When clients come to me with the question, ‘How can I prioritise my work better?’ it is usually not about learning new time management skills. It can be the starting point for their dilemma, but it’s often not where the solution can be found.
In many cases, people have already started researching different time management tools, they’ve already been on one if not more training courses about prioritization, and they already know what they could do to manage their work well. Yet, when it comes to putting it into practice, something holds them back because, well, we all know how we need to eat less, exercise more, go to bed early etc. to stay healthy, but it takes more than knowing it, to make a shift.
What usually happens next is that we explore what the underlying reasons are for not managing time as well as we’d like to: Are there any underlying beliefs that stand in our way, have we experienced something that triggers us to repeatedly behave in an unhelpful way, or is there something else that’s stopping us from taking control?
It often happens that bringing some awareness to the underlying root cause brings space to make a change. For instance, when you become aware that you don’t want to let anyone down in your life, so you don’t protect your own boundaries as well as you could, and you might commit to too many projects. I recently experienced this myself: I had felt almost paralyzed for a few weeks with a sense of underlying nervousness, and it took some digging before I realized that I had made my ‘big project’ list too long, committing to more than I thought I could deliver, and not de-prioritizing anything.
When you feel like that, what can you do?
You could make one long list of all the things that you have on your plate, and pick just three. Ask yourself, how does that feel? If you feel you cannot let go of the other items on the list, what assumptions are you making that could be stopping you from doing so? If you still feel like three is too many, could you reduce it further? How about doing just one thing for today? What would happen then?
Using some reflective writing techniques to think this through could really help you, but remember, everyone is unique and while we all at times will feel too busy and overwhelmed, the solution for you may be very different from what others need.
What I did was make a de-prioritization list: What had I committed to that I could let go? Or, if I couldn’t let go, could I push it back? And then I brought awareness to my personality traits of being goal-driven and had the conversation – with those that I had committed to – to reset expectations. Yes, it’s uncomfortable, because I did feel like I was letting them (and myself) down, but it was the right decision in the long run.
That worked for me, but if you continue to feel stuck, a professional coach can help you work this through by giving you time to think, probing beyond what you already know, and helping you decide on what actions you can take away.
Curious? Call us for an introductory chat about the things you would like to get think through. Remember, everyone is unique in what holds them back.
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