Are you wearing “busy” as a badge of honour?

We all have the same amount of hours in a day, days in a week, weeks in a year, but it’s how we use these hours, that varies from person to person. Do you ever wonder how some people manage to fit so much into their days and achieve remarkable results?

We can't control the amount of time we have, but we can control what we do with it. Too often, we walk around declaring how busy we are, as if 'busy' is a badge of honour. But research shows that ‘chronic busyness’ can be detrimental to our health. The long-term activation of the stress-response system, and the overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones, can disrupt almost all of your body’s processes. This can lead to anxiety, depression, headaches, heart disease, sleep problems, and memory and concentration impairment.

Productivity, not busyness, is what impacts the quality of our lives. Greater productivity can lead to more time and joy in your personal life and improve the speed, quality, and enjoyment of your work. You’ll feel less stressed, have a better work-life balance, achieve more, and experience greater happiness.So how do we boost our productivity and help you make the most of the hours we have available to us? I’ve taken some highlights from our Time and Energy Management workshop on things you can do right now to boost your productivity. 
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• Tip 1: Set Clear Goals
  Clarify what truly matters in your day to align with your organization's vision and mission. If your goals are unclear, make it a priority to seek clarity.
• Tip 2: Recharge & Take Breaks
  Think of your energy like a bank account: spending more than you earn leads to being overdrawn. Identify activities that drain and replenish your energy. Schedule time for recharging activities like exercise, meditation, or music.
• Tip 3: Schedule Your Time Frames
  Organise your time around ultradian rhythms—90-minute cycles of peak energy and recovery. After 90 minutes of focused work, take breaks to replenish your energy. Ignoring these rhythms leads to lower productivity and more errors.
• Tip 4: Prioritisation
  Use the Eisenhower matrix to prioritise tasks by urgency and importance. Focus on what's important and urgent, decide on less urgent important tasks, delegate urgent but less important tasks, and delete tasks that are neither. Reflect on your past week to better prioritise.
• Tip 5: Keep Focus & Reduce Distractions
  Multitasking increases stress and disrupts productivity. It takes over 23 minutes to refocus after a distraction. Identify and minimise distractions by limiting email checks, turning off notifications, and scheduling phone checks. Use a traffic light system for availability and celebrate achievements to stay motivated.

By implementing these strategies, you can transform your approach to time and energy management. Reflect on your current productivity levels and use these tips to make meaningful changes. After all, how you manage your 168 hours is entirely up to you.