Sometimes when I feel overwhelmed with too many things to do, I think back to my university days back then I was enrolled in, I dunno, six or more courses per term, but I still managed to get it all done without knowing it. I was using a strategy to actually stretch time and get more done in less time on today's show. I'm going to teach you this exact strategy. I'm a man Ahmed. Welcome to be. Well, do.
Today, I'm talking about a simple but effective time management strategy that will actually make it feel like you can get more done in less time. I know big promises to illustrate this example. Let me tell you a quick little. I remember a while back, I had moved into a new house and the pink colors that the previous owners had chosen really weren't my style. I want it to have something a bit neutral in one room, something a little bit more lively in another.
And I want it to paint a feature wall in the family room. Imagine what would happen if you started to prime in one room and then left it and left the paintbrush and the rollers and the paint to go do another room and to do the. Then you leave that and you go to your other room and start painting the feature wall with a color. By the time you come back to the first room, your roller is now dry and you have to go and wash it and get it ready for another coat of paint.
Then you go back to your second room and your paintbrush is now dry. So you're going to have to take care of that. Then you go back to your third room. You get the point. If you keep hopping back and forth between the rooms and you don't finish one specific room, it's going to end up taking a lot less. Then you need it too. So needless to say, this is not efficient, but this is what we do all day long at work.
We have good intentions of opening our email and processing, but then we get distracted by an urgent phone call or a client request. Then we come back and we realize that that we have a meeting that we have to get to. So we leave our email half. Go to the meeting and then come back to that email. But then we realized we didn't take great notes during your emails. So you have to rewatch your meeting, recording to figure out what to do next.
This is what happens every day, all day, all around the globe, inefficient. And it just ends up wasting a lot of time. This is where timeboxing comes in. You've probably heard the term in many different ways, but in a nutshell, Time boxing is just as it sounds, you create a box of time and you don't do anything, but the task. Okay. Well, it may not feel like you're getting a lot done in a day. Completing tasks actually has a really profound, psychological effect.
You don't have that cognitive overload sitting on your shoulders and you're not thinking about it all the time. It also works incredibly well because. You're finishing one task, then moving to the other. Some estimates say that we lose up to 50% productivity by switching tasks. Now, how would you feel if you could get more done in the day by simply focusing on one task at a time, what would you actually get done? Maybe you'd have more time to spend with your family.
Maybe you'd have more time to actually work on the project that keeps getting put on the back of. If you're interested in learning more about timeboxing and a software, I use check out the show notes@bewelldowell.fm slash six. Join me tomorrow on a show where I'll be talking about all things, sushi, happiness, and the source of fulfillment. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.