When you get to the end of your rope… (Tie a knot and hang on)

Posted: March 20, 2012 | Categories: Self-Improvement

 

If we are strong achievers, most of us have had the experience of being overwhelmed to the point where we say:

What’s the use?

I can’t catch up.

I am working around the clock with no end in sight

The irony is, most people I know who have achieved something they are proud of end up going through plenty of frustration.  If it were an easy achievement, we probably wouldn’t be that proud of it.

I was talking with a client last week who had reached a frustration point:  He was a regional manager, and was overwhelmed with constantly changing new policies and procedures in addition to taking assessments and getting new certifications.  He was required to get his team of 12 on board with the new mandates, and they were already overwhelmed with their time management challenges.   We put a focus on the problem.  First, we looked at his planning habits.  As pointed out in the planning blog last December, that is usually the first place to look when we want to manage our time better.  Bill (not his real name) was doing a good job of planning.  The next thing we did was look at time management goals.  A time management goals represents a new habit that we need to form.  New habits are the only way we can improve or time management skills.  After all, if it was a present habit, we would already be doing it!

I challenged Bill to consider what habit he could build that would help him.  In thinking through his situation, he discovered he worked more efficiently when he wrote up his reports right away after a meeting, rather than type them up after he got home.  He found that this habit kept him from bleeding in to his family time, and it also saved time, since the most efficient time to write the report was while his thoughts were fresh. All in all, he found he saved 30 minutes a day by building this new habit.  No big deal?  Consider this:  That is 2 ½ additional work weeks a year.  That is just from one habit. So how do you find what new habit would make a big difference for you?  Here are three steps I would recommend:

Do a time log and list all the things you do in your day

Ask yourself:

What can I combine?

What can I eliminate?

What can I delegate?

 

When you target the new habit, commit to tending to it daily until it is second nature.  This could take three weeks, or it could take six months.  Stay with it!

---