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

How to prevent the work hour counter from running without it being reflected in 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 has passed, it is gone forever, and it is not fair that, on occasion, 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., which are what cause us to 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 attendance tracking. With the necessary adaptation for remote working and for monitoring the time of employees working from home.

External influences that detract from productivity

1. Interruptions. A phone call or a visitor affects performance, as it not only takes time to deal with the interruption itself, but regaining concentration and restoring productive work after that lapse requires, on average, fifteen minutes. The solution is to move to an area where the phone and email cannot cause distractions, or where unexpected visitors cannot call, this way, the work time clock will only report minutes actually worked.
2. Disorder and disorganisation. Physical clutter can cost us time as we search for things and look after 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 minutes in the office well. The solution is to look for a system that guarantees order in the workplace and to plan each day's activity at the end of the previous one.
3. Meetings. There are various studies that prove many attendees at meetings are thinking about other things. This is because, although 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 agenda well and ensure all attendees arrive well-informed about the topics to be discussed and what is expected of each person's participation..

Internal influences that detract from effectiveness

It's not always others who cause a drop in our productivity, even if the work hour counter keeps ticking. Sometimes we are our own biggest obstacle.

Regret, which leads us to lament past mistakes and to drown in negative thoughts; doubt, which hinders the correct establishment of priorities by leading to a 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, moreover, they are unfavourable for the company, since they reduce productivity and affect performance, motivation and the workplace environment.

In conclusion, To defend ourselves against habits that make us less effective and waste minutes of our time, we need to be more aware of how we utilise 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 the purpose, you'll want to improve and apply good practices like:

• Set a time to check email. This way, you won't be constantly entering and exiting the app or responding to emails in a piecemeal fashion.
• Set a target for effective activity time and deserved rest time. For example, for every hour of work, five minutes of disconnection to check the news on the internet or get up for 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 completed?