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The world of entrepreneurship is busier than ever. In my case, I run my own public relations agency, manage a family of five children and serve on several boards of directors as well as doing volunteer and pro bono work. Between the narrow, infrequent slots in my schedule, I try to squeeze in time for my interests and hobbies just to keep myself sane.
As much as I love being a female boss, it’s a constant juggling act of juggling multiple responsibilities (overseeing operations, nurturing customer relationships, and keeping up with industry trends), and the workload can quickly become more than discouraging. As a result, work-life balance becomes a distant dream and burnout looms on the horizon.
A few months ago, I collapsed on the couch at 11pm and told my husband, “I can’t handle all the load right now.” So we talked about what I could do – change or reframe – to make the unmanageable manageable.
Here are six tactics for controlling time and work demands that are spiraling out of control.
Related: 5 Signs You’re Overworking Your Employees
1. Know your watch
It would be great if we were all scheduled to get up at the crack of dawn, meditate quietly for 15 minutes, work at an incredible pace for five hours until lunch, and then return to our desks after a 30-minute break for another incredibly productive run until five o’clock. Is this what your day looks like? I didn’t think so.
Over the years, I couldn’t help but learn my “work efficiency clock”: the hours when I’m most tuned in and inclined to be productive (not to mention relatively free from household chores). For me, these ranges are 8am to 11.30am, 1pm to 4pm, then 7pm to 10pm. What are your “peak hours” when you feel ready to take over the world (or at least your inbox)? When you structure your tasks around your biological rhythm and daily routine instead of the other way around, your natural energy level will fuel you better and your mental acuity will guide you better.
2. Set an intention for the day
I know, I know, you have a dozen or more goals every day. I do it too. But I’ve found that if I write down in my planner the one thing I have to do the next day, the one task that will free up my mind and my desk the most, the rest of my day seems extraordinarily fulfilling and I start thinking about my pillow that night with a sigh of contentment.
Examples to get you thinking: One day I committed to making at least three outreach calls on leads I had received for new clients. I reached the finish line at 11 and almost danced my way to the kitchen to make a salad. Another day, I promised myself I would Finally clean up and reorganize files in Google Drive. Needless to say, when I was able to achieve this goal in one day, I felt motivated!
I implore you to try it. It’s incredibly freeing to know that you’ve fulfilled your intentions for the workday – everything after that is just gravy!
3. Follow the two-minute rule
David Allen’s proposal in his book Finish doing things it has become a universally adopted tactic because it works. And my guess is that it works because it’s simple. All you have to do is eliminate any two-minute or less task just as you’re thinking about it, which eradicates procrastination and increases productivity. Send the Zoom invitation, sign and return the contract, and schedule an appointment with your tax accountant. Done, done, done.
Yes, there are various interpretations of how to apply this rule, but the point is really all that matters. If you can tick something off your to-do list in two minutes flat, bust out a few items 1, 2, 3… and then see how quickly and happily you move on to the more time-consuming 4, 5, and 6 .
Related: 8 Ways Successful People Beat Procrastination
4. Cluster activity
In education, “clustering” involves grouping specific, similar topics and skills into time-based units to improve learning acquisition and absorption. Here, I am applying the term to tackle similar tasks together, which brings benefits such as using the same tools/apps for a number of related tasks, having the minimum number of windows open on the screen at the same time, and staying in the same cognitive lane window for a trait, which improves concentration.
For example, instead of dedicating time to one client at a time, I switched to dedicating a portion of time to one work function for all of my clients at a time. The quarterly work reports I prepare – now they are all ready in one fell swoop while the template is open on my desktop. Employee reviews: I do three or four in one sitting while my mind is in “personal mode” to keep my thoughts aligned and set in a pattern.
5. Never go to bed restless
No, that’s not a typo for “angry.” Instead of your parents’ advice for a good marriage, this is my advice for having a good day. To put this advice into practice, let’s go back to your to-do list. At some point in the day (or, for many of us, at night), you simply have to let the day end. You have to accept that you’ve done everything you can, that you’re not a superhero capable of ticking off every single item, every single day.
Put your desktop to sleep, turn off the office light, close your laptop, and silence your phone. You don’t have to “let it go”; you just have to “let it be.” Except in a true emergency, there is almost nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow. Putting the kids to bed is more important than sending out another email.
Related: 7 Productivity Hacks for 2024
6. Experiment with time blocking and time boxing
Similar though different, these two time management techniques are all the rage, probably to stem the flow of people angry at how little time they have! In any case, the basic concept is to organize your schedule based on which tasks to complete in a block and exactly how much time to dedicate to that block.
In my company, this not only means assigning content creation to Client A, Client B, and Client C for 1.5 hours each in consecutive order, but it also means splitting my week into designated days for different teams. I recently decided to dedicate Mondays and Fridays to my staff duties and Tuesdays through Thursdays exclusively to my clients. Not only that, but I’m now scheduling weekly 10-minute one-on-one sessions with each team member on those “bookend” days, always the same way with each employee, for maximum consistency and reliable structuring.
In a way, all of the above strategies are about allocating your time and energy into chunks in ways that will work best for your particular workflow, obligations, and lifestyle. Then experiment with different setups by setting a timer to see how long certain tasks normatively take to establish a starting point, and consider assigning particular tasks to particular days of the week. It works for me – I hope it works for you too!