Effectively Dealing with a Heavy Workload

A little while ago I wrote about the real benefits to time management and put forward a suggestion as to a fairly interesting  little tool that can be used to effectively manage your time, through the simple means of putting a block on top of another block to which in then collaborates with a computer to give you and actual read out of what you are doing at any given time. Pretty nifty I must say.

Below is a little re-post of the video for you to have a look at:

Daily Stack from Anders Højmose on Vimeo.

Now recently I’ve pondering how exactly one can go along with looking at managing time with a huge workload. Added below is a great post from Lane Chase on how to manage your time with a large work load.

Identify and get rid of “time stealers”

“Time stealers” are one of the main obstacles why you only have little time to get work done. They eat up some of your time when instead you ought to be concentrating on far more important things. Time stealers can be telephone calls or chit-chats with friends or co-workers, watching television, and so on. Learn to identify what distractions are slowing you down in accomplishing your work and start to minimize them slowly and in a timely manner.

Know and set your priorities

You need to know that it’s impossible for you to do all things at one time. Know and set your priorities so that you know what to do first and which task can be done at a later time. To do this, you need to make a list of the things you ought to do and classify them as urgent or not. Accomplish the urgent tasks first.

Be organized

Two ways to be organized at work are getting rid of clutter and diligently following a schedule:

Too much clutter in your work area causes pressure and stress and causes a delay when doing projects or certain assignments. A clean work area motivates you to work. Keep things in cabinets and put those you use often somewhere very accessible to you and throw things you don’t need any more.

Following a schedule keeps you on track with the things you need to do. Plan ahead on what you’re going to do the next day or the next few days so that all your important tasks won’t get missed along the way. An overwhelming workload is the last thing that you want to get yourself saddled with.  Also try to fit play, family life and social activities to your schedule to prevent burnout.

Stop procrastination

Procrastination is the leading cause why tasks and assignments mount up because you are constantly avoiding things that you should do. Decreasing this would give you a lot of time to work and lessen your workload.

Don’t be overconfident

Always saying “yes” to every task assigned to you because ‘you think you can do it all‘ increases the likelihood of piling on too much workload and makes it very hard for you to handle. It is best that you only accept tasks you are genuinely confident you can do and learn to say “no” to tasks that do not fit with your qualifications or abilities. Delegate tasks to co-employees or to team members, if possible, to lighten burden.

Take a break

Insert some time for relaxation and get enough sleep. “All work and no play” could bring your system down and drive you crazy. Take breaks in between work to release pressure and get enough sleep to energize you every day.

Managing your time and accomplishing all of your workload is very challenging. They must work in harmony to be able to see an increase in your productivity and decrease in your stress level. The only key to do this is to learn to take charge and discipline yourself because even though you may already know all of the time management techniques you may lack dedication to follow them.  This would make it awfully hard for you to balance your time and  use it effectively.

Now its a 100% relevant to mention that by really taking an interest in how you manage your time you could even increase your work load and become financially better of for doing so. Its definitely worth investing your time and indeed your hard earned money from your savings accounts for a shot at this. You will notice the difference as I have found and others…

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