When you manage your workload efficiently you can get more done, increase your business’ bottom line, have more time for yourself, and avoid burnout. However, the question is: in a world where everything is a priority and yesterday is the deadline, how can you possibly become more efficient while delivering high-quality work to your team, clients, and customers? Implementing certain practices, workload automation, and time management skills can help you get there faster than you think.
1. Break Down Your Goals Into Months, Weeks, & Days
By breaking down your workload into a timeline that supports the goals you want to achieve, you’ll feel less overwhelmed and much more clear on what you’re doing from day to day and week to week. Start by fast-forwarding to the end of the month. What would you like to accomplish? Be sure to keep your goals realistic; it’s easy to stack your ambitions, get overwhelmed, and feel like a failure going into yet another month. What does real success look like and what does that allow you to do? Getting in touch with the benefits will energize and motivate you.
Now that you know what you’d like to achieve by the end of the month, what does a realistic and sequential timeline look like week by week? Break up your goals into micro-goals and assign them to each week.
From there, all you have to do is break down your weekly workload into daily tasks. Even though you might not stick to the plan perfectly, you now have a much clearer idea of how to manage your workload.
2. Time Block Your Calendar
Now that you know what you need to do each week and each day to manage your workload, block it out in your calendar. Any regular meetings should be set up on repeat with the same meeting links if at all possible as a way to let workload automation take the busy work off of your shoulders. Fill in the times you need to accomplish your tasks while making sure to schedule in time for taking care of yourself. Be sure to mark these times as busy so that anyone else who has access to your calendar knows that you’re not to be disturbed or double-booked.
3. Stop Multi-Tasking
The days of worshipping multi-tasking are a thing of the past. Concentrating on one task for a specific period with no distractions will help you get way more done than trying to do many things at once. And yes, that means putting your phone out of eyesight so you don’t get sucked into social media scrolling.
4. Set Realistic Expectations
Communicating with your team, clients, and boss about what they can realistically expect from you in terms of delivery deadlines will help everyone be on the same page and minimize any pressure for you to overwork yourself. Also, by being clear on the expectations of every stakeholder involved in a given project, your entire team will know what is expected and how they need to perform to move the collective goal over the finish line. There will always be those last-minute “really urgent” projects that you can’t really say no to, but still take the time to go back to your monthly goals and your calendar and look at what you can realistically achieve without sacrificing the quality of work.
5. Use Workload Automation Software Whenever Possible
Workload automation software takes away the need to reinvent the wheel at the beginning of any new project. By setting up workload automation, you’ll be able to plug and play for every project down the line, saving you precious time during the planning phase.
6. Dare To Delegate
Whether you hire a virtual assistant or take the time out to train someone else in your company eager to expand their skill set, delegating administrative tasks or busywork that are carving into your prime problem-solving and creative time will pay off in dividends in the end. This is another way you can leverage the power of workload automation software: with seamless integrations that tie the fundamentals of business together, you can let technology do its job while you become more efficient at yours.
7. Keep Track Of What Works – And What Doesn’t
Learning how to become more efficient at managing your workload is a learning process that will evolve and change over time. Start a document in your notes app or write down in a journal what is helping you achieve your goals and what isn’t. Check in with your calendar and the tasks that you broke down for the week and the day. Were you able to achieve what you desired? Is the end of the month going to look how you wanted? If so, what allowed you to get there? If not, what do you think needs to be changed?
Remember: It’s okay if you don’t figure everything out immediately. But continue to break down your goals, block out your calendar, use workload automation whenever possible, and delegate to others, and eventually, you’ll find that you’re much more clear on how to complete your workload without sacrificing quality.
Comments