Managing time fallacy and how to get better

Effective time management is the key to maximizing personal productivity.

At WeDo, we’ve been doing some research about time management so we can learn how to best help you. Time management is a tricky thing to master and surprisingly, what most people think is effective time management is actually the most inefficient approach to work.

Productive people already have a grasp on time management. It’s not too difficult to stay organized, minimize outside distractions, and commit to one task at a time. But the biggest development in understanding and maximizing time management is not something you’d expect.

When facing an intimidating do-do list, it’s only natural to prioritize the work that needs to be done and begin with the most important task. This approach is instinctual; it feels productive. However, research shows that prioritizing actually inhibits productivity. Time spent prioritizing work is time spent not working, which makes it more effective to just get started. Eliminating the extra step decreases the amount of time it will take to get everything done.

This approach to productivity redefines and simplifies time management. And it actually works: When asked about time management, Elon Musk admitted, “I’ve actually not read any books on time management.” This article reports that Musk is committed to a consistent workflow, uninhibited and uninterrupted by a preset schedule.

You don’t need to think about working, you just need to start working. Prioritizing is productive in terms of keeping occupied, sure, but it’s not productive by means of actual progress.

This is how computers efficiently manage tasks. Every operating system has a scheduler that decides how much time to allocate to each task before moving onto the next. Machines move much faster and more smoothly than humans do (obviously), but even computers get overwhelmed. Though they give off the illusion of multi-tasking, this is not the case. Computers recognize that some tasks are more important than others, but rather than prioritizing individual tasks, they group them. Although rank of importance is less precise, progress is drastically increased.

When it comes to interruptions, there’s a fundamental tension between productivity and responsiveness. In an ideal world, nothing would interrupt progress, but it’s important to find the balance point between staying focused on your tasks and responding to possible (important) interruptions.

Watch the Ted video on time managing like a machine here!

To start putting this into action, download WeDo — The #1 life manager. iOS, Android, Web, Mac, info.

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