One of the greatest laments I hear from people at every level of business is that there is never enough time. We have far too much to do and demands from every corner, personally and professionally, have raised everyone’s stress levels to near the breaking point.
We certainly cannot manufacture more hours in a day. We can cut down on our sleep but that extracts a terrible toll on our bodies and minds, a price that is paid in diminishing returns of productivity sooner than we’d like to think. This is not to mention the down-spiral in the overall quality of our lives.
What is there to do? First of all, let’s take a breath. Yes, a breath. You would be amazed at how relaxing it can be just to take some good old oxygen into the brain. It can calm the heart rate and even be good for the blood pressure.
Now that we’ve gotten ourselves stabilized, let’s look at our daily lives. It is easy to see how much we are being pushed around by other peoples’ timetables. Certainly we all have jobs, whether we are the head of a company or the head of a household or a worker bee in the corporate hive. And, these jobs have responsibilities that require us to spend the vast majority of our time on designated tasks.
However, our task lists become so long and our time is demanded from so many fronts that it is easy to lose perspective. Let’s get back to basic prioritizing. You’ll remember this exercise and please consider revisiting it.
Make a list of everything you have to do today or this week, or whatever is your base period of time that has gotten away from you. Take your time with this and list all of the tasks from making the coffee, to creating the presentation, doing the laundry, developing a marketing plan, getting exercise, filling out evaluations, picking up the kids, etc.
From this list put a 1, 2 and 3 next to each item. The 1 is for urgent, 2 is for important, and 3 is for can be done later. Now, cross out all of the 3’s. How does that feel? We often carry around our 3’s in our minds and this causes a significant drag on our creativity and energy. Put the 3’s down to a definite time in the future when you will re-evaluate your list. And then let them go. You will be amazed at the lift this will give you.
We often look put things on our to-do lists that are too large for us to create or even to wrap our minds around. It only sets us up for failure and added stress. Can you imagine King Tut’s to-do list including, “Build pyramid”? No, of course not. But, often we will put, “Reorganize department” or “Get in shape” on our internal to-do lists. It severely damages our self-worth when it either gets put off to the last minute or shoved back month after month.
One of the keys to accomplishing huge and complex tasks is to break them down into their small and more manageable pieces. Remember the aphorism, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Here we make another list of all the disparate and complementary pieces that go into the task. Be specific. One trick is to work backward from the completed task, list everything that will have to be done, broken down in as tiny parts as possible. Also, delegate. You do not have to do everything yourself even if it doesn’t get done exactly the way you would ideally like it. Really.
Then, begin today to do one of the first tasks on the list. Do it and set a time to do another small task the next day or the next work period that will allow the task to be completed within the deadline. As you practice doing this in the early stages of a project, you are going to realize tremendous dividends in reclaiming your work-life balance. You will reclaim your sanity and reclaim your life.
Dennis Tardan is a communications consultant and empowerment trainer. His passion is helping people to communicate their core messages with greater clarity, effectiveness and confidence. His company is Tardan Professional Development and he is based in Texas, USA. www.tardanprodev.com. Write to Dennis at .
