How often do you feel pulled from pillar to post while aiming to complete important things in your workday?
Picture this. You have an important report to complete. Your boss is pushing you to be ready for a last-minute meeting in thirty minutes. You start working on the final figures. An urgent email arrives from another department which requires an immediate response. You begin to feel anxious and stressed. Which one takes priority?
Recognise this scenario?
Working in a high-pressure environment can be challenging. At times, being able to think straight, to assess and respond to a situation calmly, can feel out of reach and unachievable. Feeling stressed about deadlines and expectations can be overwhelming. The heat rises, mentally and physically, and the pressure mounts.
Introducing The Power Hour.
Did you know up to 80% of the average working day is spent on activities with little or no value? This means that most people only spend 20% of their working day on tasks considered ‘important’. Tasks most responsible for wasted time include repeated phone calls due to missed information, or – specifically for managers – interruptions as much as 3 hours per working day
Cornerstone Dynamics
As an executive coach for leaders, I have learned about and used different productivity tools. Looking back, I wish I had knowledge of these helpful techniques when I was employed in the corporate world. Work may have been, let’s say, more streamlined.
The various tools I have tried and tested have enabled both my work and clients’ work, to be focused, distraction-free, in flow, and during productive best work hours. This has led to positive and sustainable habits for success.
GOLDEN RULE: Create effective boundaries to achieve success using the Power Hour, individually or as a team. From client experience, the process works most effectively when you and your team respect the hour.
Establish ground rules such as:
- No email response for the next hour.
- All mobile phones switched to silent and stored away from the working area. Calls (if possible) diverted to answer service. Place a visible sign on your chair or office door saying ‘No interruptions during my Power Hour (time from and to). Please respect my time’.
Here is my version of the Power Hour.
My Power Hour is split into 4 blocks of time: 5 + 40 + 5 + 10 = 60 minutes:
- PLAN: The first 5 minutes is your planning time, where you can write down ONE priority/urgent task to complete in the next 40 minutes.
- ACTION: For 40 minutes you work ONLY on your ONE task, distraction, and interruption-free (this is where boundaries need to be set – more in a moment).
- MOVE: Once your 40 minutes are finished (use a timer – preferably a physical one to avoid looking at your mobile phone), get up and move away from your desk. Make yourself a coffee. Avoid interrupting colleagues on task in a Power Hour – respect their time.
- REFLECT: Spend the last 10 minutes of the hour reviewing and refining your task.
When you set boundaries and embed the Power Hour into your work routine, you:
Commit to completing urgent/priority work
- Enable a process of change in mindset and habits toward working smarter, not harder.
- Embed and repeat this process throughout your productive best/ideal peak work time.
Visualise the big personal reward at the end of each day and week. Imagine how much more you will achieve.
Make NOW the time to smash those goals, as an individual contributor, or as a team.
How will the Power Hour elevate your success?