Maranathatalks

By Christine Reedy Whether you’re  trying to impress your new boss or gunning for a promotion, it can be hard to say no to more work. After all, you want everyone to see your hard-working, challenge-accepting, up-for-anything attitude. Unfortunately, every new project you agree to take on comes with a looming deadline—and before you know it, you can barely keep your head above water. When you feel like projects are starting to slip through the cracks or you just can’t give your best because you’re spread too thin, take some time to address the situation  before your to-do list gets the best of you . Here are a few ways to tackle an overwhelming workload and get back on track. 1. Create a Schedule Keep a master schedule of all of your final deadlines by setting up a calendar on iCal or Google Calendar or using a nice planner (I love the set-up of  Moleskine’s weekly notebooks ). Seeing everything in one place can help you prioritize your time because you’ll know exactly

1. Percent of Time You Spend on Your Three Critical Priorities Nearly every client I see  struggles with an oversized workload . However, when we take the time to really break down the work, it usually involves a lot of wasted time and energy. Work avoidance, procrastination, multi-tasking, and distractions all sidetrack essential work, add stress, and make any workload seem bigger than it is. If you are workload-challenged, here’s an exercise to complete each day: Put two columns on a page. On the left, record your three to five biggest, most important, most performance-influencing priorities—you know, the ones that are going to show up on your year-end review, get you a raise, and make the department score a touchdown. On the right side, each day, keep track of the work you actually do and the amount of time each task takes. Then, track the percentage of time you’re spending on your most important priorities versus everything else. What do you notice? If there’s a gap betw