HOW TO ESCAPE THE JOB RUT AND MANAGE WORK LOAD EFFECTIVELY?
by Juli Weber
To dig yourself out from under this burden or work you first have to know what caused your particular problem. There are a number of reasons why you might be under strain. And each different cause has a different remedy.
First of all, take a good long look at your situation. Is this something new or has it happened before? 'Crisis' situations which require emergency actions do genuinely happen. But are you muddling along from one crisis headlong into the next? Poor planning or lack of contingency planning may be the culprit here.
Chronic, but not really 'crisis', overloads can have several causes as well. The 'do everything herself' person is overloading herself perhaps intentionally. Are you trying to prove you are indispensable? Are you always dissatisfied with your subordinates' work? Are you burying yourself in work to hide from something, like responsibilities at home or an unsatisfactory social life?
Poor scheduling can be another cause of the 'Swamped Syndrome'.
Some tasks have hidden pitfalls that require more time than originally planned. But if you consistently underestimate the time required to complete tasks, you will fall further and further behind.
Another cause of time management problem is poor use of time available. Are you able to concentrate on a task until it is complete, or are you constantly being interrupted? Do you 'interrupt' yourself by starting one thing, then deciding something else has highest priority? Procrastination is the major culprit for many people. When the deadline is two weeks off, some people have a hard time starting on the project promptly and breaking it into pieces. Instead, at the very last minute they begin rushing frantically to get it done.
One area of your work, one particular chore, may be getting far behind, although in general you keep up fairly well. Which is your problem task? Have a backlog of correspondence to answer? Have not balanced the books for over a month?
If there is only one small swamp in your office, figure out how it got there. Once you have targeted the spring that is feeding your swamp, you can channel the flow and drain that bog which has you mired. Good planning is the key to time management. So set down a list of goals, then the steps to attaining them and their priorities. Whether the problem is big or small, temporary or chronic, solid planning will break up the problem into manageable portions so that you can get back into control of your time and your life.
Do not be afraid to delegate some of those tasks to others. Explain the task step-by-step, if necessary, so that the other person will be able to do it. If your subordinate do not do jobs to your satisfaction, it could be through a lack of training. Invest the time required to train them thoroughly. It will save you many hours which can be put to better use.
Concentrate on the results you want, not the process by which they are attained. There may be more than one way to do something. In fact, your employees may come up with a better method for completing the task. Give them the opportunity to discover more productive ways to do things... and find more productive ways to do those tasks you must do yourself. If half your stuff to be filed does not have a slot in the system, develop a new system. Plan it out on paper with fewer but broader categories, then put the new plan into effect. It is better to spend a day designing and installing a new system than to spend an hour searching for files each time you need them.
Stop procrastinating! That much easier said than done. Pick your nastiest, most hated task. Do it now, immediately, and get it out of the way. Schedule a time every day for the nasty chores, set the alarm clock, and when it rings go straight to work. Schedule a special treat or reward when the job is done. A good reward is a tremendous motivator to get that chore finished fast.
As new work comes in, do not stick it on under the pile. Assess its priority, then break the project into manageable components and slot each into your schedule.
Plan to work overtime until you have caught up. Go into the office early so you can work undisturbed for 30 minutes to an hour before others arrive, or stay late. If you have a quiet space and a cooperative family, schedule some time at home.
It is hard work mucking out the swamp. If you burn yourself out, your new organizational plans will be shunted aside while you collapse from exhaustion and stress. Schedule rewards for completion of various projects or tasks, like a nice restaurant dinner, a Sunday nap, a weekend holiday, or another fun and relaxing treat.
If you have reorganized your time and procedures well, you should get yourself caught up fairly soon. Once your are caught up with your workload, your new system should keep you from becoming mired in the 'Swamped Syndrome' ever again.
Regards,
PRADEEP
From India, Hyderabad
9by Juli Weber
To dig yourself out from under this burden or work you first have to know what caused your particular problem. There are a number of reasons why you might be under strain. And each different cause has a different remedy.
First of all, take a good long look at your situation. Is this something new or has it happened before? 'Crisis' situations which require emergency actions do genuinely happen. But are you muddling along from one crisis headlong into the next? Poor planning or lack of contingency planning may be the culprit here.
Chronic, but not really 'crisis', overloads can have several causes as well. The 'do everything herself' person is overloading herself perhaps intentionally. Are you trying to prove you are indispensable? Are you always dissatisfied with your subordinates' work? Are you burying yourself in work to hide from something, like responsibilities at home or an unsatisfactory social life?
