Would you let someone walk into your house, open your wallet, and spend your money on your behalf?

Probably not. So why do we allow others to do this with our time?

Former Vice President of Ecuador, now CEO of BetterGovs, Sandra Naranjo Bautista, is motivated to help public servants get more out of their workday. In a recent workshop for Apolitical, she shared her three unexpected ways to have a productive workday.

You can watch her talk below.

Download the video transcript here.

1. Do less.

It sounds counterintuitive. We live in a society that always asks us to do more, no matter how much we achieve. Sometimes it can even feel like the punishment for efficient work is… more work.

But we need to make a distinction between doing a lot of things — and doing the right things. The 80-20 rule is a good guide for time management. 80% of our results will come from 20% of our effort.

Doing less doesn’t mean being lazy, it means working smarter instead of working harder. This involves being very selective in the tasks we take on, and having a prioritisation framework, such as the Eisenhower matrix, to guide our decision-making. Fewer than 1 in 5 people have a time management system, but 100% of those that do report having their workload under control either 4 or 5 days per week.

Sandra’s personal method for prioritising her workload is, at the end of each day, to select the top three tasks that have to be worked on the next day. To narrow the options down to just three tasks, she asks “what are the tasks that I absolutely cannot fail to deliver, and what are the tasks that will get me closest to my objectives?”.

2. Schedule an appointment with yourself

When other people jostle for space on your calendar, they’re prioritising their own objectives. Naturally, we want to help our colleagues — and we should. But you need to set boundaries to protect your focus on your goals. If you don’t, no one else will do it for you.

Sandra’s tip for defending your time is to schedule time in your agenda to focus on a specific goal. Make a meeting with yourself, mark it clearly on your calendar, and decline non-urgent meetings that clash with your protected time.

Tailor your deep work time to suit your working style. Some people prefer to keep the mornings clear to crack on with tasks, while others want to get their meetings out of the way before lunch. Use your deep work time to explicitly work on the three tasks you set yourself the evening before. If the rest of the day runs away from you, you’ll at least have got your three high-priority tasks off your plate.

“If you don’t prioritise your life, someone else will” — Greg Mckeown

3. Take care of yourself, five minutes at a time

Working in the public service is a marathon. If we were to run a marathon, we'd need to prepare. We’d need the appropriate diet, training regime, rest and incentives. The same is true for your job.

“That’s obvious”, you might say, “but I have no time for that!”. And you’d be right, public servants are time-poor, facing multiple competing deadlines and wrestling with the feeling that everything was due yesterday.

But that doesn’t prevent self-care. We need to find the time. On top of setting boundaries around your time and your priorities (steps 1 and 2), you can optimise self-care to fit into a hectic schedule.

Sandra recommends Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s 5-minute health “snacks”. These are 5-minute breaks designed to provide bursts of kindness for your:

  • Mind — something that you enjoy that will clear your mind, like taking a quick walk outside or listening to music;

  • Heart — something that connects you with your loved ones, such as calling a friend;

  • Health — get your heart rate up by climbing the stairs, doing a few push-ups, dancing or chasing a pet around the kitchen.

So remember: do less, prioritise more, defend your boundaries and look after yourself, even if it’s only 5 minutes at a time. To learn more about Sandra’s productivity tips for public servants, check out her free productivity guide.