Managing Your Workload: 5 Tips to Handle an Overwhelming Schedule

We love it when life has great timing and hate it when too many deadlines occur on the same day. “When it rains, it pours,” is the saying. I recently found myself with two major projects due on the same day and only two days to get the job done. How would you have handled this situation? 

I asked ChatGPT what it recommended because my client always asks me if ChatGPT can help lighten my work. It came up with ten tips to handle an overwhelming schedule, and because I found a list of ten tips overwhelming, I reduced those tips to a more manageable five. Here are my tips for getting an overwhelming work schedule under control and my insights on how well these tips work.

Tip 1: Prioritize Tasks

Start by organizing all your tasks in a list and deciding which ones must be done and which are less urgent. If the tasks are major tasks, break those down into subtasks and prioritize those as well.

Pros: This tip helps to make the job less overwhelming when you focus on finishing just one item at a time. It’s also satisfying to see each item checked off your list as you complete them. Your progress is tangible.

Cons: Life isn’t ideal. I finish a task, give it to the supervisor for review, and see a pile of edits on it, not a stamp of approval. So I pop the task back in the to do list so I can work on it again later. 

Tip 2: Create a Schedule

Establish a schedule for getting the work done. Working in 15 or 30-minute blocks for example allows you to focus your attention in short spurts. Set a goal to accomplish within that block of time. When the block is finished, take a quick break to rest your eyes or stretch. If you’ve been working for a few short blocks, take a longer break to go for a walk or have a snack.

Pros: Working in short spurts keeps you focused and working to short-term goals. It’s easier to work for a short block of time, instead of working for several hours until the task gets done, or thinking you’ll be free from work in eight hours.

Cons: The perfect schedule doesn’t exist. You might be interrupted by a coworker with an urgent question that you must deal with immediately. 

Tip 3: Set Boundaries

Even if you plan out your schedule and set goals to manage an overwhelming schedule, you can’t anticipate everything that could go wrong. Your boss might ask you to change what you’ve done. After several fixes with no end in sight, it’s time to protect your mental well-being. Let your boss or team know what you’re facing. Tell them you need support, and what that support may be, such as taking a break until the next day, or asking if someone else can help with the task.

Pros: Your mental health will improve when you set boundaries and let your boss or coworkers know that you’ve hit your limit and need a break. Without that break, you’ll become less productive.

Cons: You may feel guilty over delegating your work to a coworker because it was your task to complete. 

Tip 4 Take Regular Breaks

Taking scheduled breaks is essential if you want to stay productive. Even if you think you can stay focused for three hours straight to get a time-sensitive project out the door as soon as possible, it’s not the best idea. Your eyes need a break from staring at the screen. Your body needs rest – sitting or standing at a computer desk is unnatural. Remember to take mental break to take your thoughts off work and give your body a rest.

Pros: Better for your health. Better for your eyeballs and good for the brain and other body parts. The mind needs a chance to clear your thoughts.

Cons: You may feel you’re losing time by resting, but the breaks are worth it.

Tip 5 Utilize Technology

Technology is a great tool to help you get the job done. Always look for new developments that will help enhance your productivity. For example, grammar and spell-checking apps keep an extra pair of eyes (so to speak) on the quality of your work. Spreadsheets and various apps keep your tasks organized.

Pros: Helps you to do your work more efficiently and accurately.

Cons: Technology isn’t perfect, so you can’t rely on them completely. For example, grammar-checking apps sometimes suggest corrections that aren’t always the best choice.

Key Takeaways

An overwhelming work schedule is manageable if you find a system for dealing with what you need to complete. By prioritizing tasks, creating a schedule, setting boundaries, taking breaks, and using technology, you can chip away at those tasks and get the job done. 

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to make sure you don’t miss the next post!

4 Tips to Finding the Perfect Mentor

When you’re juggling a career, social life, and hobbies, finding time for career-related training is challenging. One way to improve your skills is by taking a course or program. Another is to read many books. However, one of the most effective ways is to learn from a mentor with the skills and experience you’re looking for. Finding the perfect mentor is not easy, but there are some tips you can follow to find the right one for you.

Tip 1: Choose a mentoring style you’re excited about

To learn from someone with a social media presence, start with an online search. Follow this person on their social media platforms, watch their videos, or subscribe to their newsletters. If they have free seminars or workshops, sign up for them. Your purpose is to learn more about their teaching style, as well as what they teach. You want to choose a mentor whose style resonates well with you.

To learn from a mentor you’ve met in person, build a connection. Most likely this person doesn’t have an online presence because they don’t offer mentoring professionally. They don’t have courses or videos available for you to learn from. This person may be a coworker or someone in your professional network. You’ve heard their advice during a networking event or an informal discussion and their advice resonates with you.

Whether your mentor is a well-known celebrity or someone you know personally, ask yourself if your mentor challenges you. Someone with similar life experience or skills may not be able to mentor you as well as someone with a higher level of skill or more years of experience.

Tip 2: Take action and start learning

When you’ve found someone you like as a mentor, ask yourself if your mentor can motivate you to get results.

Your mentor should inspire you to take action when you watch their YouTube video or teach you about a new concept. Their message should excite you so much that you want to learn and change. They should also be approachable. For example, you should feel comfortable having dinner with them without feeling nervous.

Their mentorship should have you thirsting for more knowledge about the same topic or madly scribbling notes. You should be excited about applying what they are trying to teach you as soon as possible.

To get the best results from working with a mentor, have some goals in mind. The worst scenario is to be too general about what you want your mentor to teach you. If your mentor posts a lot of learning material online, focus on one topic at a time, not getting your hands on everything they have ever published. If your mentor wants to help you improve your skills, don’t set a general goal, such as, “I want to get better at my career.” Set specific goals and share these with your mentor.

