More, Less, Harder, Smarter...
I’m massively guilty of trying to do too much at once (and occasionally sleeping in until 11am on a Sunday) and generally I manage pretty well to get everything done, however every now and then I do get overwhelmed and I read a quote from Leo Babauta who started the blog Zen Habits.
Leo said “Doing less doesn’t mean ‘less is more.’ It means ‘less is better.’ This is achieved by slowing down, being aware of what needs to be done, and concentrating only on those things. Once you do, make every action count. As a result, you’ll be creating more value instead of just fodder.”
I thought this was interesting and it reminded me of a phrase that one of my clients uses about being ‘busy fools’ – essentially that’s doing lots of work without adding any real value and it’s really easy to do when you feel overwhelmed by your workload.
It then made me consider the ways I deal with this, when I’ve calmed down a bit, and what could help you if you end up in the same situation.
Tactic 1
PLANNING – planning is very important, if you’re dealing with something big that makes you feel like you don’t know where to start. Imagine there’s a huge project with a myriad of different tasks, all interlinked and over lapping. Rather than just trying to do it all at once or dipping in and out you need to break the task down into pieces and ‘attack’ them one at a time. Think of that question@ How do you eat an elephant? You cut it into pieces… So, you need to take your task and break it into pieces that way you’ll know what you’ll need to work on and when and achieve a lot more progress.
Tactic 2
ORGANISATION – setting up your day for success is a really good way of making sure you don’t end up filling your time with things that aren’t actually necessary. If you always spend the first 15 minutes of the day writing out your priorities in the form of a list; putting all the emails you want to deal with in a pile/folder; or at least reading through emails for anything new that you know will need tackling today. It means that your brain will be focussed and hopefully you shouldn’t get too distracted.
Tactic 3
DEDICATE – this has to be one of my favourite methods for dealing with a hefty workload, taking my working day and chunking the time up by client (or task, depending on what suits your purposes). So I allocate, say, an hour to one client, then an hour to another so that I have constant momentum throughout the day and having a time limit does tend to make you work harder. Couple of keys to this one though – try not to accept interruptions as these will derail your timings and give you stress and build in reward breaks when you’ve really worked hard. Think of it like HIIT for workload – periods of intense focus and concentration, followed by rest (reward)
So those are some of the tactics I use and I find them really successful, if you want help with anything you’re doing don’t hesitate to get in touch.