These tasks on your to-do list can cost you a lot of energy.
Almost all of us have to deal with it in the workplace: vampire tasks. Even if you are not familiar with the concept, there is a good chance that these tasks cost you a lot of energy. But what exactly does this mean, and how do you prevent it from affecting your productivity?
Vampire tasks
The term vampire tasks was coined by Cecily Motley, co-founder of AI assistant Harriet. She uses the term to refer to boring, time-consuming tasks, such as scheduling meetings and responding to emails, that take a lot of energy. And yet these are often the simplest tasks on your to-do list.
The accumulation of many small, administrative tasks can leave you overwhelmed and stressed. And as a result, they are at the expense of the work and projects that are really important. But how do you prevent this? Motley gives three tips.
Timeboxing
To help you focus on specific tasks, Motley recommends the timeboxing method. You divide your day into concrete time blocks, giving you clear guidelines for how you spend your time and energy. So you also plan specific moments when you will work on the vampire tasks, so that you suffer less from procrastination.
Sounds useful of course, but Motley does warn: timeboxing is only effective if you are realistic about the time you need for each task. Otherwise you will quickly fall behind schedule, and that will of course only be counterproductive.
Turn off notifications
Do you always have your notifications on? Understandable of course, because you don’t want to miss important things. However, according to Motley, it is not really beneficial for your productivity. Notifications make small vampire tasks (such as answering emails) feel urgent, while usually they are not at all. Because you want to respond immediately to every notification, it is more difficult to refocus on the work you were doing.
What you can do better is schedule fixed times when you view all your incoming messages and notifications. Most emails can really wait a few hours.
Define borders
It may take some courage, but sometimes it’s okay to say ‘no’ to certain assignments. This doesn’t necessarily mean that people will be disappointed in you. In fact, it can actually make them trust you more! Motley: “You show your boss and your colleagues that you work in an organized manner and that you can set priorities well.”
Of course, there are always vampire tasks that you cannot avoid, but the workload must remain manageable. By creating structure and setting priorities, you will notice that your productivity will skyrocket. And that gives you energy!
Source: Marie Claire, CNBC | Image: Adobe Stock
