Organizing your workday
Some time ago, I shared a few tips on prioritization skills. Prioritizing is undoubtedly important, but how to best tetris everything into your day or week? A lot of advice on this is running around the internet already. Still, today I'd like to share a few basic tricks for organizing your day that make all the difference for me.
- Having a weekly outlook. Let me explain what I mean by that. When it comes to life, I always try to take everything in one day at a time. But when it comes to working, I take a few extra minutes at the beginning of each week to look at what is coming my way over the coming days. This helps me to avoid surprises and distribute my time and effort accordingly. For example, suppose I have multiple deadlines coming up by the end of the week. If that is the case, there are different ways to go about it - at least as long as I spot the potential problem early. I can either clear out my personal schedule in advance, get support, delegate, or – as a bare minimum - manage the expectations of my stakeholders early on. I know you might say that I don't know your job, your boss, or other conditions you are working with. Still, there is one thing I know for sure. In over a decade in a corporate environment, I've never been punished for calling potential risks or delays out in advance instead of simply delivering something late.
- Setting daily goals. Once I'm clear on the weekly outlook, I can start defining my daily goals and deliverables. Up to three of them per day, to be very precise. While I like to call myself a pathological optimist, this is one of the few areas it does not apply to. I have learned to be realistic – heck, even pessimistic – with how many different tasks I can complete within a particular day. Yes, the choice and combination of the three are still subject to the 'size' of the tasks at hand – this is where the 'realistic' label comes in handy. Nevertheless, as long as you keep it reasonable, 3 tasks per day are always doable. Here comes the trick: three tasks are doable regardless of how many you've initially put on your list. The difference comes only at the end of the day. You see, ticking off three things out of three leaves a much better taste in my mouth than ticking off three out of five, or out of ten ever could. Even if they are the same three. This way, I am literally outsmarting my own brain, setting myself up for success, and ensuring I will be closing the day off as a winner. Doesn't that sound great? The best part is, it is totally up to you. Obviously, you can also exceed your own expectations. If today's your day, and you're crushing it, nobody is holding you back, and nobody said you have to stop at 3 tasks per day when it comes to execution. I'm just recommending that you stop at 3 when it comes to planning. 😊
- I always aim to leave room for the unexpected and only plan out up to 80% of my time. There are always unforeseen ad hoc topics and emergencies, which is why I keep my schedule flexible. Yes, on some days, it is more difficult than on other days, but it still is a helpful rule to keep in mind.
- Task batching. By now, everybody knows that multitasking does not work and is actually counter-productive, right? Newer research has even quantified it – every time we switch between different tasks or get interrupted, it takes up to 15 minutes until we're back in focus. Considering an 8hour workday, it only takes 8 switches (or interruptions) to spend up to a quarter of your time trying to get back at where you were at. To me, that is actually scary. This is why I like to group similar tasks like emails, calls, or follow-ups; to get in a rhythm and complete them in less time and more efficiently.
- If you only take up one of these, make it this one: Calendar blockers. I'll never forget a short conversation with an internal customer that one past manager of mine once told me about. You remember I'm in HR, right? This person that my boss was talking to was complaining about our team not working hard enough. They checked the outlook calendar of somebody on our team, and they were horrified that it was completely empty for ONE whole afternoon of the week. This was when my boss said the golden truth: "Yes, that's when they actually have the time to get the work done." Isn't that true more often than not? Sure, our outlook calendars are typically used by other people to book our time and presence for meetings and calls. But the work typically begins after the session ends, and the tasks to be completed outside of meetings also require your time and presence, do they not? BOOK IT. This is especially useful for blocking larger chunks of time needed for projects, creative and problem-solving work, but at this point, I book in almost everything. I block out time for follow-ups, reminders to emphasize important timelines, and any critical to-dos of the day. If you need to get it done, you also need the time for it, and so you should not feel guilty to block it out.
- A bonus one: the magical spell called NO. It is always better to under-promise and over-deliver, and it's always easier to fix a wrong no than to fix a wrong yes. Sure, there may not always be enough leverage on your end to dictate the deadlines. Nevertheless, as long as your output is required, your input on the timelines and deliverables should be required too. I keep this in mind especially with low priority or nice-to-have tasks that are not really part of my core job. On one occasion, thanks to a hectic period in one of my former roles, I – with all seriousness – needed to say that I would be happy to support the extra request I was approached with, but considering my current core job priorities, I would be able to look into it in three weeks at earliest. It suddenly wasn't really needed anymore, and it never came up again. True story, bro.
I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences if you give any of these a try, or what your own go-to ones are – hit me up! The comment section awaits you with open arms 😊
