So you’ve overcome your mood, the email barrage, the interrupters, but what about the person who needs something urgently? To close a sale, to fit a new deadline or task? Winning strategies:
1. You are in control. Assess whether it really is urgent, and then view the task in context with everything else you are doing.
2. Be adaptable. Being rigid in your time management practices in such a way that you can’t manage a hurdle like an urgent request will actually cause you more stress.
These come in many forms, e.g. fear of a presentation, personal problems, loss of self-esteem. To run a good race your energy levels are critical! Winning strategies:
1. Identify stressors. Stress is energy sapping in the workplace, and if you become pre-occupied with a stressor everything else will suffer. Recognise your stressors causing problems.
2. Get help from a coach. Talking through these issues with others will relieve the pressure. Ignoring the problems and ‘burying yourself in work’ will compound problems in both arenas.
Do you ever feel like your to-do list is actually a waiting list? Don’t let it happen! Winning strategies:
1. Be proactive. If you seem to spend all your time waiting on other people as roadblocks then you need to become more active. Not to pester people, but to continually enquire about how you can make it easier for them to help you.
2. Discuss and ensure awareness of deadlines. Often others have no understanding of critical deadlines shared by the team, so make it clear.
Make it easy for them. You might need to format a spreadsheet in a way that’s more reader-friendly, or provide more succinct and clear information to someone if you’re waiting on them to make a decision. Maybe pick up the phone if an email is not answered!
A busy day will often include the thought, “I’ll finish this tonight when I’m at home” – but it’s an unrealistic approach to do this seven nights a week. Winning strategies:
1. Examine efficiency. If you’re constantly overloading and bringing work home then you need to more closely examine your efficiency. It’s great to tie up loose ends, but don’t let it be an excuse to cruise through your day.
2. Discuss with your family. Work out what suits everyone in terms of time for work and play. Agree on a fair compromise.
In a stressful environment, a feeling of achievement and control can be fleeting. When the backlog is reignited it can be really deflating. Winning strategies:
1. Demonstrate persistence. The great thing is that you have already proven to yourself that you have the ability to gain control. The backlog is just a reminder that you need to build stamina to continue a high level of output.
2. Use goals to motivate you. Set realistic goals that you can achieve. Measure your results. Share your progress with your coach and get advice.
3. Celebrate achievements! Enjoy seeing a big task get crossed off that list!
Special tips:
Eve Ash has produced a wide range of programs to help people set goals and manage stress and time, for example: Developing Successful Mindsets, Getting Motivated, Delegating and Prioritising, Winners, 15 Ways to Handle Today’s Stress,
Personal Goal Setting and even some Skill Assessment tools – Stress Management Indicator and a Time management Indicator and a Work Effectiveness Indicator and an app with a stress-free assessment – rate-me for iphones.
Eve Ash is a psychologist, author, filmmaker, public speaker and entrepreneur. She runs Seven Dimensions, a company specialising in training resources for the workplace.