Poor scheduling can be another cause of the 'Swamped Syndrome'.
Some tasks have hidden pitfalls that require more time than originally planned. But if you consistently underestimate the time required to complete tasks, you will fall further and further behind.
Another cause of time management problem is poor use of time available. Are you able to concentrate on a task until it is complete, or are you constantly being interrupted? Do you 'interrupt' yourself by starting one thing, then deciding something else has highest priority? Procrastination is the major culprit for many people. When the deadline is two weeks off, some people have a hard time starting on the project promptly and breaking it into pieces. Instead, at the very last minute they begin rushing frantically to get it done.
One area of your work, one particular chore, may be getting far behind, although in general you keep up fairly well. Which is your problem task? Have a backlog of correspondence to answer? Have not balanced the books for over a month?
If there is only one small swamp in your office, figure out how it got there. Once you have targeted the spring that is feeding your swamp, you can channel the flow and drain that bog which has you mired. Good planning is the key to time management. So set down a list of goals, then the steps to attaining them and their priorities. Whether the problem is big or small, temporary or chronic, solid planning will break up the problem into manageable portions so that you can get back into control of your time and your life.
Do not be afraid to delegate some of those tasks to others. Explain the task step-by-step, if necessary, so that the other person will be able to do it. If your subordinate do not do jobs to your satisfaction, it could be through a lack of training. Invest the time required to train them thoroughly. It will save you many hours which can be put to better use.
Concentrate on the results you want, not the process by which they are attained. There may be more than one way to do something. In fact, your employees may come up with a better method for completing the task. Give them the opportunity to discover more productive ways to do things... and find more productive ways to do those tasks you must do yourself. If half your stuff to be filed does not have a slot in the system, develop a new system. Plan it out on paper with fewer but broader categories, then put the new plan into effect. It is better to spend a day designing and installing a new system than to spend an hour searching for files each time you need them.
Stop procrastinating! That much easier said than done. Pick your nastiest, most hated task. Do it now, immediately, and get it out of the way. Schedule a time every day for the nasty chores, set the alarm clock, and when it rings go straight to work. Schedule a special treat or reward when the job is done. A good reward is a tremendous motivator to get that chore finished fast.
As new work comes in, do not stick it on under the pile. Assess its priority, then break the project into manageable components and slot each into your schedule.
Plan to work overtime until you have caught up. Go into the office early so you can work undisturbed for 30 minutes to an hour before others arrive, or stay late. If you have a quiet space and a cooperative family, schedule some time at home.
It is hard work mucking out the swamp. If you burn yourself out, your new organizational plans will be shunted aside while you collapse from exhaustion and stress. Schedule rewards for completion of various projects or tasks, like a nice restaurant dinner, a Sunday nap, a weekend holiday, or another fun and relaxing treat.
If you have reorganized your time and procedures well, you should get yourself caught up fairly soon. Once your are caught up with your workload, your new system should keep you from becoming mired in the 'Swamped Syndrome' ever again.
Regards,
PRADEEP
From India, Hyderabad
Hi
I would like to share this article about managing workload.
We have all experienced that appalling sense of having far too much work to do and too little time to do it in. We can choose to ignore this, and work unreasonably long hours to stay on top of our workload. The risks here are that we become exhausted, that we have so much to do that we do a poor quality job, and that we neglect other areas of our life. Each of these can lead to intense stress.
The alternative is to work more intelligently, by focusing on the things that are important for job success and reducing the time we spend on low priority tasks. Job Analysis is the first step in doing this.
Time Can Be On
Your Side!
Time Can be on Your Side with Make Time for Success!
The first of the action-oriented skills that we look at is Job Analysis. Job Analysis is a key technique for managing job overload – an important source of stress.
To do an excellent job, you need to fully understand what is expected of you. While this may seem obvious, in the hurly-burly of a new, fast-moving, high-pressure role, it is oftentimes something that is easy to overlook.
By understanding the priorities in your job, and what constitutes success within it, you can focus on these activities and minimize work on other tasks as much as possible. This helps you get the greatest return from the work you do, and keep your workload under control.
Job Analysis is a useful technique for getting a firm grip on what really is important in your job so that you are able to perform excellently. It helps you to cut through clutter and distraction to get to the heart of what you need to do.
To conduct a job analysis, go through the following steps:
1. Review formal job documentation:
Look at your job description. Identify the key objectives and priorities within it.
