Time blocking and structuring the day

[Ehsanuls55]

Did you know that the average person wastes 218 minutes a day avoiding necessary work? That's about 55 days a year spent dodging tasks.

Executives can avoid this by using a practical method known as time blocking to structure their day. It's simple and flexible. One thing it certainly does is curb procrastination.

CEOs who use time blocking to stay grounded with realistic expectations.

Take Elon Musk, for example. The billionaire founder of SpaceX and Tesla swears by the effectiveness of time blocking. And it's not just him: CEOs like Bill Gates and productivity experts like Cal Newport also rely on this technique to keep their schedules on track and their to-do lists under control.

The Pomodoro technique to focus on work
In the late 1980s, an Italian college student named Francesco Cirillo invented what is now cio & cto email list known as the Pomodoro Technique.

I discovered that you could learn to improve your efficiency and better estimate the time a task would take by recording how you use your time."

It sounds fancy, but it's actually very simple and perfect for busy executives who want to improve their time management:

Choose a project or task you want to focus on
Set a timer for 25-30 minutes and get to work.
When the timer goes off, take a two or three minute break.
Repeat
After four sessions, take a longer break
Mark each session with an X in your notebook to keep track of your progress.
A 25-minute Pomodoro session is long enough to make progress, but not so long that it becomes overwhelming – perfect for preventing mental fatigue .

Four Pomodoro sessions can turn into a very productive morning.

Plus, the shorter tasks during these sessions give executives a chance to catch up with their team or even hear from clients.

And after all that concentrated work? It's time for lunch, or even a well-deserved nap.

Companies like Google and NASA have sleep pods to boost employee productivity. According to the National Sleep Foundation, a study found that a 40-minute nap can increase productivity by 34%.