How to Make Your Day Longer
Many centuries ago a wise philosopher Seneca said, someone takes away our precious time by force, others furtively steal our time, but the most annoying is when we waste our time ourselves. Specialists of time management agree with the ancient sage. Lack of time does not account for a great number of tasks we have to do. But it is rather a result of unpredictable and unjustified time losses. Today people take into account the recommendations of the experts and try to plan their day prioritizing the daily activities. However, even those who mastered the art of making rational and quite realistic plans are likely to complete only the half of the planned activities by the end of the day. “If I had at least a couple of hours more… “ . You may hear these words from the presidents of the global companies as well as from the secretaries, couriers and students.
People don’t realize that hours have been misspent. Perhaps in some cases it would be more rational for a student to buy essays from a reputable writing service than waste their time by arranging the capricious lines of their writing. Among the factors that steal our time during the working day we can point out the three major “time thieves”. They are uninvited guests, unexpected phone calls and… you. Some irrelevant thoughts may intrude your consciousness just when you are reading your mail, analyzing news or preparing documentation. They grab your attention and you are no more concentrated on the work. For writers (or philosophers) such state is even favourable as it may help to find some original ideas and creative decisions for their love essay. But a businessman should avoid such deviation, as this “stream of consciousness” may distract him from solving the current issues. To reduce the time we spend on extraneous thoughts psychologists offer to follow two principles. The first of them may be called a method of unification. You should group the problems of the same type and solve them in a single time frame. That way you will do much more. Phased solving of the identical tasks eases the problem and saves up your time. The second principle suggests concentrating on the matter, not on the terms or means of dealing with it. In other words, devoting some time for necessary preparation helps to avoid unpredictable difficulties and stops.
Still the most important thing for purposeful work is self –discipline. Nothing controls your attention better than your own consciousness. Your precise determination to complete the task as soon as possible will manage to prevent from inopportune thoughts. Unexpected phone calls are another nuisance during your working day. Top leaders may entrust their secretaries with solving this problem. The rest have to look for options themselves. Ask your colleagues for a favour promising to help them in the same situation. Surely you will have to tear yourself from the work when the call is urgent. And you will deal with the rest of the calls when it is convenient for you. The other problem is uninvited guests. They are your colleagues, who drop in “just for a quick word”. In fact they start with discussing some really urgent professional issue, then coming down to gossiping about the secretary’s new haircut and boss’ mood. You can get rid of these “time thieves” in different ways, but unfortunately they are not so delicate and tolerant. The most harmless method is to set the so – called “quiet hour”, choosing the best time period for solving the piled up problems. A special notice on the door of your study may be a signal to those who want to disturb you. If you don’t have a separate room, ask the office manager perform the functions of this notice. Very soon everyone will be acquainted with your working schedule and they will try to fix “reception hours” with you in advance. If you can’t manage to reduce your time losses, try to keep a diary where you will make notes why and how much time has been wasted. These notes will help you to find the hole where all the precious minutes flow. Then you will just have to patch this hole up!