Learning how to make time pass is like doing a weight loss diet: you can’t see the results immediately, but within some time, you’ll be able to make the minutes that seem most interminable fly by.
Some days pass relatively quickly, but other days seem like an endless tunnel where we find ourselves staring at the clock over and over again, hoping it will move faster.
This situation is even more common since working from home has become much more prevalent thanks to COVID-19.
We know that sometimes the monotony of the daily routine can turn a day into eternity. So to help you remedy the current situation, we’ve created a list with the best tips to help you turbocharge your productivity and live in the present!
Start meditating
Meditation is a great way to make time go by faster.
We become unproductive and need more time to do things when we’re not focused, and our minds wander elsewhere, which is why it’s ideal to start your day by meditating. Your mind will be more explicit by carving out even 10-20 minutes to meditate.
An article in www.entrepreneur.com/article/339410 points out how meditation can help decrease stress, increase productivity and improve self-awareness. Here’s a passage, “When we’re tense, cortisol – the stress hormone – releases chemicals, cytokines, that promote inflammation. In turn, these interfere with sleep and promote depression, anxiety, fluctuating blood pressure, and mental confusion.
Meditation helps regulate sleep by controlling cortisol and stimulating the release of happiness hormones such as endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin. This mechanism, in turn, allows you to be stress-free and therefore, also be very productive!”.
Prioritize the most challenging tasks
You could try to make time go by faster by doing the most important tasks when you are most productive.
Most people are most clear-headed in the morning (often after coffee), so no matter what time you start your workday, start by working on the task or project that takes the most time, requires the most energy, or is most important.
Tackling the most challenging project first has two significant benefits. First, it will help give you a boost; when you’ve attacked your most effective or most difficult task, everything else will seem relatively easy in comparison.
Secondly, it will make the time go by faster because once you’ve started your big project, you’ll probably be so focused you won’t notice the time going by. This is especially true in the morning when you’re more clear-headed. It’s easier to focus intensely on one thing at a time, rather than distracting yourself with email, social media, or dozens of other things to do.”
Start timing yourself as you accomplish various tasks
Many people make a mistake: letting work invade the rest of their day. As a result, a workday that should last from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ends up starting at 9 a.m. and is never-ending.
To avoid burnout, the best way to speed up your workday is to assign specific time frames to the tasks you’re working on. If you don’t, you’ll soon have Parkinson’s law and find yourself working 12 hours a day instead of 8.
Some gurus will tell you that you’re doing great, but in reality, you’re just on a self-destructive path that leads to burnout and depression.
The choice is yours only: do you want to work to live, or live to work?
Divide your time into time blocks using a calendar
The first step to planning a more productive day is creating a to-do list. However, this doesn’t come in handy for many people because they don’t correctly calculate the time needed for each task.
One possible solution is to divide the day into sections. For example, use your calendar to divide your day into blocks of time.
Each time you complete a block of work, some dopamine will be released, which will help you keep going. When you separate planning and action in this way, you need less trigger energy to move forward.
Google Calendar is one of the best tools for scheduling meetings: it allows you to quickly create, organize and schedule in-person meetings or remote sessions.
Feed your mind
Paul Greene, a psychologist at the Manhattan Center for Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, shared the following thoughts on how to make time go by faster while maintaining the ideal work-life balance:
Time moves slowly when we work from home, especially those who don’t like their jobs. If you find yourself in this situation, two things often help:
1) When you’re not working, feed your mind making it a point to pursue other interests.
You can do whatever you want, wherever you are. You can read a book in Central Park if you are in New York if you thirst for knowledge, play slot games on www.vegasslotsonline.com/nz if you are in New Zealand if you like to play online on safe and trusted sites, or you can watch a movie on Netflix from the comfort of your home in Australia if you are looking to relax.
You could also engage in religion, spirituality, or a hobby. Having a balanced life will help your time pass more quickly!
2) If you work from home, it’s easy to let the workday extend beyond what it should. Try to be disciplined and divide the workday and free time. Seeing the end in sight helps us cope with unpleasant experiences.
Do physical activity
Our next tip will have you sweating (a little) throughout your workday.
It would help if you always exercised whenever you feel lethargic. Exercise helps increase oxygen levels in the body, clears the mind, and makes it alert.
Intense exercise is unnecessary; even a simple cardio workout can do wonders if the alternative is no exercise.
So whenever you feel unproductive during work hours, a quick sports session can come to your aid. After all, thanks to the influx of oxygen-rich blood to the brain, exercise helps keep the mind alert and makes us more productive.
We have come to the end of this article. Don’t wait until a new week begins to use these techniques. Start making the time go by faster now!