Look at the forms for the periodic performance reviews. These show precisely the behaviors that will be rewarded and, by implication, show those that will be punished.
Find out what training is available for the role. Ensure that you attend appropriate training so that you know as much as possible about what you need to know.
Look at incentive schemes to understand the behaviors that these reward.
2. Understand the organization’s strategy and culture:
Your job exists for a reason – this will ultimately be determined by the strategy of the organizational unit you work for. This strategy is often expressed in a mission statement. In some way, what you do should help the organization achieve its mission (if it does not, you have to ask yourself how secure the job is!). Make sure you understand and perform well the tasks that contribute to the strategy.
Similarly, every organization has its own culture – its own, historically developed values, rights and wrongs, and things that it considers to be important. If you are new to an organization, talk through with established, respected members of staff to understand these values.
Make sure that you understand this culture. Make sure that your actions reinforce the company’s culture, or at least do not go against it. Looked at through the lens of culture, will the company value what you do?
Check that your priorities are consistent with this mission statement and the company culture.
3. Find out who the top achievers are, and understand why they are successful:
Inside or outside the organization, there may be people in a similar role to you who are seen as highly successful. Find out how they work, and what they do to generate this success. Look at what they do, and learn from them. Understand what skills make them successful, and learn those skills.
Excel in Your Career,
With MindTools.com...
This is just one of over 100 essential life and career skills that you can learn on the Mind Tools site.
Become a highly effective leader; minimize stress; improve decision making; maximize your personal effectiveness; and much, much more.
Click here to find out about our career excellence community. Or subscribe to our free newsletter, and get new career skills delivered straight to your Inbox every two weeks.
4. Check that you have the people and resources to do the job:
The next step is to check that you have the staff support, resources and training needed to do an excellent job. If you do not, start work on obtaining them.
5. Confirm priorities with your boss:
By this stage, you should have a thorough understanding of what your job entails, and what your key objectives are. You should also have a good idea of the resources that you need, and any additional training you may need to do the best you can.
This is the time to talk the job through with your boss, and confirm that you share an understanding of what constitutes good performance in the role.
It is also worth talking through serious inconsistencies, and agreeing how these can be managed.
6. Take Action:
You should now know what you have to do to be successful in your job. You should have a good idea of the most important things that you have to do, and also the least important.
Where you can drop the less-important tasks, do so. Where you can de-prioritize them, do so.
Where you need more resource or training to do your job, negotiate for this.
Remember to be a little sensitive in the way you do this: Good teamwork often means helping other people out with jobs that do not benefit you. However, do not let people take advantage of you: Be assertive in explaining that you have your own work to do. If you cannot drop tasks, delegate them or negotiate longer time scales.
Summary:
Job analysis is a five-step technique for:
Understanding and agreeing how to achieve peak performance in your job;
Ensuring that you and your boss agree on the areas you should concentrate on when time gets tight; and the areas that can be de-emphasized during this time; and
Making sure that you have the resources, training and staff needed to do a good job.
By using the Job Analysis technique, you should gain a good understanding of how you can excel at your job. You should also understand your job priorities.
This helps you to manage the stress of job overload by helping to decide which jobs you should drop.
Job Analysis is just one of many practical action-oriented techniques for reducing the stress of job overload. These and other types of technique help you to resolve structural problems within jobs, work more effectively with your boss and powerful people, improving the way your teams function and become more assertive so that other people respect your right not to take on an excessive workload. These are all important techniques for bringing job stress under control, for improving the quality of your working life, and for achieving career success.
These action-oriented techniques and many others are explained in Managing Stress for Career Success, the Mind Tools Stress Management Masterclass, and here to visit the Stress.MindTools.Com site, which has many more articles on stress.
From India, Madras
I would like to share this article about managing workload.
We have all experienced that appalling sense of having far too much work to do and too little time to do it in. We can choose to ignore this, and work unreasonably long hours to stay on top of our workload. The risks here are that we become exhausted, that we have so much to do that we do a poor quality job, and that we neglect other areas of our life. Each of these can lead to intense stress.
The alternative is to work more intelligently, by focusing on the things that are important for job success and reducing the time we spend on low priority tasks. Job Analysis is the first step in doing this.
Time Can Be On
Your Side!
Time Can be on Your Side with Make Time for Success!
The first of the action-oriented skills that we look at is Job Analysis. Job Analysis is a key technique for managing job overload – an important source of stress.
