To put things into perspective, I work a full-time job as a Business Analyst, in addition to being an elected official, a degree-seeking student in college, and a single mother. My mother once told me, "Melisa - there are only 24 hours in a day." Her words seemed obvious, but I had never really thought about that fact before. Even in high school, I worked two jobs, kept a strong GPA, and was involved with school choir and was on the swim team. That was in addition to being an active part of the youth group at church. How do I do everything? People ask me this all of the time. Here's some of the things that help me.
- Make prioritized lists. I write everything I need to do down, and focus on the most time-sensitive thing first. I can't rely on memory. It has to be in "writing" (which mostly consists of typing it into my calendar). I use Microsoft Outlook because it's accessible and compatible with my phone.
- At the end of each day, schedule which tasks you will do in specific time blocks. For me, I'm more of a people-person mid-morning throughout the afternoon. I try to do the work that I can accomplish solo in the early mornings hours of my day, so that when I'm interacting with people, I'm giving them my best. I schedule meetings after 9:30 am when I can make it work with other's schedule.
- Color code your calendar. I put everything into one calendar. Work, school, personal, things for my son. Everything has a color code, so I can tell at a glance if I have something I need to do for that item today or this week. Because I'm so busy, this even includes things like "mow the yard" and "Pack lunch for Chase's field trip". (Chase is my son.)
- Realize that it's ok to say "no". It took me a while to master this one, but I understand that I can't make it to every meeting, every birthday party, and every city event to which I'm invited. If I said yes to everything, I wouldn't be able to accomplish everything and also be able to talk to my son at night. Family is important. It's nice to say hi to them from time to time.
- Do everything possible automatically or remotely from your cell phone or laptop. I check my work e-mails from my phone while I'm waiting for the dentist to see me, return phone calls on my commute, and pay my bills automatically through my bank account.
- Keep blocks of time reserved, with no specific plans to fill them. Do this for your work day as well as your personal time. This trick allows me to finish documenting meetings, assessing software conversions, or to meet a friend for dinner. Sometimes, it even allows me to rest. It's important to stay on top of your game and to not fill every single second, but it's a challenge I struggle with.
- Have a list of "when I have time" projects. These are not urgent, but are important to get to someday. When a meeting gets cancelled, I do my filing. I clean my desk. I use that "found" time to get those nagging projects finished. In my personal life, if it rains and I had "mow the yard" on the calendar, then I move "mow the yard" to the next available time slot and use this "found" time to make a grocery list (and yes, I order them online and pick them up from Wal-Mart).
- Celebrate. I believe that it's important to celebrate successes. Finish a project? Schedule a celebration. Finish the semester? Schedule dinner with a friend. Lose 5 pounds? Get myself a lip gloss. We work so hard, it's important to live a little, too.
Now that you know how I do it, how do you do it?
Comments
Post a Comment