Round-Up #96: How To Track Your Spending, Why Task Switching Is So Bad For You And A Six Hour Work Day
In this week’s round-up we look at how you can manage your finances with just a couple of highlighters, what happens when you cut your working day down to just 6 hours and the problems of distractions and multitasking.
Hello and welcome to this week’s round-up. This week we take a look at why notifications are bad (trust me, they are!), a way to tame your finances with just a pen and how you can control your phone like Harry Potter.
Do you mind the clock? Or does time mind you? – Act-On
Who runs your day? Is it you or the clock? If you’re constantly clock-watching, and playing catch-up whilst trying to get things done on time then this article from Act-On may help. It has 10 simple ways for you to tame your shedule and make it work for you.
The Secret To Success: Plan, Prioritize and Relax – Wilmington Biz
There’s some goo information here about “unplugging” yourself. Get rid of all of your notifcations, stop constantly checking email (and Facebook!) and make sure you take regular breaks are all part of the great advice to ensure you get stuff done.
How To Reduce Distractions, Improve Productivity And Leave On Time – Huffington Post Australia
It used to be in order to get ahead at work you needed to be the first in and last out of the office each day. Now leaving late can be seen as a sign of poor time management – especially as companies are becoming more aware that a decent work-life balance is important for employee productivity.
How to Stop Task Switching Without Actually Fighting It – Team Gantt
I’ve written previously about the perils of multi-tasking in the past. Whilst you may think you’re being more productive by switching between tasks you’re actually spending a lot of time mentally aclimatising to each different role. This article explains why you need to stop multi-tasking but getting rid of distractions and focusing on the task at hand.
What happened after Sweden introduced a six hour work day – Indy100
Think you need a full 8 hour work day to get everything done? Think again! This article covers an interesting experiment in Sweden where work days were reduced to just 6 hours – and do you know what? People were more productive during that time! If you want to know how to set up a shorter day in your workplace you can check out this Business Insider U.K article written by Stephen Aarstol who moved his company to a 5 hour workday with great success.
How To Declutter Your Online Space And Free Up Your Mind – Violet Roots
There’s another vote here for turning off notifications – do you see a pattern forming this week? Violet has some great tips here and one of the is to sort out your electronic filing. I know I’m terrible for just checking everthing in a vague project folder (this is only a recent thing, I used to be super organised, honest!) and the amount of time I spend looking for a particular file is crazy!
The Highlighter Budgeting Method – Fulfilled For Less
Do know where where your money goes? I would suspect that a large portion of it gets spent on things you don’t even realise you’re spending money on. My secret spending? Random Amazon stationary purchased (they make it far to buy things!) I’m pretty sure if you could see that expenditure visually it may make you think twice about spending your hard earned cash (although you can never own too much stationary, right?)
Keyboard Shortcuts Every Marketer Should Know – M2 Social
Keyboard shortcuts can save you a massive amount of time when working on things. This infographic from M2 Social has a really comprehensive lost of keyboard shortcuts to make you the master of your browser and social media – and you can use all of the time you’ve saved for looking up Cat videos on YouTube!
Best Productivity Blogs in 2016 – A Bag Of Tricks
I was lucky enough to be features as one of the best productivity blogs of 2016 – yeay! Take a look at the rest of the list, I’m in some fantastic company. For the 100th round-up I’m putting together a list of productivity blogs you need to check out so if you have any suggestions of sites I may have missed drop me a note in the comments or contact me
15 Things That’ll Make Staying Organized So Much Easier – Buzzfeed
Literally get your s**t together with these great organisational products!
You Can Now Control Your Android Phone With ‘Harry Potter’ Spells – Nerd Approved
Unfortunately you can’t cast a patrous with your phone (yet) but you can do a few fun things with some Harry Potter spells – and look up locations from the new film Fantastic Beasts An Where To Find Them.
Have A Great Weekend
I hope you have a good one, I’m off to buy a load more stationary I don’t need!