Welcome to another episode of Career Wisdom Walk, where I combine exercise and practical career advice that you can implement today.
Today I want to talk about Help! My workload is killing me! I spoke at Women in Business event at my local Chamber of Commerce on this topic
and it generated a huge response from the women in the audience.
Just basically saying they were out of control with their responsibilities and their workload.
And so, I want to share some of the things that I shared there. I can't go into the same level of detail
but hopefully I will be able to provide enough information that you can get a handle on your own life if this is an issue for you.
So, before I start, I want to share a quote from Iain Thomas. He's an author.
And he said, "Every day, the world will grab you by the hand and say, 'This is important! And this is important! And this is important!
'And you need to focus on this! And this! And this!
And it's up to you, every day, to yank back your hand, place it on your heart, and say, "No! This is what's important!"
And, first of all, how do you know what's most important?
Well, first of all, holistically, in your life, you need to know what your values are,
so that you can align your life, and what you focus on, to your values.
But as far as your workload goes, sometimes that's not within your control to align to your values.
So that becomes two other strategies.
The first one is really knowing how you spend your time.
Stephen Covey talks about the four quadrants of time.
Quadrant 1 are urgent and high importance matters. We call these crises and emergencies.
And, of course, we really can't turn our back on crises and emergencies.
Quadrant two is high importance but low urgency.
And this is a quadrant we should spend more time in, but we don't, because it's not urgent and it's not pressing.
This is where strategy, and planning, and relationship building, and professional development live.
Quadrant three is low importance, but high urgency. This could be other people's emergencies or sense of urgency.
And so it creates interruptions and busy work for you. Quadrant four is low importance, low priority.
I try to never spend time there. Those are what we call time wasters, and it's why I quit Facebook.
My productivity went through the roof when I did that.
So, where are you spending your time? And are you spending time in quadrant two?
That low urgency, high importance quadrant so that you're not creating more crises and emergencies
because of lack of planning. You're not creating more interruptions and busy work because of lack of strategy.
So, kind of look at where you're spending your time and try to spend as much of your time in that quadrant two
where planning and strategy, and development, and relationship building live.
Now, the third piece, this is around "How do I manage my workload?
So, first of all, there are only three ways that you can manage your workload.
You can have less work, reduce your workload. And you do that by delegating, eliminating low value tasks
that you do, and saying, "No." and I'm going to talk about that in a minute.
The second way is really just increasing your resources.
More people to help. So that's through delegation, and giving stretch projects to other people
Maybe hiring a temp, or increasing your staff.
And then the third way, of course, is increasing your efficiency.
So, I automate things, I manage my meetings better by declining things I don't need to be going to,
I keep my desk neat so I'm not wasting time looking for things.
And so, those are really the only three ways you can manage your workload.
But let's talk about saying, "No" because that's the key strategy here.
I remember one time complaining to my husband that I had too much on my plate.
And my manager was just giving me these tasks. And he said to me, "Well, just say no."
And I laughed. I said, "I can't say no to my manager."
Because she was very achievement oriented and she didn't have kids.
So she worked a lot of hours, and I felt that same pressure to work those hours myself.
Well, he said, "Well, give it a try." And I said, "Well, what do you do?"
And he said, "Well, I go to my manager when he gives me something and I say, well, uh he asks himself two questions.
Is this in alignment with my goals? And, do I have capacity to take it on?
And, so, it could be that it's in alignment with his manager's goals,
of course, so the really key question is "Do I have the ability to take it on?"
If he does, he says yes. If not, he says, "Ok. Here are the 10 projects I currently have on my list."
And, "Which project would you like me to temporarily put on hold
to take care of this priority?"
And then he has all his projects, and how much time he's spending.
And then he also would say, "Could this wait until next week, when I have more time?"
So, I thought, OK, I'm gonna give it a try.
So the next time my manager called me into her office to give me a project,
I was at capacity. I had all my projects listed and how much time I'm spending
And I asked her, you know, "Here are the 10 things I'm working on."
"Which one of these would you like me to put on hold temporarily to take care of this new priority?"
And she looked at my list and she said, "You know what, never mind, I'll give it to someone else."
And that's what she did.
And you know, I had three people in my department that were working 70 hours a week regulary,
And I was working 45 because I was very proactive with this management strategy of my time.
But also, knowing what I had on my plate.
And I realized, as a manager myself, I didn't always have a sense
of how much work I had delegated to my people.
So I would tell them, "I need you to raise your hand and tell me, 'Whoa! I'm at capacity!'
But we don't do that. And a lot of times we don't even know what we have on our plate.
So it's very important to be very proactive in knowing what you've got on your plate,
how much time it takes, and then saying, "What should I put on hold to take care of this new priority?"
And then your manager can tell you which thing you can put on hold.
Now, if you have a manager that says, you know, "All 10 things are important."
That's actually not true.
You can have 10 equal priorities.
So then you can say, "OK, which one of these things, if they weren't completed this week wouldn't hurt the business."
And that's a way of helping them have a more accurate assessment of priority.
Now, if you have a manager that says, "You gotta do it all anyway, I don't care if you have to come in on the weekend."
Well then it's probably time to brush up your resume!
So, I hope this was helpful.
And, uh, if you liked this career tip, and you'd like to see more, subscribe to my channel.
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét