When you’re short of time – an expert offers three tips for managing a hectic schedule

Too much work, too little time. Being rushed seems to be a permanent feature of working life, even though tools and technology promised to make everyday life easier. According to Heljä Franssila, an expert in knowledge work, however, it need not be this way.

Franssila is a specialist in knowledge work and a work methods coach; her book *The Art of Working Smart*, co-authored with Iida Ylinen, offers practical methods for planning work and managing time.

According to Franssila, managing time pressure is the responsibility of both the employer and the employee. However, she encourages everyone to focus on what they can most easily influence: their own working practices.

‘That’s the quickest way to improve your sense of control and reduce the negative feeling of being rushed,’ says Franssila.

Make your workload visible

Feeling rushed is the experience of not being able to complete your work within the planned timeframe. This is often caused by overly optimistic work planning, where less time is allocated to each task than it actually takes to complete it.

– When estimates are off the mark and this accumulates across a range of tasks over the course of working weeks, you end up feeling rushed to get the work done by the promised deadline, says Franssila.

Studies have shown that people are poor at estimating how much time tasks will take. Often, time estimates are made haphazardly or not at all.

In many sectors, workloads have genuinely increased, for example as a result of redundancies. On the other hand, analysis may also reveal that there is actually sufficient time and that the sense of urgency stems from something else.

Often, working time is spent – without us realising it – on interruptions and switching from one task to another. We can use technology to analyse how we spend our time.

– Just as our phones tell us how much screen time we’ve had during the week, there are also applications for laptop use that allow us to objectively examine where our computer time is going. Technology can aid self-understanding and self-analysis, says Franssila.

In order to prioritise tasks, your entire workload needs to be made visible. With the help of technology, tasks arising through many different channels and from many different sources can be managed from a single place.

When you know your own workload, it is easier to review it with both your team and your chef. A shared, realistic picture of the situation also benefits the employer and the chef.

– It shouldn’t be left solely to the individual employee to decide which tasks can be done a little more lightly, postponed or left undone, says Franssila.

Plan your working day realistically

Another common reason behind feeling rushed is that working days and the execution of work are not planned in sufficient detail. A mere to-do list, without even a rough estimate of how and when the tasks are to be carried out, does not in itself support effective work management.

– In professional and knowledge-based work, we often fall into the trap of imagining that we can get a job done without consulting a colleague, or that we’ll find all the necessary materials in the blink of an eye. We set goals, but we don’t prepare for the actual work, says Franssila.

In the future, artificial intelligence may also be able to monitor our work, make suggestions and shape the structure of our working day.

Give yourself some peace and quiet to work

Work is constantly carried out across various communication channels, and the notifications they send interrupt our work and erode our concentration. Jumping back and forth between tasks unrelated to the one at hand delays the completion of the task itself.

According to Franssila, simply managing your communication channels more effectively can make a big difference.

‘If you’re expecting an important email, you can adjust your email settings so that you receive an alert specifically for new messages from that sender, rather than having to keep checking your inbox all the time. There are similar small tips and tools available in Teams,’ explains Franssila.

Technology can also be used to communicate your current work status to others, for example via Teams’ availability status or your calendar. This allows colleagues, for instance, to consider how and when to get in touch.

– You don’t need to do anything differently or do anything extra; just focus on making it easier and more predictable to stay on task. Simply reducing the number of interruptions during your working day can work wonders, Franssila encourages.