Tip 3: Choose a mentor who chooses you

Getting feedback from your mentor is important. Don’t just take classes with your mentor. Sign up for coaching sessions or group sessions to practice what you’ve learned. Take your mentor out for coffee and ask for an evaluation. Get feedback on your progress as often as you can. 

If you can schedule an hour with your mentor, plan goals in advance. Prepare questions to ask your mentor, or list what you’d like to improve on before your meeting. Set clear expectations and outcomes to show your mentor that you respect their time.

Work with a mentor who is invested in your future. After receiving feedback, take some time to reflect on what you’ve learned. Was the feedback valuable? Can you use the feedback to make improvements? Did your mentor seem genuinely invested in providing you with meaningful goals and useful feedback? 

A mentor who is a good match will encourage you, tell you what progress you’ve made, be honest in their critique, and help you set goals for next steps.

Tip 4: Focus on making progress

Finding the right mentor is like an investment. You want someone who is approachable, excited about what you want to learn, and honest when mentoring you. It will feel uncomfortable and even painful to be told that you aren’t doing something well. However, if you only spend time doing things that you already excel at, you will not grow as a person.

Embrace change and getting uncomfortable. You chose this mentor because they are great at something that you aren’t. Follow their lead and get comfortable facing your fears. Each time you challenge yourself to try a small goal, you make progress. When you look back, you’ll be surprised at how far you’ve come.

In life, the best direction to keep moving in is forward. After you reach one milestone in the road, aim for a new one. Always keep challenging yourself and you will grow as a person.

Key Takeaways

Finding the perfect mentor is a search for a two-way relationship. Your mentor should be someone you are inspired to learn from, but also someone who is excited about seeing your career advance to the next level.

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to make sure you don’t miss the next post!

Gratitude Quotes

Time to reflect! We’ve now completed the first six months of 2023, also known as Q2 in business circles. It’s also the end of another week. What are you grateful for?

There are so many wonderful things: family, friends, the weekend, another fulfilling week… the list goes on. 

As we think about the things we’re grateful for, we’ll share some thoughts about gratitude from writers and storytellers.

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.” — Neil Gaiman

“I want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile.” — Charles de Lint

“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relatives.” — Oscar Wilde

“New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.” — Kurt Vonnegut

“Don’t wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you’ve got to make yourself.” — Alice Walker

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to make sure you don’t miss the next post!

Yummy Benefits of Remote Work and Travel

One of the very best benefits of remote work is saving time commuting to and from work daily. The tradeoff is one big in-person meeting once a year so you can interact off screen. It’s an opportunity to socialize without checking what time your virtual meeting ends. Kind of like the yearly Christmas party, but better, because you stay in a nice hotel and (depending on how well-traveled you are) get to visit a new city.

The benefits don’t end there. You also have three meals a day – paid for at the company’s expense. The downside of this setup is it’s a little restrictive – you eat when it’s time to eat, and you eat where they’ve decided you’re eating. If you’re a free spirit, that can be a downer, but this is a great convenience if you like a well-planned life! The benefits of meals provided by the company only continue from there.

Benefit 1: Breakfast

If you’re always in a hurry in the morning, or you hate putting together a million items for a quick breakfast, then breakfast is your first bonus of the day. When you get to the meeting room, an assortment of pastries and fruit and a variety of tea is there to greet you. Coffee is just caffeinated or decaf (unless you run out to Starbucks first). When you’re done eating, you can leave your dishes around and they’ll magically disappear.

Benefit 2: Try new food recommendations

You’ll have opportunities to try new cuisine. If the style of cuisine is not something you’re familiar with, your coworkers will be eager to help with recommendations. You may also find yourself eating food that you should be familiar with, but it looks different, like a salad that you need to cut. How often do you eat your salad with a knife and fork? Always be ready to try something new!  

Benefit 3: Fine dining

If you haven’t experienced fine dining, you’ll have more tales to add to your life experience. A coworker said she chose risotto as her main dish because she didn’t know what to pick. She’d never experienced fine dining before. I recommended the sablefish or duck because I’d had sablefish several times at restaurants. Later, I realized this might have sounded like I was a regular at four and five-star restaurants. Oops. I’d forgotten to add that those experiences were all company dinners. 

Key Takeaways

Remote work can be isolating. You don’t see your coworkers during your regular workday. This routine changes when you travel for your yearly in-person team meeting, which is like a mini-vacation away from home. One of the highlights is the delicious food and the plentiful opportunities to try new dishes. This is definitely a perk of remote work for a company.

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to make sure you don’t miss the next post!

Clever Restaurant Marketing Tactic with Food

Does food taste better when it’s cute?

I dined at a Michelin-recommended restaurant where my party was tempted by the desserts shaped like fruits and animals. For example, pastry shaped like a purse, custard buns that looked like apricots, and tarot buns that looked like Minions.

We chose the duck-shaped, mango-flavored milk gelatin. It had the texture of thick ice cream and pudding. Or maybe I shouldn’t say “it,” like how we refer to food, but more like “it” the way we refer to cute puppies or kittens. The words “mango-flavored milk gelatin” doesn’t sound appealing, but when you look at the photo, and when you see your table neighbors ordering cute ducks sitting innocently on a plate, you need to order one.

My Pokemon expert friend said the duck was Psyduck, so he said we had to try it. He’s spent many years capturing Pokemon on his phone. Here, he had just found another Pokemon.

From a business perspective, I admire this clever restaurant marketing tactic. Make your food cute, and the orders will come. Make your food into the likeness of creatures your customers love, and the orders will come.

Was the dessert delicious? Yes. Would you order food that looks like cute animals?