Working hours counter: don't waste a minute of your time

The working hours counter doesn't stop... but, unfortunately, the same is not true for your concentration... or that of your employees. Although the brain does not stop all day, many of the activities it carries out are not productive at all.

It is time to put a stop to this by finding out what usually steals time and how to prevent this from happening.

How to prevent the working hours counter from running down without affecting productivity

Our time is finite and irreplaceable and, in the workplace, we are paid by the minute.. Once a moment, a day or a year is gone, it is gone forever and it is not fair that sometimes this happens without a return in productivity.

Employees must be protected and shielded from external and internal influences that prevent important tasks from being carried out., The ones that make us occupy a certain position in the company.

The first step is to get to know those time thieves that work against the working hours counter and time and attendance. With the necessary adaptation to teleworking and time control for employees working from home.

External influences that detract from productivity

Interruptions. A phone call or a visitor affects performance because not only does it take time to deal with the interruption itself, but it takes fifteen minutes on average to regain concentration and restore productive work after the interruption. The solution is to move to an area where the phone and email cannot cause distractions or where unexpected visitors cannot be received, so that the hour meter will report only minutes actually worked.
Disorder and disorganisation. Physical clutter can cost us time because we are looking for things and taking care of items we don't really need. We also need to organise our time, because if we don't have a plan for how and when things will get done, we won't be able to manage our time in the office well. The solution is to find a system that ensures order in the workplace and to plan each day's activity at the end of the previous day.
Meetings. Studies show that many of those who attend meetings have other things on their minds. For while meetings can be valuable, they can also lead to a significant amount of wasted time.. The solution to avoid wasting minutes is to plan the programme well and to arrive well informed about the topics to be discussed and what is expected of everyone's participation..

Internal influences that detract from effectiveness

It is not always others who cause a drop in our productivity, even if the working hours counter is still running. Sometimes we ourselves are our own biggest obstacle.

Regret, which leads us to regret past mistakes and dwell on negative thoughts; self-doubt, which does not facilitate proper prioritisation by leading to lack of self-confidence; or comparison, which involves measuring ourselves by what other people are doing or how they are doing it can be emotionally damaging behaviours.

But they are also unfavourable for the company, as they detract from productivity and affect performance, motivation and the working environment.

In conclusion, defending ourselves against habits that make us less effective and waste minutes of our time requires us to be more aware of how we use our working day. and look for ways to improve the use of every hour spent at the workplace or at home teleworking.

It's simple, if you embrace purpose, have the will to improve and apply good practices such as:

Set a time to check email. This way, you won't be constantly logging in and out of the application or replying to emails as a drip.
Set a target for effective activity time and deserved rest time. For example, for every hour of work, five minutes of disconnection by checking the news on the internet or getting up to drink a glass of water.

Do you think that, from now on, the working hours counter will be more in line with the tasks that have been accomplished?