A common question this podcast receives is about how to manage the different types of work that come at you every day. So. That’s what we’re going to address today. 

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Script

Episode 168

Hello and welcome to episode 168 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 for this show.

We all have different tasks, events and ideas coming at us every day and they come from many different places. They come from our customers and clients and because of the way we are conditioned to communicate with our customers and clients, we drop everything the moment an email comes in from them. You might have an over-enthusiastic boss who likes to micro-manage you and never leaves you alone to get on with your work and of course you might work on projects with overwhelming numbers of tasks. 

Whatever kind of work you do, there is always a way to manage the workload and to still have a private life where you can indulge in your favourite pastimes. 

Now, before we get to the question, if you are struggling to pull together a way of managing your time and feel you have tried everything, then I can help you. I have a coaching programme where we work together to create a consistent way of managing your time so you have time to do your work—whatever work that is—and leave yourself time for the things you love doing. 

I’ve worked with lawyers, doctors, executives, real estate agents and salespeople to bring calm and focus to their lives and I can do the same for you. 

No matter what you do and what you want time for, I can help you. All you need do is visit my coaching programme page, complete the questionnaire, choose your programme, schedule your call and you’re in. 

Places are limited—I only have so many hours in the day, like you, but there are a few places left. If you want in, make sure you schedule your call very soon. 

Okay, it’s time for me to hand you over to the mystery podcast voice for this week’s question.

This week’s question comes from Mohammad. Mohammad asks: Hi Carl, I’m struggling to get all my work done. My boss is always calling me asking me what I am doing and my customers use email for everything and expect me to reply immediately. It just leaves me so exhausted. I’ve tried everything but nothing works. What would you advise anyone who just has no time at all to do their work?

Hi Mohammad, thank you for your question. 

Firstly, don’t worry, you are not alone, there are many people around the world who share your frustration and there are a few things you can do that will bring some calm to your hectic days.

First up you are going to have to manage expectations. Most of the problems you are experiencing with your customers are down to their expectations of you and possibly the company you work for. 

This usually manifests itself when we are in the initial sales process. In our urgency to get the sale we make promises we will find difficult to keep later. One of the most common ones is to tell a customer that you will always be on hand to answer their questions. And once those promises have left your lips, you’ve just set yourself up for a torrid time. 

Now you may not be part of the sales process, but your initial contact with the customer is your only real chance to undo the danger. This is your chance to set out your contact policy. I know that sounds formal, but really that’s what it is. You need to establish a policy for how and when you will be available. 

Let me give you a few examples of what you could say. 

First up, Tell your customers the best time to contact you. For example, you could say, “it might difficult to contact me between 9 and 11 in the morning as I usually have meetings at that time, but if you leave a message or email me I will get back to you” 

Now, don’t say when you will get back to them, doing so only sets you up again for a difficult time. 

Now when you tell your customers this upfront, they are not going to argue with you, they will accept it. Your problems will start if you answer emails and messages the moment they come in.

What customers want is consistency, not necessarily speed. So you are only asking for trouble if you reply within minutes one day and don’t get back to them for two days on another. And let’s be honest here, nobody expects replies to emails within minutes unless you always reply within minutes. You need to manage your email response times. 

You can apply the same rules to phone calls, but obviously, with phone calls, you need to be faster. However, you do still have a little room for manoeuvre. Generally speaking, a phone call should be responded to within an hour or two. Once again, though, be careful here. If you do miss a call because you are talking to another customer or are in a meeting, the best strategy is to call back as soon as you can.

Now you need to treat calls a little differently. Let’s imagine you have been in a meeting and when the meeting finishes you have five missed calls. Start with the oldest one first, and once the call is over before you make the next call, put any action steps you promised into your task manager or a piece of paper. This only takes around thirty seconds, don’t make the mistake of panicking and replying to all your calls without taking a minute or two between calls to get down your commitments. 

No matter how crazy things get you do need to be following COD (Collect, Organise and Do). When you find yourself in a busy situation you still need to be collecting your tasks, commitments and appointments into your system. 

A lot of managing your work is about following a process and having a few rules of engagement. 

