Using time efficiently and effectively.

A technological advances increase, more individuals in the workforce are experiencing more stress. Sometimes, the single most useful thing you can do to take control of your time and your environment, to keep stress at a minimum, and be highly productive, is to employ a timer. You can buy one in any electronics store. If you know you have an appointment at 11:00 a.m., it's currently 8:15 a.m., and you want to have two and a half-solid hours to work on something else, the timer enables you to devote your full attention to the project at hand.

You know at 10:45 a.m., you'll hear the little buzzer or beep, and you'll have enough time to prepare for your 11:00 a.m. appointment. If you don't use a timer, you'll find yourself looking at your watch or clock and continually assessing how much you've done and how much you've got to go before your appointment. In other words, like the sprinter who looks back over his or her shoulder to see if anybody's gaining and ends up losing the race by a tenth of a second, relying on a watch or clock is like looking over your shoulder. A considerable amount of software today also provides timer-related functions. Hence, you could set a bell or alarm on your PC to go off at the appointed time.

A Cumulative Impact

Working one-on-one with career professionals, I've learned that much of the stress on the job is derived from the myriad of functions that handle, not because any particular task is so difficult in its undertaking.

When you have small task after small task heaped upon people, you can't get to any of them, they all begin to loom larger and more ornery. By using a timer, you can mentally say to yourself: I'm going to devote 15 minutes to task A, no more, no less because that's all it merits. When the 15 minutes are up, many times you'll find that you've completed the task or you are as far along as you wanted to be. If you're not through, you can always make the decision to continue. I suggest that at that point you set the timer again, and for, a defined period of time, get back to work on the project.

I know this sounds a little regimented. I'm not advocating you work like this all day long every day. For those times when niggling tasks start mounting up, allotting them each so much time will enable you to mow them down with dispatch.