Do you feel like you have taken on more than you can handle? No matter how hard you work – it feels like you are making absolutely no progress at all. It’s frustrating and leaves you feeling like binge-watching Netflix with your favorite snack. Well, at least…if you had the time to do it.
Trying to juggle 50 million projects at once, and still find the time to lead a somewhat normal life, and not entirely distance yourself from society seems like an impossible task.
Did you know that no matter how hard you work, there is always someone that is doing more?
You may be thinking no way! There is no one that can handle the insane workload I cope with on a daily basis. It feels like your handling mountains of work at a time. The truth is somewhere in the world, there is always someone managing to achieve just that little bit more than you.
The good news is throughout this article we are going to provide some savvy tips to help you better manage your projects, and improve your overall productivity.
Prioritize Tasks To Maximize Productivity
We all have that one task. It takes 5 minutes. You know its easy enough to do. But for some reason, you just can’t bring yourself to do it. Instead, you open up Facebook, decide to watch a quick video on YouTube, or some other form of procrastination.
Trust us when we say that procrastination is probably your worst enemy!
The easiest way to circumvent this problem is to prioritize your tasks. The small-time investment will help you stay on top of your projects, and streamline your workflow. This will also help you better organize deliverables according to when they are due.
The last thing you want to do is work overtime on a project, just to discover that the project you are working on is only due in 2-weeks. Or even worse, another important project was due the next day that you completely forgot about! Don’t worry – we have all been there.
There are a ton of mobile, and desktop applications that you can use to achieve this. Our recommended online platform would be a nifty website called Trello.
You Are Not A Robot – Don’t Expect To Be Able To Work Like One
No matter how much pressure you are under – it is important to remember that you are not a robot. There are only so many hours you can work in a given day.
In fact, did you know that we are only productive 25 minutes at a time? Working hours on end without pause may be an excellent way to get through a mind-numbing project. But at the end of the day, it will leave you feeling burnt out.
The good news is that there is a technique that helps you maximize your work performance while taking advantage of your priority productivity time. The technique is known as Pomodoro, and you can read about it here.
Sometimes You Just Need To Say No
You know you simply don’t have the time to pile up more work on your busy schedule. But the moment someone asks you to do something, “yes” springs out your mouth before you can politely decline. We all want to be able to help everyone with everything. But unfortunately, sometimes saying “no” is necessary.
You don’t have to say no outright. You can explain that you simply just don’t have the time right now. Your peers will understand, and you can arrange to help them at a later time when your workload is more manageable.
This particular tip may not help with your current projects. But trust us when we say it will make a difference to the hours you have to pay attention to priority projects that need your full attention.
If You Run A-Team – Don’t Burn Hours Wondering What They Have Got Done
Running a team, on top of a crazy workload is tough. It’s frustrating. Worst of all, it’s nerve-wracking. A simple trick to help you ensure your team is on top of the pipeline is to hone your project management skills, read this to find out how!
Having somewhat frequent, short meetings can also help you nail down progress on the project pipeline.
These meetings can serve as a conference of sorts. This can help you identify the progress your team is making on deliverables. If anyone is stuck on a particular task, the collective brainstorming can help unstuck them.
More often than not by the time you have hung up – you will be feeling motivated to put in that tiny bit of extra effort to ensure your team looks good. After all, there is no better feeling than turning in important projects way before they are due.