I remember when I was a competitive middle-distance runner. My favourite distance was 1,500 metres. Now with this distance, you need to be strategic. You will never win the race if you charge off a full speed from the gun. You’ll soon tire out and the other runners will pass you. Likewise, if you are not particularly fast at the end of the race, you would be unwise to risk a sprint finish with the other runners. 

To be a good middle-distance runner you always trained and raced to your strengths. There were the basics—speed endurance—which you practised for in the early spring, there were overall endurance and strength which you practised and developed in the winter and in the summer months, when you raced, you focused on your speed. 

In races, you always had a strategy based on your strengths. If you pushed yourself too fast too soon you would lose your rhythm and would be passed. No matter how tempting it was to go flat out, you waited and waited until it was the right time—for me, it was around the 300 metres to go mark—and then you focused on your sprint. Keeping your head and shoulders relaxed and use your arms for speed and never pushing so hard because that would tighten up your shoulders and you would slow down. It was all about staying relaxed in the shoulders and head. We trained for hours for that so it was automatic in the race. Whatever the pressure, you had practised your ending so many times you knew when going and you knew what to focus on. 

You need to apply the same strategy to your work. The moment you panic and start rushing into your calls and replies to emails you will tighten up and you will slow down. Focus on your rhythm. Do one thing, do it well and then move on to the next thing. That way you shift the emphasis from the speed of reply to quality of your response. 

What you need is time in the day to do your work. This is where you need to block time out. Of course, this depends on your role. If you are customer-service, then your job is to answer calls and reply to emails. But, you do need to act on what you promised the customer. So, how much time do you need to do that comfortably each day? Once you know that, you can find time on your calendar to block time out to do the work and make sure you communicate to your customers you will not always be available at that time. 

Now how do you deal with your overenthusiastic boss? The first question I would be asking here is does my boss do this to everyone? The reason for this could be that if your boss does not and only does it to you, then there is an underlying problem you need to address. Why does your boss not trust you? What have you done to cause your boss to feel they must always be checking up on you? 

For that, you will have to have an uncomfortable conversation with your boss. Find out why they don’t trust you and resolve the issue. You do not need that attention and you need to sort that out. 

Explain to your boss your difficulties with managing your work and that their incessant interruptions do not help. Ask them what you have to do to build that trust? Their answer may not be pleasant, but it needs resolving or you will not get them off your back. Set some ‘rules’ where either you report your progress each day or you arrange one call a day where you discuss everything they want to know. 

Finally, how do you deal with a lot of emails each day? First up, set up a folder and call it “Action This Day”—a term I stole from Winston Churchill. Now, as you process your inbox, there are only four things you can do with an email. Reply, delete, forward to someone else or archive it if you might need it for reference later. 

The key with email is to understand the difference between processing and doing. Processing is deciding what to do with an email—reply, delete, forward or archive—and doing is replying to the email. If you try and do both at the same time managing email becomes a long drawn out chore. And let’s be honest, with the pressures on us today, you just don’t have time for this. 

So, either you process or you do. How does this work in practice? 

Open up your inbox and go through your email deciding whether something should be replied to, deleted, archived or forwarded. As a benchmark, most people can process 70 to 80 emails in around fifteen minutes. It does take a little practice to get that fast, but if you practice you will soon get fast at this. 

Once you’ve processed your inbox, open up your action this day folder and start at the top and do your replies. A key part of this is reversing the order of this folder so the oldest email is at the top and the newest is at the bottom. That way when you open the folder, you don’t go looking for the oldest, it’s right there at the top. 

With this system, you do not need to be forwarding emails to your task manager, you only need one task in your task manager reminding you to clear your action this day folder. 

So there you go, Mohammad, there’s quite a lot there, but really it boils down to managing expectations, being consistent and if necessary having a difficult conversation with your boss. 

There is enough time each day to get your work done and to have time for yourself at the end of the day but you do need to be strategic, focus on the process and never panicking. Do one thing at a time, do it well and move on to the next task. 

I hope that has helped and thank you for your question. 

It just remains for me now to wish you all a very very productive week.