Mastering Time Management and Prioritization

This week, what to do when your day, or week, turns sour and you’re left feeling overwhelmed and stressed out. 

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Episode 302 \ Script

Hello, and welcome to episode 302 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show.

In my weekly newsletter last week, I wrote about how, for some reason, the end of the year seems to throw up a lot of stuff that suddenly needs to be finished before the end of year. 

While deadlines are always around us, it seems December is the month that projects and tasks, that were slowly moving along just fine, become urgent and must be complete in the next two weeks or so. 

This leaves you feeling stressed out and under pressure at a time of year you want to be slowing down and relaxing. 

This week’s question talks directly to this phenomenon and I want to give you a number of strategies that will help you to stay on top of things and get through to the end of year break feeling in control and ready to enjoy Christmas and the New Year celebrations. 

So, to get us started, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. 

This week’s question comes from Brett. Brett asks, hi Carl, I want to know if you ever feel under pressure or overwhelmed at the end of the year. And if not, what do you do to stay in control when everyone around you is demanding their projects are completed before the Christmas holidays? 

Hi Brett, thank you for your question. 

You’re right, for some reason before any long holiday there does seem to be a big rush to get things finished. Whether it is Christmas, Eid, Yom Kippur or the end of the calendar year bosses and colleagues suddenly wake up and realise they are behind on a number of projects and so the panic sets in and everything needs to be completed yesterday. 

The truth is, it shouldn’t matter where you are in the year, if you have planned things out and developed a timeline for getting things done, there should never be a rush to complete things at the last minute. 

Now, when I say planned things out and developed a timeline, I don’t mean micro-managed plans, but a rough set of milestones for each project that needs to be completed in the year. 

One trick I use is to divide my year up into quarters and to limit the number of projects I allow to no more than four each quarter. That still means I get between ten and twelve big projects complete each year but I do it in a way that ensures I am not overly stressing my system and I have sufficient breathing room between each one that allows for small over-runs and delays. 

Sure, I could set about trying to complete ten or more projects each quarter, but then most of them won’t be finished and all I am doing is letting people down by constantly missing deadlines. That’s not something I will allow myself to do. 

Now, when I talk about projects here I am talking about projects that will take four to ten weeks to complete. A lot of what I do each week are things I do every week. Preparing this podcast is not a project, it’s part of my core work and is a process. Likewise my blog posts and YouTube videos are all a part of my core work and I have processes for getting these done each week. 

For me, a project is something like developing a new course, or redesigning my website or even writing a book—which I confess took up three quarters this year. And on that subject, the book is now being edited and the cover design is close to completion. We are still looking at publication early next year. And even if I say so myself, this is a fantastic book. I’ve loved writing it AND reading through it. 

Anyway, back to staying in control as we approach the end of year. 

So the first tip is, where possible make sure you retain control over the number of projects you are committed to each quarter. There is a limit and you need to ensure the people you report to know where you are in terms of the workload you have and what time availability to you have. 

If you are in the habit of automatically saying yes to everything you are asked to do, then you are not in control. Instead, it means other people are controlling you. It’s your responsibility to communicate with your pears and bosses so they know what you have on, and what space you have for new tasks and projects. If you re not willing to, or are afraid to do that, you will never find the answers in YouTube videos or podcasts like this. This is one area where you need to do the difficult thing and speak up. Explain your workload and ensure the people you work with know your limits. 

Next up is to understand there are only twenty-four hours in the day. Obvious yes? Well, it seems not. I see a lot of people’s to-do lists and it clear to me most people believe they can do a lot more than time will permit. No, you are not going to be able to attend five one hour meetings, deal with 200 emails and write the proposal your boss is screaming for. Something has to give. 

This means you need to know what is and is not important. Is completing the proposal more important than one or two of those five meetings you have planned? Could you excuse yourself from the meeting rather than using it as an excuse for not doing your work? 

Again, it comes back to you taking on the responsibility for your time and not hoping time will miraculously expand so you can do everything in one day. 

Remember whether you are the CEO or an intern, you can always negotiate deadlines. The worst that can happen is the person you are negotiating with is a better negotiator than you and you have to do whatever you are being asked to do. But at least your voice is heard and the chances are you will be allowed extra time to complete the work. 

I’ve found when things are chaotic, the most important thing you can do is to double down on your daily and weekly planning. This is about getting clear on what needs to be completed that day or week. When chaos surrounds you, the worst thing you can do is not be clear about what the day’s objective is. Sure, you may spend the day dodging bullets, but at least you stay focused on your objective and that’s how you get the important things done. 

Today, I have what appears to be 101 tiny things to do, but I am focused on the two most important objectives. Ge this script written and edit and send out a video to a conference organiser. My focus is on this script right now and prior to writing this, I completed the video edits and sent them out. Those 101 tiny things that appear to need doing, I will do as many of them as I can today, but not worry too much about the ones I did not do. I can decide later when I do my planning for tomorrow which ones must be done then. 

Be very clear about what your objectives are for the day. If you stay focused on those one or two things, you will find they get done and most of the other, less important things will find their own solutions. 

When are you at your most focused? Are you a morning person or more of a night owl? Take advantage of the time of day you are at your most focused. For most of us that will be between 9:00 and 11:00 am. Do whatever you can to protect that time. Block it out where possible in your calendar so no one can schedule meetings for you. 

It’s important that once you have that time blocked out, you intentionally decide what you will use it for before you start the day. Too often I find people waste the first thirty minutes scrolling through their to-do list looking for something to do. No. Don’t do that. Decide beforehand what you will use it for. 

This way, when you sit down to do your work, you know what you will do and you can get started immediately. 

Most of our time management problems are not because of the volume of work. With the right processes in place and strict control over your calendar, you can maintain control of your inbox, routine tasks and core work and have sufficient space to deal with the unknowns. 

It’s much easier to blame the volume of work, than to address the real problem which is we are allowing other people to control what we do each day. 

I know many of us need to be available for clients and colleagues, but if you are available eight hours a day, you will never get on top of your work—you will always be doing the work of others and that results in you developing huge backlogs that requires you to work beyond your regular working hours and at weekends. Probably not something you want to do. 

Look at it this way; if you were to reserve two hours each day for doing the work you are employed to do—your core work—you would still have six hours for dealing with everything else. If you were to tag an extra hour for dealing with your communications, you still have five hours each day for everyone else. That’s twenty-five hours a week dedicated to serving others. Surely that’s enough time? 

Based on what I’ve learned over the years, the cure for overwhelm and overload are the planning sessions. It’s when you skip those that things begin to back up and become urgent. When you give yourself thirty minutes or so on a weekend to plan the following week from a big picture perspective and to allow ten minutes or so at the end of each day for reviewing your plan and making any necessary adjustments you stay in control. 

It also means you know where you are at any point in the week and can adjust, reschedule and renegotiate where necessary. 

Above all, though, never be afraid to renegotiate your commitments either with yourself or with others. There’s nothing wrong with doing that and rather than being a sign of weakness it is a sign of strength. You’re a human, not a machine. Accept that and work with it. It’s far better to have one or two bad days each week than pushing yourself towards illness that requires you to take a long break. 

I hope that helps, Brett and thank you for your question.

Thank you to you too for listening and it just remains for me now to wish you all a very very productive week.