Does your day start in a relaxed, organised, passionate
and driven way, where you have a clear understanding of exactly what you
will achieve that day. Or do you wake up already frantic,
concerned about all the tasks you need to complete, almost in a state of
overwhelm, before the day even starts? If you live in a world where the
latter is the norm, then it is time to wrestle back
Control of your life and to bring some order and organisation back in to it, before things completely spiral out of control. You can never perform optimally, when you are constantly in a state of overwhelm or if you feel like you have lost control of your most valuable possession, namely - "YOUR TIME". The solution to the challenge, if you feel overworked, overwhelmed and like you have lost control, is not as difficult as you might believe.
Tips to gain Control
Plan your Day the Night before - Yes of course, when you first introduce this discipline into your experience, it will feel like just another additional task, which you need to cram into your already overloaded schedule. Let me assure you that within a very short space of time, this daily discipline will turn into a few extra hours of useful time every day.
A few years ago I started the practice of planning my day the night before. I too was overloaded and overwhelmed, just like you are feeling right now, but as I was really desperate to change things. I was willing to try anything to break the cycle of overwhelm and poor productivity.
Review your day - So after attending a seminar on activity management, I reluctantly made time at the end of a very busy day to firstly review my day, exploring my day to identify all the tasks I had not completed that day, secondly I rewarded myself for the all the things I did get done, by stopping for just a moment and allowing the glow of satisfaction to flow through me. This whole exercise, surprisingly only took me a few minutes to complete.
Plan every day - Next I moved into my planning session for the next day. As I had invested a few minutes on the Sunday evening, to put scheduled time slots into my dairy, I already had a simple structure in place. So slotting the various tasks, which I had not completed that day into my schedule, was really simple. Secondly I looked at the other issues I needed to address the following day and easily slotted these into the pre-allocated time slots in my dairy too. I was astounded that the planning session, had only taken me about 10 minutes to complete. I looked with satisfaction at my plan for the next day, already feeling more relaxed and in control.
Action Idea - Making your plan actually work for you- The secret to make your plan work and to actually get things done is to avoid the natural tendency to want to tackle your emails, first thing in the morning. This is the worst thing you could possibly do, as you immediately surrender your day and your time to the whims and needs of everyone else.
Control of your life and to bring some order and organisation back in to it, before things completely spiral out of control. You can never perform optimally, when you are constantly in a state of overwhelm or if you feel like you have lost control of your most valuable possession, namely - "YOUR TIME". The solution to the challenge, if you feel overworked, overwhelmed and like you have lost control, is not as difficult as you might believe.
Tips to gain Control
Plan your Day the Night before - Yes of course, when you first introduce this discipline into your experience, it will feel like just another additional task, which you need to cram into your already overloaded schedule. Let me assure you that within a very short space of time, this daily discipline will turn into a few extra hours of useful time every day.
A few years ago I started the practice of planning my day the night before. I too was overloaded and overwhelmed, just like you are feeling right now, but as I was really desperate to change things. I was willing to try anything to break the cycle of overwhelm and poor productivity.
Review your day - So after attending a seminar on activity management, I reluctantly made time at the end of a very busy day to firstly review my day, exploring my day to identify all the tasks I had not completed that day, secondly I rewarded myself for the all the things I did get done, by stopping for just a moment and allowing the glow of satisfaction to flow through me. This whole exercise, surprisingly only took me a few minutes to complete.
Plan every day - Next I moved into my planning session for the next day. As I had invested a few minutes on the Sunday evening, to put scheduled time slots into my dairy, I already had a simple structure in place. So slotting the various tasks, which I had not completed that day into my schedule, was really simple. Secondly I looked at the other issues I needed to address the following day and easily slotted these into the pre-allocated time slots in my dairy too. I was astounded that the planning session, had only taken me about 10 minutes to complete. I looked with satisfaction at my plan for the next day, already feeling more relaxed and in control.
Action Idea - Making your plan actually work for you- The secret to make your plan work and to actually get things done is to avoid the natural tendency to want to tackle your emails, first thing in the morning. This is the worst thing you could possibly do, as you immediately surrender your day and your time to the whims and needs of everyone else.
- Your first 90 minutes of your day is the primetime of your day. Allocate this time to perform the highest value actions of your day. These are the actions, which will bring you or your organisation the greatest value that day.
- Break your day up into 90 minute time slots, followed by short rest periods and allocate your tasks in order of importance, into these time slots. Decide what are most important tasks to you and then in diminishing importance, tackle each task in sequence, throughout your day. Once you get the most important things done, you will not be wasting energy worrying about them, any longer.
- When deciding on the importance of each task, start by testing them against the rewards you will get for completing the task, versus the consequences of putting it aside to complete later.
- As you know 20 % of what you do, delivers 80 % of the results in your life and the other 80 % only delivers 20 % of the value. Carefully select the right 20 % to focus your energy on and find ways to delegate, delete or just do the other 80 %, so that it does not interfere with your day.
- You must remain in control of your day at all times. Yes of course people want to interrupt you throughout your day. My question is simply this. When you are in an important meeting with a client, how many interruptions do you allow? "NONE" right. That is simply because you are accustomed to working this way. Learn to break your cycle of dependence on the notion that you need to be available to satisfy everyone else's needs, at the drop of a hat. Schedule your day according to your needs; including time to take phone calls, answer emails, conduct meetings etc. and you will have mastered your life and optimised your productivity.
- Don't forget to schedule time each day to work on your goals. This is time I like to call "MEET MY FUTURE". This is time I schedule every day to carry out my goal specific actions. Those actions, which are going to deliver the meaning and fulfilment I desire.
Andrew is one of the most sought after Motivational Speakers and
Sales Training experts in South Africa. You can trust him to deliver a
motivational message that will re-energise your team and help them to
ignite the fire of inspiration in their bellies once again. Should you
want to inspire or re-energise your team, visit my website for details
on one of the best Motivational Speakers around.
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