To do an excellent job, you need to fully understand what is expected of you. While this may seem obvious, in the hurly-burly of a new, fast-moving, high-pressure role, it is oftentimes something that is easy to overlook.
By understanding the priorities in your job, and what constitutes success within it, you can focus on these activities and minimize work on other tasks as much as possible. This helps you get the greatest return from the work you do, and keep your workload under control.
Job Analysis is a useful technique for getting a firm grip on what really is important in your job so that you are able to perform excellently. It helps you to cut through clutter and distraction to get to the heart of what you need to do.
To conduct a job analysis, go through the following steps:
1. Review formal job documentation:
Look at your job description. Identify the key objectives and priorities within it.
Look at the forms for the periodic performance reviews. These show precisely the behaviors that will be rewarded and, by implication, show those that will be punished.
Find out what training is available for the role. Ensure that you attend appropriate training so that you know as much as possible about what you need to know.
Look at incentive schemes to understand the behaviors that these reward.
2. Understand the organization’s strategy and culture:
Your job exists for a reason – this will ultimately be determined by the strategy of the organizational unit you work for. This strategy is often expressed in a mission statement. In some way, what you do should help the organization achieve its mission (if it does not, you have to ask yourself how secure the job is!). Make sure you understand and perform well the tasks that contribute to the strategy.
Similarly, every organization has its own culture – its own, historically developed values, rights and wrongs, and things that it considers to be important. If you are new to an organization, talk through with established, respected members of staff to understand these values.
Make sure that you understand this culture. Make sure that your actions reinforce the company’s culture, or at least do not go against it. Looked at through the lens of culture, will the company value what you do?
Check that your priorities are consistent with this mission statement and the company culture.
3. Find out who the top achievers are, and understand why they are successful:
Inside or outside the organization, there may be people in a similar role to you who are seen as highly successful. Find out how they work, and what they do to generate this success. Look at what they do, and learn from them. Understand what skills make them successful, and learn those skills.
Excel in Your Career,
With MindTools.com...
This is just one of over 100 essential life and career skills that you can learn on the Mind Tools site.
Become a highly effective leader; minimize stress; improve decision making; maximize your personal effectiveness; and much, much more.
Click here to find out about our career excellence community. Or subscribe to our free newsletter, and get new career skills delivered straight to your Inbox every two weeks.
4. Check that you have the people and resources to do the job:
The next step is to check that you have the staff support, resources and training needed to do an excellent job. If you do not, start work on obtaining them.
5. Confirm priorities with your boss:
By this stage, you should have a thorough understanding of what your job entails, and what your key objectives are. You should also have a good idea of the resources that you need, and any additional training you may need to do the best you can.
This is the time to talk the job through with your boss, and confirm that you share an understanding of what constitutes good performance in the role.
It is also worth talking through serious inconsistencies, and agreeing how these can be managed.
6. Take Action:
You should now know what you have to do to be successful in your job. You should have a good idea of the most important things that you have to do, and also the least important.
Where you can drop the less-important tasks, do so. Where you can de-prioritize them, do so.
Where you need more resource or training to do your job, negotiate for this.
Remember to be a little sensitive in the way you do this: Good teamwork often means helping other people out with jobs that do not benefit you. However, do not let people take advantage of you: Be assertive in explaining that you have your own work to do. If you cannot drop tasks, delegate them or negotiate longer time scales.
Summary:
Job analysis is a five-step technique for:
Understanding and agreeing how to achieve peak performance in your job;
Ensuring that you and your boss agree on the areas you should concentrate on when time gets tight; and the areas that can be de-emphasized during this time; and
Making sure that you have the resources, training and staff needed to do a good job.
By using the Job Analysis technique, you should gain a good understanding of how you can excel at your job. You should also understand your job priorities.
This helps you to manage the stress of job overload by helping to decide which jobs you should drop.
Job Analysis is just one of many practical action-oriented techniques for reducing the stress of job overload. These and other types of technique help you to resolve structural problems within jobs, work more effectively with your boss and powerful people, improving the way your teams function and become more assertive so that other people respect your right not to take on an excessive workload. These are all important techniques for bringing job stress under control, for improving the quality of your working life, and for achieving career success.
These action-oriented techniques and many others are explained in Managing Stress for Career Success, the Mind Tools Stress Management Masterclass, and here to visit the Stress.MindTools.Com site, which has many more articles on stress.
From India, Madras
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