How to juggle your jobs

By ANGELA McCARTHY


Juggling too many tasks at once and feeling under pressure and confused by conflicting priorities? Here's a plan to fix it.

If you divide the urgent from the important, stop reacting and be proactive, and start to plan on a weekly as well as daily basis you'll soon see a huge difference in your workload, focus and sense of control, says Robyn Pearce, author of Getting a Grip on Time and About Time - 120 Tips for Those with No Time.

"If you're feeling like life is out of control or not being managed, then you're doing too much of high urgency and low importance."

Daily planning - to-do lists - are great, but only if they're drawn up in a planned way.

"It is easy to get bogged down with things that you - and others around you - want immediately and not get on with proactive things such as discussing concepts, networking calls, coaching a staff member, having a walk, or simply thinking," Pearce says.

To start recognising work that is important as opposed to work that appears urgent but is not, regularly ask yourself: "What is the best use of my time right now?"

Jan Stewart, of the Victoria University Student Learning Support Centre, says it is all It is about learning new habits. "A common excuse people use is that they will never be organised because they come from a disorganised family. Being organised isn't hereditary. It is a habit."

Stewart suggests keeping a log of your activities for a few days that notes, honestly, how time is spent. Or get someone to observe you.

"Time-wasters include phone calls, socialising, daydreaming," Stewart says.

Then there are busy actions with no production, often attributable to people avoiding a project because they don't have appropriate skills or feel overwhelmed by the size of the job and can't see how to start. Then there are back-to-back meetings that allow no time for genuine interruptions.

Once you've collected your data, you must ask yourself the crucial question: "Would I pay myself to work like this in these hours?"

If the answer is no, they you need to stop, assess what has to be done and develop an overall plan that can be divided into achievable bits, Stewart says.

Pearce recommends using a diary with a weekly planning sheet (and provides one on her website), then doing daily plans.

It takes about three weeks to get into the habit of such planning, she says. Weekly planning isn't about accounting for 40-plus hours but prioritising and ensuring important activities are part of the week, including important but non-urgent things such as thinking time or a regular walk.

"You make formal appointments with yourself. When something urgent comes up you may choose to reschedule an activity - but because you've formalised it you do think before making changes."

After planning the week it becomes easier to prioritise on daily lists rather than write down a wish list.

Daily planning involves identifying the things to do for the day, then prioritising the top five and starting with the first. But be careful to prioritise importance rather than the most annoying or easiest or fun task, Pearce says.

People in jobs that involve responding to others' needs (retail, reception, sales) or jobs involving little tasks can prioritise by identifying categories of work, or "chunking" them together.

"For example, clear emails three to four times a day - early in the morning, just before lunch, mid-afternoon and before you go home. If you have three calls to make, you'll ring back much faster if you chunk them together."

The point is that the day isn't "bossing you around" as Pearce puts it, because you're being proactive.

An important aspect of daily planning is dealing with other tasks that get thrust at you.

"Interruptions do happen. But each time, ask yourself: 'What is the best use of my time right now? Is this activity more important than the one I'm working on?'

"If it isn't, you put it on your list and finish the task you're on. Then you return to your list and assess again. The new task may then become the next priority - but it may not."

This isn't so easy when it is your manager throwing new work at you.

"Point out how you've organised your day, ask how important it is and suggest they rate the importance of their task against the others you have in front of you."

Pearce gives the example of someone who wrote all his tasks with approximate completion times on a whiteboard because he was constantly bombarded with new jobs by his boss. The boss backed off when he saw the prioritised workload on the board.

Managers should also be prioritising and your proactive behaviour can remind them of that.


How to save time and hassle


* Employ better systems. Anything you do that is repetitious can be templated.

* Put a short-cut icon on your computer's tool bar for any regularly used program so you can open with one click.

* Any sequence of words used regularly in an email can have a signature created for it. With one click you can have any number of words embedded in an email.

* Improved delegation. Training someone else at a lower pay rate to do certain tasks, freeing you for higher-value activities.

* Put things away as you go - then you never have to tidy up.

* Get ready first. If you find yourself constantly dashing out the door stressed because you're running late, get ready in advance. Set an alert and alarm to prompt you when it's time to stop and then carry on with your other work.

* Don't try to change everything at once. Choose one area, work on it for 21 days until it becomes a habit, then move to the next.

- From How to Master Time in Only Ninety Seconds