Don’t get distracted and waste valuable time! Efficient time management is an incredibly valuable skill set. However, all the to-do lists and flawless scheduling in the world won’t make you proficient if you are unable to also maintain focus. Technology has certainly made leaps and bounds in the last couple of decades, but with progress also comes a downside.

You might be reading this right now on a smartphone. And when you are finished reading (because hey, this is valuable content) you’ll likely open another app, and then another, until you look up and realize you’ve lost an hour of time. But at least while you were aimlessly scrolling you learned that flamingos can live up to 70 years and some fruit flies are genetically resistant to getting drunk.

Distractions are everywhere! Often we believe we are multitasking by handling a distraction while attempting to also work on another task. On the contrary, what we end up with is divided attention and a lousy job on both fronts. We get sucked in by notifications and alerts vying for our attention. Continue reading →

For anyone who is trying to be wise about time management, list-making seems to be a big component. Probably the most common scenario though is that people have trouble prioritizing their lists. At the end of the day, they feel as if they were going 90-to-nothing from sun up to sun down but accomplished very little. Without prioritization, time management is impossible.

Picture a simple grocery list. Whether you’re going to your local grocery market or a new one, most items are grouped much the same way. It’s much easier to swiftly move from aisle to aisle if the shopping list is also organized.

With an unorganized list, you’re standing there on the first aisle scanning the list and hoping you get everything, so you don’t have to come back to that aisle. Because we all know backtracking is a waste of time, but so is standing there constantly referring to the poorly planned list over and over again. Continue reading →