Research has revealed that the more our brains are bombarded by the competing stimuli on a cluttered desk, the less we’re able to focus. Photo: freepik.com.
Travis Bradberry says a cluttered desk and paying constant attention to every email that drops are just two signs of a lack of focus and a disorganised mind.
We often confuse being productive with working as fast as we can, every second of the day.
We fear that slowing down to get organised will kill our productivity, but the facts suggest otherwise.
One survey found the average office worker spends more than one hour each day just looking for things.
Another discovered that 23 per cent of adults say they’re late paying their bills because they lose them.
Being disorganised is costly, in terms of both money and time, but if you can convince yourself to slow down and get organised, the return on investment will shock you.
Experts estimate that every hour spent in planning and organising saves three to four hours that would otherwise be wasted.
You can become more organised and productive. Below, I list some of the habits that the most organised and calm people I know rely on.
They don’t let their desks get cluttered: Just the act of organising the stuff on your desk helps you organise it in your mind.
Research conducted at Princeton University revealed that the more our brains are bombarded by competing stimuli on a cluttered desk, the less we’re able to focus.
This wasn’t just subjective evidence; the researchers were able to see the difference in MRIs of the subject’s brain activity.
They never touch things twice: Organised and productive people never put anything in a holding pattern, because touching things twice is a huge time-waster.
Don’t save an email or a phone call to deal with later. As soon as something gets your attention, you should act on it, delegate it, or delete it.
They don’t respond to emails as they arrive: Productive people don’t allow their email to be a constant interruption.
In addition to checking their email on a schedule, they take advantage of features that prioritise messages by sender.
They set alerts for their bosses or most important clients, and they save the rest until they reach a stopping point in their work.
They work from a single to-do list: Remember the days when people bought those expensive, leather-bound planners and filled them up with a to-do list colour-coded by priority?
They might seem a bit old-school now, but they were effective because they reminded us how important it is to keep a single to-do list.
When you consolidate everything into one list, you always know where to look, and you can stop wasting time trying to remember which list has the information you need.
They make time for lunch: We’ve all been there – you’re head-down busy and by the time you look up, it’s way past lunchtime.
You end up either going without or grabbing a donut or a bag of chips from the snack machine. Both are really bad ideas.
The donut will give you an energy boost for about 20 minutes, but after that, your focus will drop like a rock.
As far as skipping meals, not only does it affect your concentration, productivity, and problem-solving skills, it also affects your waistline – and not in the way you might expect.
Research from Ohio State University shows that the weight you lose by skipping meals is muscle weight that you regain later as fat.
They eat frogs: ‘’Eating a frog’’ is the best antidote for procrastination; ultra-productive people start each morning with this tasty treat.
In other words, they do the least appetising, most dreaded item on their to-do list first, before they do anything else. After that, they’re freed up to tackle the stuff that excites and inspires them.
They tidy up at the end of each day: The best remedy for clutter is to set aside about 10 minutes at the end of each day to organise your desk.
Although we know that it’s best to touch things only once, we’ve all stopped halfway through a task because the phone rang or somebody stopped by to chat.
You really can’t prevent such things, but you can end the day by resolving all of the things you left half-finished.
They plan their days the night before: Organised and productive people go to bed each night secure in the knowledge of what they’ll accomplish the following day.
They get their priorities straight the night before, so that once the day starts, they’re less likely to be distracted by the ‘’tyranny of the urgent’’ – those little fires that pop up and get in the way of their real priorities.
Travis Bradberry is the award-winning co-author of the bestselling book Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and the co-founder of TalentSmart. His books have been translated into 25 languages and are available in more than 150 countries. He can be contacted at TalentSmart.com. This article first appeared on the TalentSmart website.
