We’ve all been there. Loads to do, somehow never enough time to do it. Especially if you’re not naturally an organized person, this can cause chaos, sleepless nights, last-minute rushes…in short: nothing helpful to you or to your career.
So what can you do about it? Here are some tips:
1) Be. More. Organized!
I have a heck of a time trying to stay organized. I naturally tend to keep everything in a mental list – tasks, appointments, deadlines. Unfortunately that way of doing things means I never actually work out the time I need to take on things. Which is fine when there’s only a few things and it’s easy to fit it all in, but not so much when there’s a lot, and everything has to fit around everything else.
My solution? Find ways to make me more organized. I use Google Calendar and Tasks – with multiple reminders (and which sync to apps on my phone so I can never escape and never forget).
I even color-code everything, so even just glancing through I can have a basic idea of who my commitments are for (personal, work, or 8 Sided Films for example).
Let’s face it, there’s an app for everything. Utilize the tools at your disposal and start building into yourself the habit of scheduling everything in. It’ll show you just how much you’re doing, and ensure you don’t forget anything.
I can still trust my brain to keep me on track most of the time, but I started to struggle, so I improved my system. Think of your calendar/task list as transactive memory: we can’t hold all the information in our heads, so we share it – with friends, spouses, the internet, apps. It’s there, it’s accessible, but it doesn’t require you to cram it all into your brain and risk losing bits.
2) Add up the hours
Once you have everything in your life written in, scheduled and reminding you about when it’s all due, you can see how much there is and how much time is needed.
The first time I sat down and spent an afternoon plugging in everything I had to do and how long I would generally be spending on it, I wound up exhausted just from seeing it all! I didn’t realize how much I was trying to do – and seeing it all in black and white (and red and blue and green…) clued me in. No wonder I never seemed to have enough time.
Add up those hours – be aware of how much time you’re currently spending on things. Once you’re both organized and aware, you can start doing something to make it all manageable.
3) Prioritize
Now you have in front of you everything you’re trying to do, and how long you’re currently spending on it, you can start to break it down a little.
The next thing you need to do is flag the things that are your absolute priority. But beware – you can’t prioritize everything! At the top of my list I have 2 personal things, and 2 career things. Now, those things can change week to week depending on what’s going on, but I am strictly not allowed to increase those numbers. If something else needs to take priority for a week, then something else needs to drop down a step.
Items on my list will be everything from “Spend time on twitter account X” to “Watch a DVD” – relaxation being every bit as important as work.
With everything in place, every week I spend a few moments to update my list of things to do, change or confirm my Absolute Priorities, and then order the rest; factoring in everything from deadlines to personal significance. Everything that’s there is there for a reason, I just need to decide what takes precedence. And for each priority level below the Absolutes, there is only one personal and one career item allowed.
Don’t get me wrong, there are a million different ways to do this, and the trick is to work out what works for you. For me, this is what makes sense. I don’t time slot 24/7, but I do ensure I give myself the ability to get things done, without destroying the balance I need between work and life.
Prioritize it and schedule it – and you’ll never miss anything.
4) Learn the word “No”.
Now you know how much you’re doing, and have fitted in all the important bits. The next trick is…knowing when you can’t (or shouldn’t) take on something extra.
Simple in theory; not so simple in practice. It means saying “I can’t”, once in a while. I find that difficult, and am constantly having to relearn the fact that it’s ok to say I’m unable to do something. Having my task list and calendar in front of me makes it much easier to say “I can’t fit that in” or “I have some time next week”, because I’m looking at the proof of it.
Do not try to shoehorn something in where it won’t fit. You won’t do justice to yourself or anything else – and this does apply to both career and personal life. “I can have coffee next week” is preferable to “Sure!” followed by having to rearrange EVERYTHING in order to fit it in asap.
It doesn’t mean you’re making anything or anyone less important to you – it just means you’re smarter about how you fit it all in. Better to give a friend or a project an hour of solid quality time, than an afternoon of half your attention.
The simple lesson here is: spending some time finding ways to better organize your world makes it easier to get everything done.