Work can sometimes feel like an endless succession of meetings, phone calls and an email inbox with an uncanny resemblance to the magic porridge pot. Tasks that should be accomplished quickly take over the day, leaving your to-do list much the same as when you started.

Everyone could do with becoming more efficient in the office, and to this end we held a live QA looking at how to save 30 minutes in the working day, with advice from a panel of experts. From noise-cancelling headphones to stand-up meetings, the panellists had lots of advice for saving time. I decided to put the best into action.

Block out thinking time in your calendar

Xenios Thrasyvoulou, founder and CEO of PeoplePerHour, recommends blocking out time in your calendar to think. As thinking time is the first thing to go if my work-load becomes unmanageable, I was intrigued by the idea of actually programming it into your day.

A tentative start, scheduling 15 minutes each morning to get my day in order, is already making me feel more organised and, above all, calmer.

Thrasyvoulou also suggests we, “delegate, delegate, delegate”, and while this is unlikely to go down well with my co-workers, I am convinced by his logic. As head of a growing business, you will need to delegate to avoid an unmanageable workload. “Try and outsource any tasks that are draining your energy and stopping you concentrating on what really matters to your business,” says Thrasyvoulou.

Noise-cancelling headphones

Several panellists extolled the virtues of noise-cancelling headphones to help avoid distractions in an open-plan office. Zara Pearson, responsible for marketing, communications and recruitment at the New Entrepreneurs Foundation, explains: “Big headphones block out the noise and make people think twice before interrupting you.”

Music does nothing to aid my concentration, but noise-cancelling headphones did. I missed five phone calls and one rendition of happy birthday, but with no distractions I achieved much more than usual.

Another method for cutting distractions is to surrender your connectivity. Carl Gallagher, a director at CX Accountants, says: “Email is the biggest distraction. I find that closing down Outlook and Yahoo while working on a bigger task really helps me focus. If the task itself is email, you could draft replies to existing emails with the internet switched off to stop further distractions coming in.”

The headphones can also be used on the commute to good effect. David Spowart, co-founder of ConnectSME, says: “Audio books and inspiring pre-recorded TED talks are a great use of your time. You get to work feeling energised and motivated depending on what you choose. I have just downloaded Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.”

Use technology to automate time-consuming tasks

John Coldicutt, head of the cloud division at Iris Software, says: “Use technology to automate otherwise time consuming tasks like creating, sending, chasing and accounting for invoices.” Other panellists agree, with Thrasyvoulou recommending Evernote and Sue Ratcliffe, head of client services at call answering company alldayPA, suggesting an app called Todoist.

Having heard of the Pomodoro technique, which breaks work down into 25 minute bursts followed by short breaks, I was keen to give it a try and downloaded an app called Pomodroido. The reason apps like this work is because of the achievable goal, coupled with the sense of achievement you feel when you have completed a task. While some panellists say pen and paper lists do just as well, time-saving apps have got my seal of approval.

Standing meetings

Meetings are a time-drain and the panellists acknowledged this by recommending we keep them short. “No meeting ever needs to be more than an hour,” says Pearson. “If they are running over, schedule them at 5pm on a Friday.”

Celso Pinto, founder and CEO of SimpleTax, recommends trying standing meetings. “If it feels a bit awkward and it’s just one or two people in the meeting, try to go for a walk around the block,” he says.

Standing meetings may not work in some cases, but they worked well for me. You could try limiting them to team catch-ups and meetings that don’t need to take any more than 15 minutes. Pinto’s suggestion of taking a walk round the block works well too, as I found you gain a fresh perspective when away from your desk or the regular meeting room.

Liz Lugt, a founding member of Blue Acorns, has the following tips for reducing frustration in meetings: make sure everyone knows what the aim is before attending, only invite people who absolutely need to be there, have someone chair the meeting, stick to the agreed time and agree outcomes and actions at the end.

The panellists all also agreed on the importance of taking a break. Says Lugt: “A lunch break, even if only 20 minutes away from your computer, is essential.”

Write lists and prioritise

During the discussion, Pearson mentioned the “swallow the frog” philosophy: getting the most distasteful or difficult task on your list done first thing in the day.

Guilty of procrastinating with my more time-consuming tasks, I started cracking on with the most arduous work on my to-do list first thing in the morning. The result — a clearer mind for the rest of the day, no nagging voice in my head and absolutely no reason to skip lunch.

However, this one requires discipline. As Steve Sawyer, divisional director, professional services solutions, at Access Group, says: “Saving time and being more effective requires discipline and systems this is true whether it is for an individual or an organisation. If you don’t have these, then any time-saving initiative will be short-lived.”

So how much time have I saved by following the panellists’ recommendations? Easily 30 minutes, and mainly through checking my emails at regular intervals instead of every time a notification flashes up. The real test will be whether I can stay this productive in the long-term.

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