The Benefits of Working in Short Time Blocks

[Gordon N]

Whilst catching up on my RSS feeds on a rather slow night shift (change of circumstances for those who remember me, will post about that somewhere else soon!) I came across this two part post on one of the Freelance sites I visit. Being that I am now what I would class as a freelance web developer I figured I would have a read and see if the advice would work for me.

I have to say I can see how this would allow for better focus on the variety of tasks I or you may have in hand at any one point, so I thought I would share the links for you to have a read to...

• The Benefits of Working in Short Time Blocks - Part 1
• The Benefits of Working in Short Time Blocks - Part 2

Do you think this could improve your productivity, or have you found a system that works for you and might help others here in SBF?

 

[Scottish Business Owner]

Hi Gordon,

These articles are really interesting and really quite relevant for myself personally as I struggled in the past with keeping on top of things.

I started to look into To Do lists a few months back and eventually came across ToodleDo. I have to be honest it totally changed the way I thought about things and it was amazing who much weight I felt lifted off my shoulders when I knew that I had captured everything in ToodleDo. About a month ago I came across a chap called Michael Linenberger who had a very different take on how to do To Do lists. Low and behold he also used ToodleDo as the main part of his system I'm still using it today and a few people that work with me have also adopted it.

Michael has a free PDF ebook called The One Minute To Do List. I would urge anyone who has a spare hour or two to have a read through the book and think about whether they could use the system. It's much easier than many systems that are out there thats for sure.

 

[SugarWayRooms]

Thanks for these articles. I really appreciate it. It is personally related to me and good thing I found and read the article you've shared..



SugarWayRooms
Peterborough Room Lets | Rent a Room Peterborough

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

I definitely think that your productivity lowers the longer you work on a task, because nobody can have the mental energy to keep up with something for so long. When I am working from home rather than in the office, I find it much easier, because I can go and do something in between tasks. My working day is quite long, but I will split it up by going for walks or even going to meet up with friends in the middle of the day. Because then I know that I will be able to focus just that little better when I get home. If you're in an office, though, and tied to a certain number of working hours, you might not be able to put this into action quite as effectively, but you could still make it so that certain aspects of the job are alternated during the course of the day to allow your staff a little bit of variety.

 

[Liz @ Human Nature]

One of my big strategies for increasing productivity is suggesting working in short bursts on the tasks that we find difficult. If you are not really good at detail, for example, and you have to put together a spreadsheet full of minute detail, or build your website, you're going to be working out of preference. That's going to make the tasks really tiring. So it makes perfect sense to work in short time blocks on these tasks. However, ironically, we often think that we need to put aside several hours or a full day to work on these things, meaning that we find them MUCH harder (or that something else comes up and we find a reason not to get started)! It can actually be much more beneficial to put aside 30 minutes a day, every day for a week, to work on these difficult things, than putting aside a half day.

 

[Scottish Business Owner]

Some great tips here. Thank Gemma & Liz

I've started to adopt short time blocks myself over the past few months and am feeling the benefit. I'm now getting out of the office for 2 or 3 10 minute breaks where I just walk around but I find it certainly clears the mind and gets you back on focus.

I'm still not there with the to do lists yet. I just cant make them stick no matter how gard I try. I get the fact you need to keep doing it until it becomes routine but my head just seems to not want to work that way for some reason

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

I love my to-do lists though, they're a bit of an obsession.. sometimes, when I'm writing them, I'll put down things that I've already done just so that I can cross them off! Okay I can't believe I admitted that. But it's great because it means you can look forward to crossing the next thing off the list and that brings incredible satisfaction! Or maybe that's just me..!

 

[adamscott0719]

if we talk about me, then such a system does not suit me - I do not have time to concentrate and get into the task as much as possible

 

[KilaMila]

I am always productive for 3-4 hours, then I and my brain need a mandatory break at least for 15-20 minutes, or better for 30.