutter distracts you,
inhibiting your overall productivity—plus, I doubt it’ll go very far in
impressing your boss.
Sometimes people avoid starting something new
after a certain time of day because they know they won’t be able to finish it.
So cleaning
up your desk is a great task for a day when you’re
counting down the minutes until Friday and don’t want to do much more than
straighten up. It’s as simple as discarding unnecessary papers, filing away
anything urgent, washing out your coffee mug, and giving your desk and keyboard
a thorough clean.
The most successful people create
and adhere to a schedule. Not only will it save you time in
the days ahead, it can help you transform a “meh” afternoon into a plan to be
productive moving forward. That, in turn, can boost your mood and positively
affect your momentum.
So, pull a plan together in three simple
steps:
1. Make a task list for everything you’d like to accomplish
next week. Include everything that’s currently on your radar—big or small.
Break any larger projects into smaller, more manageable tasks.
2. Rank everything on your list and assign priorities.
3. Create a realistic timetable for getting everything done.
It’s a perfect Friday task, because even you
were lacking focus at this week was winding down, you’ll be getting a head
start for the week ahead.
No matter how optimistic or energetic you
are, you’re bound to have off days—and that’s perfectly okay. Forcing yourself
to tackle a complex task (assuming there’s no deadline leaving you without a
choice) can result in shoddy work and dissatisfaction, so embrace those free
hours and do what you can with them.
BY LARRY ALTON, THE MUSE
https://www.fastcompany.com/3068397/exactly-how-to-spend-the-last-hour-of-your-workday?utm_source=postup&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Fast%20Company%20Daily&position=7&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=04232018
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