How To Leave Work At 5 P.M.

And Still Get Everything Done - Forbes

21/04/16 10:37 am

http://blogs.forbes.com/kathryndill/?p=10325

US

RESUME

DATABASE

460 Million Public Proles,Contact Via Mail Or Phone Directly Today!

Kathryn Dill Forbes Sta

The workforce, the workplace, and the future of both.

LEADERSHIP

4/04/2016 @ 3:18PM

39,899 views

How To Leave Work At 5 P.M. And

Still Get Everything Done
Its a pattern with which most full-time
professionals are familiaryoure spending
increasing amounts of time at your desk, but it
feels like youre getting less done. The hours
stretch on, the to-do list grows, and you find
yourself facing a future where you might let go
of your apartment and just start keeping a
toothbrush and slippers in your desk.
Otherwise youll never get it all doneright?
Its an understandable assumption. Most
people feel they have too much to do at work,
and the time-space continuum did not change
when people started using organizational
buzzwords like multi-tasking.
How To Leave Work At 5 P.M. And Still Get
Everything Done
But while few of us leave our desks at 5 p.m.,
watching the minutes tick by in front of your
computer screen is not actually the way to get
ahead, and can even hasten falling further
behind.
There are several reasons why our days have
swelled, says productivity consultant and
author of Never Check Email In The
Morning and Shed Your Stuff, Change Your
Life Julie Morgenstern. Companies
continuously are trying to hire as few people as
possible. Our roles are continuously changing,
the world is changing, were in a time of rapid
changenothing is business as usual.

Subway

Rs. 9

View now

-90%

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathryndill/2016/04/04/how-to-leave-work-at-5-p-m-and-still-get-everything-done-3/print/

Dairy Don

Rs. 7

View now

Page 1 of 6

How To Leave Work At 5 P.M. And Still Get Everything Done - Forbes

21/04/16 10:37 am

Acknowledge that you have more work to do

than time to do it, youre going to do different
things.
Does this mean that starting
tomorrow morning youll be a fully-optimized
task wizard who never sees another 6:30 p.m.
in your cubicle? Probably not. But whatever
your title, industry, or rank within an
organization, a few conscious decisions about
how you spend your time can mean not just
shorter hours at the office, but better ones .
Why not start by figuring out what
youre actually doing with all of your
time? It will probably surprise you.
Maybe you keep trying to write that proposal
but cant help clicking over every few minutes
to see the emails pour in. Or your boss keeps
strolling over to give you tasks while you try to
complete the ones youve already got. Or
youre overwhelmed by trying to work while
maintaining your superior command of
Everything Thats Happening On The Internet.
Whatever the reason, doing too many things at
once can diminish the quality of your work
and add hours to the end of your day. If youre
looking to optimize the time you spend at
work, figuring out how its actually allocated
versus what you think youve been doingis a
great place to start.
Morgenstern recommends keeping a time
diary to start to list your main categories of
responsibility, then tracks how much time
you devote to each.
It will show you where your time is going, and
you can say, Why did I take so long editing?
Because I needed a break, or because I got
stuckyou can find where you wasted time
and start to tweak it, says Morgenstern. Or,
if youre unable to keep track because youre so
scattered, your task is to learn to batch similar
kinds of thinking.
The additional challenge of figuring out what
you do all day? Morgenstern warns that time
spent on modes of communication
responding to email, listening to voicemails,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathryndill/2016/04/04/how-to-leave-work-at-5-p-m-and-still-get-everything-done-3/print/

Page 2 of 6

How To Leave Work At 5 P.M. And Still Get Everything Done - Forbes

21/04/16 10:37 am

marathon meetingsdoesnt count. Youre

only really productive when youre engaged in
the true content of your job description.
See what tasks make the short listand
eliminate the rest.
One of the biggest mistakes people make at
work is putting absolutely everythingbig and
small, essential and inconsequentialon the
to-do list. Approach that potential client!
Order wraps for the lunch meeting! Label
those hanging folders!
Theres no possible way to get it all
accomplishedand most people find it hard to
leave at the end of the day with straggling
tasks still glaring back at them. But the trick,
says Laura Vanderkam, author of I Know How
She Does It: How Successful Women Make the
Most of Their Time, is to figure out what
actually belongs on the listno more than
three to five absolute mustsand ditch the
rest.
Truly think through what your priorities are
for the workday, says Vanderkam. There are
no bonus points for having a long list when
you dont get to everything.
And forget the new app that promises to help
you make the list and accomplish everything
on it. Both Morgenstern and Vanderkam say
when you really need to buckle down and
focus, analog is the way to go.
For many people, even for tech whizzes, a list
thats on papereven if its created on the
computer but printed outis very helpful,
says Morgenstern. You can refer to it without
the danger of going back into that computer
screen, which, she says, is just a portal to the
carnival of distraction that is the internet.
Alarm clocks arent just for waking up
in the morning.
Dont underestimate the power of one of the
simplest tools on your smartphonethe alarm.
Morgenstern says being time conscious can
help you target and overcome all manner of
personal foibles, from being easily distracted
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathryndill/2016/04/04/how-to-leave-work-at-5-p-m-and-still-get-everything-done-3/print/

Page 3 of 6

How To Leave Work At 5 P.M. And Still Get Everything Done - Forbes

21/04/16 10:37 am

to not knowing when to call a task complete.

