A packed schedule at work should not be seen as a badge of honor. It may be sign of problems down the road.
Your busy schedule may sneak up on you. You’ve kept adding one more thing and extending your workday. While you can get away with it for a little while, eventually you’ll be thrown a curveball that will put you in a panic.
I was reminded of this challenge when I was recently hit by a virus. For one day, I was unexpectedly bedridden. I could not even do work on a phone or a tablet (I was glad I didn’t have a speaking engagement that day).
Everything I planned to accomplish personally and professionally that day was off the table. I felt time starved because my days were so packed that I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to catch up with the loss of an expected day of productivity.
This is a sign that recalibration is needed. When you have a packed schedule there’s no room for the unexpected or time for personal growth. Here are some tips to help you avoid the challenges of a packed schedule:
Prioritize Needs
Understand where you should be spending the majority of your time. Often, all of those, one more things, you’ve picked up are outside your main duties.
Spend a week tracking how much time you’re spending on your most important tasks. That’s the first step to making changes to the things that may not matter as much.
Does Your Packed Schedule Have Limits?
Some tasks come with open ended time commitments. For instance, I could spend hours researching something or just invest 15 minutes on the task. Would checking ten sources, instead of two, really make a difference in the outcome?
It’s up to you to decide the level of time investment needed to get the job done to an acceptable level. This produces a baseline you can use when similar tasks come up in the future.
Schedule Open Time
Have you ever noticed your open online calendar is quickly filled by other people’s needs? That’s okay until it cuts into your time to get things done or invest in your big picture goals.
Don’t be afraid to block off time that you can use for these tasks. This is especially important for your professional development. According to the 2018 Workplace Learning Report from LinkedIn Learning, Getting employees to make time for learning has moved up to the #1 challenge facing talent development.
It’s up to you to take an active role in your professional development. Don’t expect someone to magically create opportunities for you.
Ask for Help or Guidance
When I speak to audiences about these challenges, most nod when I say it’s important to have good communication between supervisors and employees. The supervisor may be able to offload some duties, from an exploding schedule, but he or she can’t make any adjustments if they don’t know about a time crunch problem.
While there may be no short term solutions for a packed schedule at work, awareness opens the door for future change. It’s a mistake to assume understanding from the boss.
Employees need to speak up when problems materialize. Put the focus on getting your work done at a high level, rather than just saying, “I’m swamped.”
