It's about managing focus, not time

We live in a world full of chaos and our Universe works in a random way, so no one knows what’s coming up next. No matter how much you plan your tasks and fit them into time slots, you will still miss something.You don't really have much control on how you want to spend your day, you can plan it up to some extent and the other hours are reactions to things around you.

Time is a constant and it’s the same for everyone, it will flow as it flows, with that very same speed. You might think you have control over it, but it just slips by.

As you start planning your days with slotting tasks in the allotted 24 hours, you seem to be doing fine in the beginning. But then one day you realise, you missed a few tasks in the last few days and now it looks tough to catch up.

The only thing that is in your control is the focus, the moment when you are with yourself. Managing time might seem to be the most obvious thing, but focus is what helps you hit with the full swing. No matter whether you have one hour or one day to finish a task, if your focus is rough, whatever time you have will not be enough.

Don't let distractions drive you away, they are not there to stay. Distractions are what drive you away from focus and your tasks. Filter out distractions as much as you can and build your focus, as it is the most powerful tool you have in your control. Focus on one thing at a time and your productivity will flow and you will be able to get more done in that same limited time.

It's about a productive and motivated team: investing in company culture

Motivation is one of the most vital factors that makes a workplace productive. If you are not motivated enough to do what you are doing, the time will slip by, with not much done. During this phase, you are busy keeping yourself distracted and when you notice that you have deadlines to catchup on, your productivity is affected. With the worries of time running by, it’s difficult to stay focused on the tasks in hand and so less work becomes so much more.

Why invest in company culture at all.?

For a company to grow, it’s not about an individual or the work a team is doing, but about how productively and together a team is moving.

We spend most of our day in the workplace and if we are not comfortable with people around us, it will not get the best out of us.

If most of our day is be spent around people we don’t care about, we don't really have a reason to work for the company, we are just getting paid. With positive team building and motivated environment everyone will be more willing to take challenges, not because they can do it, but because they are confident about themselves as a team.

Pomodoro Technique: This is how I became more productive

What is Pomodoro Technique?

• Pomodoro is a productivity technique that allows you to focus on a single task for a chunk of time.
• Original technique is 25 mins of work on a single task, you can modify it according to your own tasks and your concentration span, but research shows that 25 is the right amount of time to continuously focus on a single task.
• You just need to turn on the timer of 25 minutes and start working on a task and continue working without any breaks as long as the timer is ticking.
• It is more effective when there is tic tic sound to go with the timer, it gives you the sense of time passing and and allows you to focus more on the task in hand.

How I use it?

I have been using this technique for a few years now, my workflow is such, that I am almost all over the place online. When I am working on something, there are times, when I get lost somewhere is youtube or an article. So I started using this technique to keep myself working on a single task for at least 25 min. In the beginning it seemed like I am forcing myself, but after sometime the temptation to look for a new article or a youtube video slowly started dying and I found myself more productive. You wouldn't even realise, but you will be able to get more stuff done with the same time, you once felt was less to get things done. So get all the items in your todo list and assign them at least 1 Pomodoro session in a day and you will get closer and closer to your end goals.

Apps that can help you

There are many tools that can help you practice this, one of the free solution is Focusbooster, it is available for mac and windows and is one of the best pomodoro technique app available for windows and mac. The other option is for mac users, called Pomodoro Timer, it will cost you $2.99 but it also offers some extra functionalities like Pomodoro goals for the day, and it also tells you how many Pomodoro sessions you have completed in a day. You can surely find many options to try out and you can simply use pen and paper to track the number of sessions and a simple phone timer to track your session timing. It depends on you, what app or workflow suits your needs and make you more productive, but I will surely recommend you to try this technique in your work to boost your productivity. Don't forget to tell me your experiences in the comments section below.

Know more about the technique on it's official site: The Pomodoro Technique