Every working woman, young or old, knows the constant struggle of trying to get through a busy day and actually get something(s) done, but with the lives we lead, there will always be some sort of a distraction, a family emergency, an email that needs your attention, a social media post alert, it’s always something. But we can get through this, we can beat the distractions, here are a few habits that you might want to try;

1. The Braindump exercise

Write down every single task that you are thinking of, or that you need to complete. I’ve found that this exercise always helps clear my head a bit because if it’s not written down, I might just forget it. It doesn’t have to be in order, this is just about unburdening your mind and giving yourself some sense of direction and idea of what your schedule may look like and how to organise from there, so write them down, all your concerns, ideas, everything occupying your mind.

2. Task batching

Group all the similar tasks, and set time to work on them back-to-back. This will help you to keep your mind focused on a single ‘topic’, leaving little room for distractions and having your mind move from one thing to another.

3. Time blocking

My boss always says ‘everyday when you get into the office, look at your calendar, and become that’. As a young creative, I always find my mind roaming around, and then I start to move from one thing to another, and then I end up not finishing what I had to, or intended to do. So I’ve started blocking out my time for things, admin, lunch, breaks, etc. I put it all in my calendar and also color code my calendar. This helps me see exactly what I spend my time on, and how much certain tasks actually take me.

4. The Minute Rule

When you know, or at least have an idea of long a task will take you, you can better plan your day by prioritising tasks that will take less time first, completing those, or scheduling them in between big long tasks as a ‘breaker’, to help also clear your mind and relax a bit.

5. Allocate specific 'distraction time'

Setting aside designated periods for checking emails, social media, or other distractions. This allows you to stay focused during dedicated work periods while still addressing distractions at appropriate times. When your mind knows that you will do a certain thing at a certain time, I’ve found that it might help to worry a bit less about it and help you not to be distracted by it. I personally need to start scheduling some ‘digital and social time’, and see how this works for me.

I don’t think there is a point in life where one says I have this productivity thing on ‘lockdown’ because different days bring different challenges and stuff, so we can only try to put some systems in place to help us get through work, and life, and create some sort of work-life balance. To those who are still on their way to figuring it out like me, I hope this helps.