Where I Went Wrong On An Overwhelming Day
Last week I shared about my chaotic, frantic work day.
There were a few obvious but key things I’d left out of my day.
I, like you, am prone to sitting down, opening emails, DMs, Voxer, all the apps… I start responding to messages, I start “quickly” following up on little tasks and then… it’s 11am and I haven’t done these things:
I have got to plan my day. Even writing down what calls I have, when I’m going for a walk or having lunch, where my bigger work blocks are… it just gets my head on straight for the day, and when I get lost, I can go back to the plan. I do plan my week on Sundays but I still find this practice really helpful day to day as calls and priorities change.
I batch things! I wear a few different hats – including coaching in my business and being a Success Coach inside Whole You – and if I jump around across all of those roles, my mind is scrambled. So I write down the tasks I have to get done in each area (you could do this across work and home [how many times have you hung out laundry working from home then totally lost your train of thought at work because you’re mixing tasks?], or across your job areas [maybe you have management tasks, reporting tasks, client work tasks, etc that you could batch together]). When I batch, I can just get into one head space for a while, and this makes the tasks get done much faster.
For me, doing my focused or creative work first thing makes my day so much more productive. I’m learning from Neill Williams that we are 30% more efficient earlier in the day than later. So, here I am, writing this newsletter to you – before I’ve opened my inbox or any other apps for the day. And you know what – getting this done, and then replying to everyone after this means my day is going to be so much better and I’m sure no one is going to freak out that I haven’t gotten back to them yet.
If you’re not feeling as productive in the day as you’d like to, grab one of these tips and try implementing it this week. I’d love to hear how it works for you!