Effectively Managing My Workload Or What The Heck Did I Accomplish Today Anyway
In an era of doing more with less, why do I feel like I have accomplished nothing at the end of the day? How can I manage my workload and see that I have accomplished something? And how do I find the time to do it?
I was a serious doubting Thomas when my company sent me to a big name time-management training course a while ago. I was pretty sure I had control of my work life. But one of the things I actually DID learn was prioritizing my day. So now 20 years later with a larger workload than ever, I am still doing it. I personally have a planner with a calendar; it’s not required but works for me.
Each day, the first thing, before email, telephones or answering the fires everyone in the office brings, I sit down and figure out the 2 or 3 things I MUST get done today. These are the things that if I don’t finish them the plane will fall out of the sky. They are put on the to-do list in red. You only get about 2 or 3. That’s all you’ll get done in a typical day. And if you have more than that, then you need to SERIOUSLY appraise your workload. But that’s another article.
Next I figure out those things that have to be done, but that the world won’t end if they don’t get done right this instant. These I put in the planner in blue. I know, there is a temptation to say “but tomorrow they’ll be red if I don’t get them done today”. DON’T. No more on the red list. Just resist the urge. This list is probably about 8 or 10 things but it may grow. Let it.
Finally, there are the things that it would be nice to get done, but these tend to become the things that you do when you have nothing else pressing. This is where I put things, like reading my chemistry journals or learning about the Fischer Tropsch process. These are entered in black.
Now, look at the red things. What absolutely has to be done before you take one more breath and I really should be doing it right now instead of making this stupid list!!? First ask if it is really that important. If it is, then number it “A1″. If not relegate it to the blue list. Proceed through the red things and finish ordering them A2 and A3.
Do the same thing for the blue entries, only this is B1, B2, B3 etc. Do not make this a long drawn out, agonizing assessment. Just from your gut, what do you thing the order should be. As you are doing this sorting, ask yourself, these questions:
“Why is this on my list?” If the answer is because it is my job, then it gets to stay. If the answer is because I WANT to do it for ME, it can stay. If it is because someone said “do it or I’ll fire you”, probably should stay. If it is there because someone else asked me to take care of it so they can go golfing, well maybe it shouldn’t be there and you are going to need the next class in saying “no”.
Now ask, “Should someone else be doing this?” If your expertise and time is better spent doing the other complicated thing that only you know how to do, especially those things on the red list, then here’s where you find those things that are better delegated. These get a circle with the initials of the person you are going to delegate the task to inside of it. Now you can keep track of it and know this is not an item you should be doing right now. Just don’t forget to do the delegation! This is also how you handle things that you can’t work on until you get input from someone else. Now you can see the task’s status (waiting for someone) and you don’t need to waste brainpower on it other than to follow up.
Finally ask, “Should it be done at all?” When you start doing this exercise you are going to discover there are things we all put on our lists that, when we really think about them, they can go away. (You’ll see a lot more of this one on the low priority set coming up.) And you may realize that some of these things you thought had to be done pretty soon, well, they really can drop down to the next priority.
Which brings us to the black entries. These are the low priority things that we do to fill in holes in our lives. They can be very useful to us, but the world won’t end if they slide for a while. Number these in priority order too: C1, C2, C3.
Okay, this probably took 10 - 15 minutes (it will get quicker as you stick with it, I promise.) Now you can see what it is you HAVE to get done and what you want to try to get to AND in what order. Next take a look at your schedule for the day. Do you have meetings today? How long do you expect to be in them? Pencil that in on the calendar (mine has the day broken into time increments so I can see what the day looks like, but do what works for you.). Now you can see where you are going to ideally work on your priority list. You may decide that “A2″ fits better in the morning before that meeting and A1 works in better after lunch. That’s okay, pencil them in that way. You can also now see that you have to have B3 done before the meeting. If you HAVE to have it for that meeting, then it should have been an A anyway. That’s OK. Just renumber it with the red pen to “A.5″. That’s why I use the colors.
Next step. Read your email. Some people will say you should do your email first, because there are going to be half a dozen things you need to and can take care of as you are going through them. I find that people (primarily me, but I am a people) will get wrapped up in taking care of the 52 emails they got overnight and the day suddenly begins to spin away from them. So I make my list first. I go through the emails and jot down the to-do’s found in the emails as I go. If I can answer a questions RIGHT NOW, NO digging up a number, NO getting a note from a file, I do it. Deal with it and make it go away RIGHT NOW. But DO NOT get tangled in a bunch of frenetic activity while you are going through the emails. If you have phone mail, do it now too, using the same rules, with the exception do not make calls this second. All calls go on the to-do list first. Calls can become a huge time sink so you want to plan for making them.
