Tag: “Advice”

Email is one of the most used communication tools these days. And the one I most recommend, if you do not want to waste a good portion of your time. Everyone has an email and this kind of conversation is asynchronous, which means that, unlike phone calls, instant messaging and meetings (whether face-to-face or by video-conference), the interlocutors do not share the same spot of time and, therefore, answers do not have to be immediate.

In addition to your usual and familiar routines and daily work tasks, you surely have in your to-do lists a handful of tasks that will require a certain level of creativity to get done (and sometimes, a lot of creativity will be necessary). These tasks can be hazardous to your productivity. On the one hand, if you don’t feel very creative, you may put these tasks off. On the other hand, though, these more unusual and creative-oriented tasks are often the ones you will want to do the most in those moments when you feel especially lucid, and this can become a detriment to your ability to accomplish other tasks that may be more important at the time but which don’t seem as interesting or fun.

The phrase “falling off the wagon” is commonly used when we want to say that, despite our good intentions to acquire a certain habit, we have not been able to. We ended up leaving. We screwed up.

Unfortunately, we all have to waste some of our precious time waiting somewhere. At the airport, at the doctor’s office, at the bank, at the postal office, in a appointment with an unpunctual person… There is a good amount of waiting times we do not choose or plan, so that when they arrive, we just try to spend the time the best possible.

Today, our productivity is always threatened by the existence of constant interruptions that we cannot control. An interruption is anything that prevents you from starting and ending an important task. It is hard to do the important things and ignore the trivial when the universe is conspiring against you.