Being smart with your time: Efficiency over Quantity

How is the quality of how you are using your time?

When you sit down to do work how much of that time is actually spent doing the work?

Sometimes looking at efficiency of the time used is better that the quantity.

It might be more efficient to sit down for 45 mins of work than tell yourself that you will work on something for 3 hours. In fact you may find that you get the same amount of work done (if not more) in 45 mins than 3 hrs…. what??!!

I say in my sessions that tasks often take as long as you have to do them. If you have 4 hours to do a task it will take 4 hours. If you have a whole day to do a task it will day all day. If you have 45 mins to do a task it will often take 45 mins.

Why?

1) Urgency is one of the main motivators for the ADHD brain. Having a time interval that has moderate urgency can help provide less time for your mind to wander.

2) It is easier to motivate yourself to start a 45 mins session verse a 3 hour session. And if you are having trouble started a task something might need to be adjusted.

3) It provides the same sense of accomplishment.

4) It doesn’t burn through all of your energy — focusing on one thing for an extended period of time is not our strong suit (unless in hyperfocus). In fact it requires way more energy from us than neurotypical people. Therefore if we force ourselves to sit down for 3 hours and focus we are going to be EXHAUSTED at the end and the likelihood of us sitting down to work again any time soon is very slim. We will need time to recover. A shorter work interval allows for some work to be accomplished and leaves energy to help recover and come back sooner to the task.

**The time intervals I chose are random so please adjust them to better suit your natural work rhythm.