There is no stopping the waves of information available 24 hours a day, seven days a week; and there is no suppressing the human appetite for the information, a phenomenon some refer to as FOMO, or “fear of missing out.” Studies have found that employees are self-interrupting in order to check e-mail and other media, fully diverting attention from their work and raising their levels of anxiety and stress.
It is therefore necessary to have a plan, starting with the number of available hours for professional work each year. Managing time with more discipline can generate about one hour of additional time available each day, or some 200 hours a year.
Lexpert columnist Richard Stock writes on using one’s time efficiently at www.lexpert.ca. Follow @Lexpert on Twitter. Lexpert is published by Thomson Reuters.