Are you feeling overwhelmed by how much you have to do?  I’d like to share some tips to get out of the overwhelm and back in charge of your day.

But before I do…

Firstly, I want to point out that if you’re overwhelmed, it’s not always your doing.  It might be that your workload is unrealistically heavy.  It might be that your targets and deadline are – um – optimistic.

Secondly, everyone has the odd day when everything feels like too much.  If it happens regularly, it might be time for an honest conversation with your boss about what is achievable and what is not.

 

Tip #1

The first thing to do is to reclaim your diary.  One of the common causes of overwhelm is that you have too many meetings and you constantly feel as though everyone wants a piece of you.  If you ever find yourself in back-to-back meetings all day, drastic action is needed.

(This is often where I start with a programme of Executive Coaching.  It’s all too common that senior leaders don’t get enough time to do anything other than attend meetings)

You can’t do a good job if you’re always in a meeting!

 

To reclaim your diary you first have to understand what you’re up against:

Does your company calendar system allow people to put meetings in your calendar without your consent?  Does it also assume that all meetings last one hour?

If so, you just need to be smarter than the system – not difficult, it’s a piece of software whereas you have a living human brain…

 

Here’s what I suggest…

Set aside two hours.  Go on, put it in your calendar now.  You might not need the full two hours to do this but allocating two hours means you won’t be under pressure.

Here’s what you do in the two hours:

1. Get a grid that represents your working week (or download mine here)
2. Mark out your working hours each day and add any regular weekly meetings or events
3. Block out time to have lunch each day. Even if you don’t eat much in the middle of the day, your productivity will be boosted in the afternoon if you take a break at lunchtime.  You could go out for a walk or meet a colleague, just make sure you’re getting a change of environment and focus.
4. Block out time to deal with your email. That might be the first hour of the day, or the last.  It might three half-hours spread throughout the day.  It’s your choice, just block out as much time as you think you’ll need to keep on top of your email.
5. Make a list of tasks that have to be completed every week (regular reports, updates, maintenance tasks, etc) and calculate how much time each takes. Now decide on the best time in the week to do each task and put it on the grid. One of the major reasons people get overwhelmed with their workload is that they spend time making unnecessary decisions every week.  When to write their weekly report, when to have a team meeting, when to conduct one-to-ones, when to check the stats etc etc.  If you decide the best time – for you – to do each of those regular tasks you never have to decide again, unless you have something more important that clashes with the usual slot.  I know a lot of people think routines are boring, but they save a lot of time and mental energy!
6. If you lead a team, allocate some time every week to spend with each member of your team.
7. Block out time each day to plan the following day and a little extra at the end of the week to plan the following week.

 

Once you’re satisfied that you’ve allowed time for everything that must be done every week, programme it into your calendar.  This is where electronic diaries come into their own – you can add recurring meetings and events for months ahead, protecting that time from unexpected meetings being added when you don’t want them.  If someone wants you join a meeting that clashes with something else, make sure your calendar doesn’t accept it automatically.  Let them contact you and then you can decide which is more important and if you decide to go to the meeting, you can move your planned activity to a different slot as soon as you make that decision.

(I realise that you may have a few over-committed weeks to work through before you get to this heady state of having time allocated in advance for your regular tasks.  Just hang in there, it will come.)

Now, have a look at what’s left.  Twenty hours?  Fifteen?  This is the time you have for participating in meetings and doing the work you commit to doing as a result of those meetings.

If you have only twenty hours (or whatever it is for you) for meetings in a week, you’re probably already wondering if it’s enough.  Well, it has to be.  In which case, you might want to make most of your meetings shorter than one hour.  A thirty-minute meeting can be productive – if you know how.  Try it out and see what works for you.

 

I’m mindful of your time, so Tip #2 will be next week…

Send me your questions about Tip #1 to dianne@brilliantminds.co.uk

It’s only ever a matter of time before my inspiration of the week is Shakespeare, in some form or other!

Last week I went to see the current production of ‘Hamlet’ at the RSC.  It’s one of my favourite plays because I was part of a production of it in Sixth Form, where I fell in love with the magnificent soliloquies, the witty dialogue and the wonderful ‘play-within-a-play’ device.  For years afterwards I could quote whole scenes – I’m blessed with a very good memory.

This current production is graced with a young and unknown actor, Luke Thallon, in the title role and I thought he was brilliant.  He was able to deliver some of the most well-known lines in a way that made them different, spontaneous and fresh in the moment.  THAT is a real talent.

I could take issue with the ‘concept’ and setting of the production.  I could moan about how much was cut.  I could quote my favourite quote from Gregory Doran, former Artisitc Director at the RSC:

Gregory was being interviewed prior to a performance of ‘Hamlet’ that he directed with a stellar cast, including David Tennant as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart as Claudius, he talked about the pressure of taking on this iconic play.  People had been asking him, ‘What are you going to do with ‘Hamlet?’

His reply has stayed with me and remains my yardstick for evaluating all productions of Shakespeare’s plays:

He said in the interview that his reply had been, ‘I have enough to do in ‘doing’ Hamlet, let alone doing something ‘with’ Hamlet’.

Directors often appear to think that in tackling the well-known and loved plays of William Shakespeare they have to find a way to make it fresh and new.  We’ve seen ‘Julius Caesar’ performed by an entirely black cast and set in an unnamed African state ruled by a dictator.  We’ve seen ‘The Merchant of Venice’ set in pre-war London with a female Shylock.  We’ve seen ‘the Tempest’ set in the Arctic.  We’ve seen ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ with all the characters’ genders swapped…

Interesting as these productions can be, for me the best productions are the ones where the text is the star of the show.  I want to enjoy Shakespeare’s lovely words without the distractions of an crowded set, over-the-top costumes, loud music or gimmicky 21st century references.

So, despite the intrusion of a Titanic theme, young Luke Thallon captivated me with his portrayal of Hamlet and I fell in love with the play all over again.

…and there is a beautiful moment of pure theatre at the end, which is only possible because of the Titanic-based set.  So maybe I can live with it.

I would definitely go and see it again.

If I’m really honest, I hadn’t been feeling very inspired this week.  Then, at the weekend the sun came out, the temperature rose and it became clear that Spring is in sight.

This photograph is of a pot of daffodils that almost got forgotten about.  No, it would be more accurate to say that I was reminded of them by accident.

I’d gone into my garage to put away an archive box following the annual clear out at the company’s year end.  As I turned around to leave the garage, I noticed this pot – with small shoots showing.

I brought it out into the daylight and two weeks later I’ve been rewarded with this beautiful display of dwarf daffodils.

 

Why is this inspiring?  Apart from the loveliness of the flowers, that is…

It’s inspiring because I have no recollection of planting the bulbs.  The pot was in the garage along with a lot of empty ones.

It just goes to show that you never know when something you did in the past is going to result in something good today – even if you can’t remember doing it!

My inspiration this week is Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

In the face of bullying behaviour, angry shouting and some serious back-pedalling on expectations, he maintained his composure.  He conducted himself with dignity and did not allow himself to be bullied.

I’m not a massive fan of Kipling but I was reminded of the line,

‘If you can keep your head when all about you,
are losing theirs and blaming it on you…’

Well, from what I saw, Zelenskyy can and did keep his head.

None of us are going through anything remotely like the problems he faces every day, so if he can keep his head, we should be able to follow suit.  That’s the inspiration.

I have been known to mutter that if women ruled the world, it would be a very different place.  I am ready to concede that if more men like Zelenskyy held power, it would also be a different – and better – world.