8 Ways to Organize Your Workday -

“Don’t think that you can be productive eight hours in a row,” Max Ohlenschlager told attendees at the most recent PCMA EMEA virtual Meet-Up.

When Max Ohlenschlager spoke during the April PCMA EMEA virtual Meet-Up (can be viewed on demand by PCMA members), he packed a lot of advice into a short timeframe — not surprising given the Netherlands-based Ohlenschlager is an experienced coach, trainer, and author specializing in time management and productivity.

I’ve synthesized some of his tips.

The quintessential to-do list. The first insight he shared: Your mind is not a to-do list. “It’s pretty useful to use your brain to think about stuff,” he said, “but don’t use your mind to remind you of stuff.” Instead, Ohlenschlager recommended the age-old written to-do checklist or the app Braintoss. And keep those reminders or goals in one place, he added. If you’re sticking to a paper list, use one notebook, not multiple places where you scribble notes to yourself.

Put it on your calendar. It’s not enough just to make note of what you need to do — you need to block time on your calendar to do it. “Don’t only use the calendar for appointments with others, but also block time for yourself,” Ohlenschlager advised.

Start and end the day with an overview. Beginnings and endings require something of a routine, he said. Start your day by checking your calendar and your to-do list “so that you prime yourself [ by asking] ‘What do I want to have achieved today?’” At the end of the day, he recommends a “cooling down” period of five to 10 minutes. “It’s important not only to start off your day with an overview, but also to finish your day with an overview,” Ohlenschlager said. “Put everything in the right place, and make sure that your calendar and your to-do list is up to date, and then you can leave work at work.”

Work in chunks. “You don’t want to do a little bit of everything every day,” Ohlenschlager said. “It’s more efficient and effective if you work in chunks. So on Tuesday, I’m going to do my phone calls at 11 a.m. I’m going to process all my emails. It takes up a lot of willpower to decide, okay, what am I going to work on now,” he said, but cluster tasks, put them on the calendar and “then you’re good to go.”

Create buffers. You may not always get to decide when you’re in meetings, but Ohlenschlager advised doing your best to avoid back-to-back meetings. “You need the break,” he said, if only because you need to prepare for the next meeting or to digest the meeting that just ended and go over your notes. Giving yourself time to reflect throughout the day, he said, is critical.

Get rid of distractions. When it’s time to tackle a task, “make sure that you’re not being distracted,” Ohlenschlager said. “Minimize all the screens that you’re not using. Put your phone in airplane or Do Not Disturb mode. Even better, put your phone in another room.”

Divide your day. “Don’t think that you can be productive eight hours in a row,” Ohlenschlager said. “That’s impossible. I’m a time-management expert and I can only be very, very productive like one part of the day. So, this is what I do: I do my most important stuff in the morning. I am a maker in the morning and I am a manager in the afternoon. In the morning, I get all the most important stuff done.”

A bonus AI-use tip. Although Ohlenschlager didn’t address how — and when — to incorporate AI in your work tasks throughout the day, a recent Harvard Business Review article offers some suggestions.

Research shared in the article suggests that there’s a trade-off between the efficiencies gained by using AI and how it can demotivate workers and “increase feelings of boredom when they turn to tasks in which they don’t have this technological assistance.”

The solution, according to the five authors from the School of Management at Zhejiang University who collaborated on the research, is to redesign workflows that blend AI and human contributions.

More specifically, to alternate between AI-assisted and independent tasks: “Rather than clustering similar task types,” the authors write, “managers can sequence the day to begin with cognitively demanding, solo work and shift to AI-supported tasks later for efficiency. For example, starting with strategy development and ending with AI-assisted editing balances mental stimulation with output quality.”

Michelle Russell is editor in chief of Convene.