Another word about email. Unless you are breathlessly waiting for some incoming jewel, DO NOT sit there with it open and beeping at you. You will feel compelled to open it every time it beeps at you and interrupt your flow on what you are working. And just because someone sends you an email, does not mean you have to drop everything and respond to it. Do emails at specific intervals; say every 2 hours, or morning, lunch and afternoon. Whatever works for you.
Okay, look at the things you have added to your to-do list. Categorize them into priorities, red, blue and black. Number their priority. If they have to be inserted between items already numbered, I use decimals. Generally I have 1 or 2 at the most that need inserted between any given tasks, so they get “X.5’s”. This step, depending on your email and phone mail can take another 5-10 minutes.
Okay so you have spent 20-30 precious minutes making a list. Am I kidding? Nope. If you are like me and have 6 projects and 15 people hanging over your head at any given moment, it is the best half hour spent of the day. Now you know what you ARE going to accomplish. What you can fill in and what you need to keep track of but not worry about because it is written down so it won’t get forgotten. Now you don’t have to keep in your head. Remember, “If it isn’t written down, it doesn’t exist.”
So start working on things. FROM THE LIST. If someone comes up and it is something you need or want to do, it goes on the list. If you say, “eh, I can just do this thing real quick, I won’t write it down”, two things ARE going to happen. First, your day is going to disappear in all these little things and you are going say what did I accomplish today, anyway? And second, you are going to have all these things you wanted to get done today that your aren’t going to get done. So EVERYTHING on the list!!! And by keeping track of all these “can you write me up real quick?” you can keep track of those time thieves that are eating up your day!
Pick things from the list to fit the time you have. If you have 30 minutes between lunch and the staff meeting, pick something FROM THE LIST that you can do in 30 minutes, A, B or C.
Speaking of which, things on the list are all the things you need to get done, professional and personal. If on the way home you HAVE to buy cake mix for the 60 cupcakes your son has to take to class, PUT IT ON THE LIST, in RED. It is a priority and has to be accomplished.
Last step, and it is an important one. When you finish the task, check it off the list. There truly is a physical gratification to doing this (they showed us the studies, really.) At the end of the day, you can see you really DID accomplish something. And you can see what you have to start with tomorrow. Because tomorrow when you sit down to do this again, you are going to take what is left on today’s to-do list and start with them. The A’s from yesterday you didn’t get done yesterday, well you will either be looking at them as “GOTTA get done for today A1″, maybe with a star for “OMG I will SO get fired if I don’t do this” or maybe you will have discovered, I guess that wasn’t so important and it gets to be a B. The B’s from yesterday get your list of B’s started and the C’s will likely be going along for the ride. I actually have my “C’s” on a sticky note so I don’t have to keep re-writing them every day.
But again, what works for you. After a while, you may realize that some of those things you have been hanging around your neck “to do” really don’t need to be done. X them off. It feels just as good as checking off a finished project.
Your planner becomes a document you can go back to when you have to do annual appraisals and tell my boss what you have been doing all year. It shows a time line of how long a certain task ACTUALLY takes, which is great when you have to make job quotes. It is a document of when you received a task and when you got it done or passed it along. And it helps you begin to understand what is and is not important.
So that’s where my day went…
Melanie Thom holds a BS in Chemistry and a Master’s Degree in Technology, from Purdue University. Ms. Thom has over 15 years experience in the design and support of aerospace fuels and lubricant systems. She is a trained facilitator and has led multiple TQM teams to successful conclusion. Ms. Thom has authored numerous articles and documents, reviewed and edited technical texts, given multiple presentations, and taught multiple college level courses. Currently Ms. Thom is the president and senior staff chemist for Baere Aerospace Consulting, Inc. in West Lafayette, Indiana. Her expertise in the area of fuels and lubricants interface with aerospace design is routinely sought by major engine component manufacturers, engine manufacturers, airframe manufacturers, the US military, major airlines and regional operators, and by educational institutions. The company’s website is located at http://www.baereaerospace.com
The company offers project management, research assistance and facilitation of product development.
Tags: prioritization, time-management, Workload