Lack of time, stress, frenzy, inability to switch off: sometimes work seems to completely absorb our days, giving us the impression that we have not completed anything we should have done .
It is a common condition that often arises from a lack of organization or from a lack of or approximate time management skills.
However, as far as career women are concerned, the reasons may be further and linked to an inequitable division of free time and work, still strongly linked to the traditional conception of gender and roles (especially as regards the family sphere).
For a single woman, the discussion on time management is essentially linked to the need to emerge and overcome prejudices or distorted visions , reaching the point of exhausting all energy without being able to reach the set goals; for a married woman, perhaps with children, to all this are added the burdens of family life that often weigh exclusively on her shoulders. In both cases, stress, anxiety and haste accumulate, resulting in the only result being wasting a lot of time, never recharging and thus making you below your possibilities.
We try to address the problem by providing advice that is as effective as possible for each category of women. How to better manage your time and increase productivity , in order to combine private life and career ?
# 1 PLAN YOUR DAYS: ESTABLISH PRIORITIES
Organization is the only possible solution to face full and busy days. Make sure you are clear about the schedule for the day, or perhaps the week, to avoid getting water in your throat due to a forgotten appointment or a task that slipped your mind.
Spend a short amount of time each day to plan the next and plan commitments, meetings and tasks so that you always have a line to follow . It will help you to proceed quickly and to face the unexpected events that will inevitably happen: in this way it will be more difficult for you to forget something and, above all, you will not waste time deciding what to do from time to time.
# 2 IMPOSE A MAXIMUM TIME LIMIT
It is possible to adapt the famous Parkinson’s Law to time management : in summary, “the more time you have, the more you will waste” . The point is precisely this, because the more a task seems distant in time, the less one is encouraged to complete it in a short time.
To remedy this, set a maximum amount of time to spend to complete each commitment. Obviously it must be a realistic timing, so it is useless to give yourself a limit of one hour if realistically it takes at least a couple of them! You would just end up finding yourself even more busy and stressed out.
The secret, therefore, lies in imposing a maximum limit to be respected for each time slotwhile you plan your day, without taking it too easy, without procrastinating but without even attributing “superpowers” to yourself: this will exponentially increase your productivity and, with it, your satisfaction .
# 3 START WITH THE MOST DIFFICULT TASKS
Very often, anxiety prompts us to postpone the most difficult tasks throughout the day, thus starting with the easier ones. This apparently logical behavior is strongly counterproductive: a large part of our day is engaged in negligible or trivial jobs that we are led to complete in more time than would be sufficient , thus leaving us little room for maneuver to get to the point, more complex practices.
Choose what you really don’t want to do and put yourself under: just focus on that, without beating around the bush and without changing your mind. Do not go from one job to another just to postpone something that anyway, sooner or later, you will have to deal with .
While it will take a lot of effort on your part (at least initially), learning to grapple with the toughest tasks first will help you worry about the simpler tasks for a tiny portion of your day .
# 4 ELIMINATE (OR MINIMIZE) DISTRACTIONS
We live in the age of continuous connections, social networks and distractions always at hand. It seems trivial but ignoring all the devices that could disturb us is the first thing to do if we want to be more productive and save time.
Having Facebook always open is a great excuse to get away from something boring or problematic. The point is that every time we give in to a distraction, even the most innocent, it takes our brain about half an hour to return to a state of good concentration .
How many times do you go forward in a job and, due to a notification or an email, you spend a quarter of an hour on your smartphone? How long does it take to get back into the rhythm? Much, too much time that you can’t afford to waste .
Schedule your breaks, unplug the phone (if you can) and make sure you check your mail and social networks only during the breaks you have decided to give yourself (because a break every now and then is not only useful but, indeed, it is also advisable).
When at the end of the day you have completed twice as many goals as usual, or maybe it took half the time to complete them, then you can give yourself all the distractions you need … and you will have more time to enjoy them!
# 5 LEARN TO SAY NO AND TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF!
An alternative title could also be “do not let the extra-work commitments burden only on you” .
Learn not to always be too available to colleagues or bosses, not to burden yourself with excessive burdens and not to overcome levels of stress and fatigue that you cannot bear.
Often your desire to do pushes others to take advantage of your kindness or to expect the best at any time and on any occasion: if you have other things to do or you understand that that “favor” would overwhelm you, or you are simply too tired to do it , kindly decline and continue to follow your schedule.
If you live together, are married and / or have children, agree with your partner a fair division of household duties and make sure that the care of the children does not become a concern only for you: it is no longer taken for granted that the woman must be a mother and a home before working, just as you don’t have to give up your career or job that satisfies you to please someone else.
Take care of yourself, meet friends, go to the cinema, to the theater, to dinner out: carve out those spaces all for yourself that are essential for your well-being and, above all, don’t feel guilty about it!
