It’s quite normal to have days during a working week when everything that can go wrong, does. 

You walk into work and your computer won’t switch on. You open your emails and you have more mail to answer than you have the time for. You begin a task and suddenly the computer freezes and you lose the document you’ve been working on. You go into the meeting room for a discussion around the modern boardroom tables and everyone is late, causing your to do list to go out of the window before you’ve even begun. 

These things are sent to try us, but that doesn’t mean we should let them win!

You can have the most up to date and new fangled time management method on the planet whilst you’re sat working at your office desk, but if you don’t know how to handle issues that arise during the day, it’s always going to fail. 

One of the biggest problems is sitting down to write your to do list, prioritising it all and feeling quite good about it, getting started and ticking a few things off, only for a new, more urgent task to come your way, leaving your list completely in tatters. 

The Importance of Calmness And Time Management 

The first step is to remain calm. Yes, it’s a nightmare, but there is nothing you can do about it! It happens to the best of us and that’s the first thing to remember. If you sit down every morning and think ‘my schedule is going to run perfectly today’, you’re probably in for a shock, or you’re tempting fate at best!

Once you’ve acknowledged that something may go wrong, you need to know how to deal with the issue.

Put simply, if the new task that has come your way is more important, you need to focus on that. Sit at your office desk and do a few calming breathing exercises if you need to, and then look at your to do list once more. Is there anything on there which absolutely has to be done that day? If so, work out how you can work on the new task and complete the urgent task also. If you can’t, seek out help from colleagues or speak to your manager to see if some of your smaller tasks can be delegated out. 

Then, highlight the tasks which can be done at a later date and add them to your to do list for the next day. In order to avoid those tasks becoming urgent, make sure you add them a little higher up your list the next day, simply because they got moved from today’s list. 

The bottom line is that things can and do happen every single day in the contemporary office environment and acknowledging this and understanding the importance of time management within all of it, will help you deal with these problems without ending up stressed and overwhelmed.

It’s actually very rare that a to do list is completed day after day without a few tweaks at some point, so take heart in the fact that you’re far from alone!

Of course, it’s also important to take regular breaks throughout the day to help you deal with any potential problems as they arise. This will help you remain calm and level-headed and help you deal with stress if it does enter into your day. Without those regular breaks, you’re likely to be lacking in focus and you’ll make more mistakes as a result. This doesn’t lend itself to productivity!