How often have you had work to do but your mind was somewhere else? Maybe you were daydreaming or trying to multitask by texting and writing emails while you were supposed to be working on a project for a client.

If so, you’re not alone. The reality is that 91% of people daydream during meetings and 73% work on other tasks. With constant interruptions from email, social media, and so much more, it’s easy to become one of the masses with an eight second attention span and difficulty focusing.

The good news is that with these tips and a little effort, you can use time management to become more efficient at your job, get more work done, have less stress, and ultimately make more money:

Master your meetings

Close your laptop when you’re talking face-to-face with people. People typically make 50% more mistakes when they have electronic devices in a meeting.

If you must connect remotely, choose video instead of a phone call. If the person on the other end of the call can see what you’re doing, you’re 53% less likely to multitask during the meeting.

Stop obsessively checking your email

People spend an average of 3.2 hours per day checking their email. For non-support emails (support requests need to be a priority to stay in business), limit the number of times you check your email to three times a day. Schedule times to get caught up on your email and maximize your productivity during the remaining hours.

Improve your focus

An average person works 11 minutes before getting distracted. After getting distracted, it takes an average of 26 minutes before they return to their original task.

One popular technique for this is the Pomodoro Technique. It allows you to focus and get things done for short periods of time and then have frequent breaks to give your mind a rest. In order to use this technique, you break a large task or project into 25 minute intervals. After you’ve worked for 25 minutes, you take a five minute break. On the fourth break, you take 15 to 30 minutes to give yourself time to recuperate. Over time, focusing for shorter periods allows you to train your brain to improve your attention span and concentration.

Saving time with the right tools

As a managed service provider, you likely spend most of your time in various tools in order to get your job done. Often a big time waster is a lack of integration and dual entry. Here are a few ways to get around it:

Patch management

How often have patches been released within the past year and caused problems for your clients? Maybe a new driver was released that is not compatible with the hardware they use (you know it happens!). While some security patches need to be applied on an immediate basis, driver updates may need to be tested before being released to an entire company.

Using patch management software, you can apply patches on your schedule, instead of the vendor’s, allowing you to schedule approved patches to run overnight after they’ve been tested and verified that they work properly on your customer’s hardware.

Service packs can often take a long time to update, requiring at least one reboot as part of the process. Using patch management software, you can schedule all of these to occur overnight so the machine is ready to work when the client arrives the next morning.

Professional Services Automation (PSA) Software

Another big waste of time can be reviewing all of your support tickets (you entered each call, right?) in one system and then creating invoices for the tickets in another system. By having an integrated ticketing and invoicing system, you can have an alert create a ticket which can then be invoiced after the work is done.

Conclusion

Making the most of your day doesn’t have to be difficult. Using these time management tips, you can get more work done with less stress and become more profitable.

Have there been any time management tips that have made a positive impact on your business? If so, please share them in the comments below.