3 tips to streamline your workload

The idea behind this post is simple efficiency. Disclaimer: This is not something taught in schools and professionals in this field get paid enormously for a skill that should be commonplace!

That being said, here are my 3 tips without further adieu:
(Note: I will ramble a bit on each one but you needn’t read it all.)

1. Have a vision for the future.

In case you’re wondering, this goes beyond just goal-setting. This plays a major role in your belief-/value-system – whether you believe you have one or not. Thus impacting on your thoughts, feelings, actions and responses.
If you have this in place, everything else either falls into alignment or out of alignment.

Why is this?

Most likely because it provides focus. Although most visions begin with financial acquisition in mind, I would advise to seek value in your vision that aligns with your spirit-man. If it doesn’t add value to you or others then we need to question intentionality. (Drop me a mail to chat more about this.)

2. Organize your ‘damn diary’.

Whatever happened to ‘Dear Diary…’? I can’t tell you how I have struggled to do this for myself and sometimes I still fall short BUT I don’t deal with the same frustration many friends, family, or colleagues face with this.
Somehow, my vision guided the clutter-meetings out of my diary and value-adding, investment, and development meetings into my diary.

Just over a year ago.

I used to have ONE productive day of admin per week. If I didn’t get everything done it was simply too bad. It meant I could get to all my meetings/sessions with clients, complete maybe 60% of my planned training per week, travel about 1500-2000km per week, be on the road 2-4 hours per day, and be awake 18-20 hours per day.

Present day.

I have around 3 days of wholly productive admin. More time to spend with my amazing wife during the day and on weekends. I prioritize important things over less important things AND still get to see my friends either during the week or on weekends! #success

Tip: find a scheduling system that works for you and stick to it for a week, then a month, then a year. Get people to work within this framework in whatever way you can. The current people in your life may not enjoy the new system BUT the future people you encounter will love it!

3. Don’t spend more time than necessary

Are you confident in the work you do? Do you 9 out of 10 times know what’s happening even if you don’t actually know what’s going on yet?
If you answered ‘yes’ to these, this means you are a professional in your field. Be confident in that!

The worst thing is to sit in front of 1 email when you have no idea how to handle the situation and feel like someone is waiting for a response. Usually, if something is urgent, you’ll get a phone call and it can be handled almost instantaneously if you can remain cool, calm and collected – like a cucumber.

Suggestion.

Deal with things you can’t solve immediately as swiftly as possible but don’t not do anything else. Yes, that’s correct. Go tend to the garden or wash the dishes, have a meeting or catch-up with a friend, and most importantly seek wise counsel from God and esteemed colleagues.
Your mind will process the information so when you tackle the problem it’ll literally take 10 minutes AND you managed to get other things done.

Obviously I wouldn’t advise taking more than 24 hours otherwise no matter your response, the case is lost.

Last but not least.

If the paw-paw has hit the fan, you’ll know about it because everything is everywhere and you don’t know where to begin cleaning. This also means you or someone close to you either decided to throw the paw-paw around or switched off the fan in summer.