It is a known fact that not every person works with the same efficiency. Few are quicker than others and few might be too slow. But there is a category of people who face what is known as Time Anxiety. Time Anxiety is the constant thought within someone’s mind that he/she is wasting time or the time is never enough to complete the allotted tasks. In other words, it means that the person has a fear that time is running out. Such people get anxious over time and start thinking that it's too late to finish the work or reach the end goals. This also shows the amount of stress at work. Professionals have to deal with a monotonous daily routine of meeting deadlines, learning something new, facing conflicts and trying to grow in their career and this kind of creates a daily struggle. Its very essential for employees to manage such struggles else it could hamper their employee productivity hugely. Here are few ways to manage time anxiety at workplace.
1. Define what time means to you
One must first understand the importance of time and the approx plan which has to be executed in conjunction with the same. You need to accept few major facts about time that its something which would naturally continue to move on and the passed by time will never come back. So rather than wasting your energy in thinking about the gone time, why can’t you plan ahead?
2. Find your way of time well spent
Every person in this world is different and likes to spend time in different ways. Someone could enjoy sitting infront of the computer for hours and someone else may like to walk around. You need to define your way the one which aligns well with your nature of working. Once that is clear, you can jot down the positive and the negative time for you and introspect accordingly. There are various moments when a person thinks that time is not well spent but actually it may be the reverse. We need to avoid such situations at all.
3. Plan & Schedule your calendar
If you need to a productive employee, always plan your work, your meetings, your learning journey in advance. This can be done via a simple calendar tool like calendly or an employee tracking software like we360.ai and many more. Use sticky notes for noting down important work junctions. Such small practices have a bigtime impact on the working efficiency of an employee.
4. Don’t try to be a do it all person
Some people try to do everything at hand and even the ones farther away. This is not required to be precise. You should work at the minimum required levels. First complete the priority works and then only think of others that too if genuinely needed. If its not your work, simply leave it or delegate it. When you don’t try to do everything then you surely will have sufficient time left and avoid anxiety.
5. Take Regular Breaks
Work and leisure go hand in hand and every professional needs to understand this at some or the other moment of time. Frequent breaks from work are needed at any workplace. It could be as small as a tea break or a gossip break or as long as a vacation. But yes, breaks are very much required and they allow you to expand the time mindset. Managers nowadays are focusing on providing sufficient breaks to their employees. Many companies deploy time tracking or employee productivity monitoring software in their processes which have a feature of creating and tracking work breaks. This shows the corporate ecosystem is ready to break the stereotypes soon.
6. Don’t leave your family, friends and others
Many a times employees feel anxiety about not giving enough time to their family and friends. But this is not a good practice. Rather, one should keep enough time within their schedule to manage the two F’s and even other important things like watching movies, bike rides, social and community activities must be on your bucket list. The more you expand your zones, the more your mindset expands and it lessens the anxiety for the next time.
Time anxiety may affect workplace productivity negatively and that is why it is vital to manage it on time.
We360.ai supports organizations in managing the employee time anxiety by creating a channel for evaluating the time spend on various activities both for the employer and the employee. The health360 feature also suggests employee health as per the productive working time and unproductive working time of the employees.
Its high time now that organizations should start reframing their policies to accommodate newer kinds of employee issues.
