Ryder U.

We don’t really value time as much as we value money, even though money one lost can be earned again, but lost time can never come back.

Many of us waste a lot of time on social media and other platforms consuming content of varying quality. If we really valued time, we would be aware of the time wasted on overthinking or being stuck in the past, or simply being miserable.

The phrase "work-life balance" seems to imply that work and life are in balance.

If one imagines an old-fashioned scale, that would mean work is on the one side, and everything else about yourself on the other side - your friends, hobbies, family, relationships, beliefs, sports, etc. It hardly seems like a balance and really points out our obsession with work.

According to traditional thinking, procrastinators have a time-management problem. They are unable to understand how long a task will take and need to learn how to schedule their time better.

However, psychologists increasingly realize that procrastination is an issue with managing our emotions, not our time.

There is no "one size fits all schedule" for maximum productivity.

Because we all have particular strengths and weaknesses when it comes to time management and productivity, what works for one person could be a total disaster for another.

Use the 1-3-5 rule when putting together her daily to-do list.

• one big-ticket project to tackle
• three medium tasks
• five small things. 

This keeps you from feeling overwhelmed by an endless list, and also helps keep you focused on just those items.

They are actions we make without thinking (habits, routines, compulsions). They control more than 40% of our daily actions.

So if we want to change our lives and be more productive, we need to first change our default behaviors.

We need to respond to emails and messages, read the news and catch up on things. But these activities don't have to fill our entire lives.

Create a container for each of these activities: set aside 30 minutes for responding to all your emails, another 30 minutes for messages (maybe 2-3 times a day), and so on.

You, and only you, are responsible for scheduling personal time.

• One idea is for employees to have access to one another's calendars. Transparent scheduling and communicating via your calendar can be helpful for setting boundaries with co-workers.
• For those who do not feel comfortable providing this level of transparency via their calendar, consider leaving the block as "Personal Time - Emergencies Only."

Gone are the years where most people used Post-it notes or email flags to prioritise tasks.

The tools we use to track our performance at work have crossed into our personal lives and have the potential to control us. It may be time to rethink whether tracking and uploading tasks into various apps is really the path to success.

• You should only put things on a to-do list that you have the time and resources to achieve. 
• Big goals and projects should be broken down into actionable tasks.
• It helps to match the action with your productivity levels.
• If something doesn’t get done, reevaluate the task at the end of the day.