How to Spend the Last 10 Minutes of Your Workday
Just like school, however cool your workplace is, closing time still remains such a blissful time. Knowing you are just a couple of minutes away from the official time of close of work suddenly gives this rush of pleasure that just gives you a feeling of hope even when you know you would be returning to work the following day.
Although hardly put into consideration, the last 10–15 minutes of your workday can pass as the most productive time of your day and help you have more productive days going forward. Except you have an urgent project to close up on at work, there’s a great chance that you are just aimlessly scrolling through social media or having random chatter at a colleague’s desk, waiting for the clock to hit 5pm before you pack your bags to leave the office. It’s probably worse if you worse if you live in a busy city like Lagos, Nigeria. The desire to leave work just before traffic builds up, sets in about 1 hour before the close of work.
Ensuring that you spend these last few minutes of work well can help you become more productive and efficient at work and in life. Here’s a list of things you can do to ensure that you spend the last few minutes of work productively:
1.Review the day’s work
It’s easy to be caught up in all the work activities and forget that you are actually not as productive as you should be. In the day’s review, you examine the tasks you were able to finish up, how long it took you to finish them and more importantly what you can do to be more efficient at work. At the workplace, it’s not just enough to get through your daily tasks.
2. Declutter your desk
This might not apply to everyone but for those who deal with files, books, documents etc. meeting a truckload of unsorted documents at your desk can leave you overwhelmed for the rest of the day. To avoid that, arrange and sort all documents, files and other randoms ahead of the new day.
3. Plan your To-do list for the next day
Nothing gives one a bit of an assurance of a productive day like a To do list. Putting in mind, the unfinished tasks of the day, the review of the day and projects to be finished, you can plan a list of things to be done at work the next day. This ensures that you are in the proper frame of mind for work the next day.
4. Think through
That problem at work, the project to be finished and brainstorming session ahead won’t think itself through. These next few minutes before close of work can be spent in solitude or with other colleagues thinking through the next big challenge at work
5. Sleep
As long as this is permitted by your management, you can take a nap for the next few minutes as this outs your brain to rest and keeps you reinvigorated for the rest of the journey home.
I wish you more productive days at work!
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