If youre a perfectionist, you can say, Im
going to spend 90 minutes on this, no more,
and set that alarm, and it helps you overcome
your own perfectionism, says Morgenstern.
You can say, Im going to work for two hours
before I check my email.
Which brings us to
Isnt it time you broke up with email?
When was the last time you thought, I just
wish I had more email in my life? (Probably
back when you had a handle that included the
name of your favorite athlete from childhood.)
You may think this title belongs to someone
you dated in college, but the most poisonous
relationship in your life is the one you are
probably carrying on with email. It wants your
constant attention. Its got its mitts all over
your work computer, laptop, smartphone, and
tablet. Its that constant, shrill, whine that
wants to know WHY YOU ARENT LOOKING
AT IT THIS VERY MOMENT.
Email delivers lots of to dos and lots of
distractions, says Morgenstern, who
recommends eliminating it from the first
waking hour and the first working hour of
every day. Its the worlds most convenient
procrastination device. Thats something you
have control over: you can turn the dinger off.
You cant get into proactive mode if you start
your day reactive.
Its not you. Its email. Shut it down.
Plan your workdays three days in
advanceincluding when youll go
home.
Banking on having the time to plan your day
as its starting is a bad ideaat that point
youre already in the trenches with the tasks
flying fast.
Instead, save some time towards the end of the
day to plan for tomorrow and the two
following days. It will not only keep you on

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathryndill/2016/04/04/how-to-leave-work-at-5-p-m-and-still-get-everything-done-3/print/

Page 4 of 6

How To Leave Work At 5 P.M. And Still Get Everything Done - Forbes

21/04/16 10:37 am

track during the day, youll have a better

understanding of your workload and whether
youre in a position to step up to an additional
challenge, or focus on whats already on the
docket.
When you have a three-day time horizon, as
things come flying at you throughout the day,
instead of instantly shoving them into the
moment, you have context for, Where can I fit
this in? says Morgenstern. If youre only
looking at the next hour, you have no context
for saying yes or no.
And beyond preparing for what you can get
done during the day, commit to when its
going to be over. If your plan is to stay at work
until everything last thing is totally finished,
youre not going to be leaving any time soon
or ever, really.
Its critical, says Morgenstern. There will
always be something else to do.
When all else fails?
Triage.
If youre committed to leaving work at a
certain time, and a late-afternoon task arises
that requires your attention but isnt a matter
of corporate life or death, you need to assess
and attack within the time you have
remainingnot simply commit to an evening
spent in the office.
Vanderkam recommends asking yourself, If
the power to my building were to go off at 5
p.m., necessitating my leaving, what are the
things I would do before then? And then
tackle those things. The problem is many of us
dont ask that question until too late, and then
youre stuck late doing them.
Everyone wants to be known for going that
extra milebut learning to identify when thats
truly necessary is critical. Especially because
The best thing you can do for your life at
the office is to build a dynamic life
outside of it.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathryndill/2016/04/04/how-to-leave-work-at-5-p-m-and-still-get-everything-done-3/print/

Page 5 of 6

How To Leave Work At 5 P.M. And Still Get Everything Done - Forbes

21/04/16 10:37 am

Whatever your work/life preferences, its a

point on which almost everyone is in
agreement: The people who are the most
creative and efficient in their careers prioritize
time away from the office.
If youre not spending your time in a way that
actively refreshes and renews you and fuels
you, says Morgenstern, theres no way youre
going to make good choices and be efficient at
work.
She recommends a combination of physical
health, mindful escape through interests or
hobbies, and spending time with other people
as a way to rest from the workday and also
keep your energy levels high.
Work expands to fill the available space, says
Vanderkam, so treat the end of the workday
as something that matters. The most efficient
people Ive seen have a reason they want to
leave at 5 p.m.
This is an update of a post that ran
previously.
Follow me on Forbes and Twitter.
RECOMMENDED BY FORBES

The Most Expensive Home Listing in Every State

2016
The Hilarious Feminist Backlash To Brazil's
Impeachment Fallout
Royal India Tour 2016: Prince William and Kate
Middleton

This article is available online at: http://blogs.forbes.com/kathryndill/?p=10325

2016 Forbes.com LLC All Rights Reserved

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathryndill/2016/04/04/how-to-leave-work-at-5-p-m-and-still-get-everything-done-3/print/

Page 6 of 6