We all have the same 24 hours a day to accomplish our goals, aspirations, and dreams. So how do we best utilise the time given to us with the millions of things we have going on each day?
Firstly, you can’t manage time; you can only manage yourself. As long as you focus on managing time – searching for systems, lists, and tools – you are ignoring the real issue: how to manage yourself.
Every time you repeat “Too much to do” and “Not enough time”, you are letting yourself off the hook for managing yourself. You are blaming circumstances beyond your control and playing the victim. Stop it! Of course, there is too much to do! Of course, there is not enough time! Get used to it!
Which leads me to priorities, you cannot have too many priorities. By definition priorities are the top few tasks that deserve attention next. If you have too many, you have none. So know your top few priorities because if you have two to three priorities, you will complete two to three tasks. If you have four to 10, you will complete one or two. If you have more than 10, you won’t finish any. The more items on your list, the more time you spend focusing on the list and feeling overwhelmed.
So here are my five ways to deal with too much to do:
- Accomplish more – this is simply wishful thinking unless you actually find a new, faster method that makes a measurable difference. You won’t save significant time trying to be faster and more disciplined
- Postpone – some things can wait. Push them out
- Cut corners – cutting corners sounds bad, but it isn’t. Not everything has to be awesome or perfect. Before starting any task, always ask the question, “How well?” Those last tweaks are usually discernible to no one but yourself
- Ignore – some tasks just don’t need to be done
- Delegate/outsource – too many people are doing things that should never be on their plates in the first place. If you don’t know how to delegate effectively and confidently, you need to learn. If you are a control freak or simply unwilling to let go, stop it!
When you fail to manage yourself, establish top priorities, and make conscious decisions about what to do and what not to do, the stress is unbelievable and the results aren’t pretty:
- Your inbox and meeting schedule starts to control your day
- Important tasks are trumped by easy tasks that you can dispense with quickly in exchange for the feeling of progress
- “Fun” tasks, those for which you always have time and energy, somehow get finished
- Short-term initiatives beat out long-term efforts.
And every week you copy and sort those to-do lists hoping they will magically become feasible.
It’s time to bite the bullet, narrow your top priorities list to two to three items at any one time, schedule time on your calendar to tackle those items and devote the rest of your energy to focusing and getting them done. Quit wasting so much time and energy listing, managing, and prioritising the things that deserve to fall through the cracks.