Beat overwhelm whilst working from home!
Working from is great! Until it isn’t. At the start of the year I was like WOW I get all this freedom and no commute and I get paid!! It’s a win win win!
Now 6 months on and both the novelty and the freedom aspects have worn off. I miss the routine and structure that office life gives me.
Don’t get me wrong….
I LOVE being able to wake up and structure my morning how I want. I can use the COMMUTE time to workout, read books & just settle into my day.
BUT it still feels hard! My relaxing home is now my office from 9-5 during the week. The boundaries get a little blurred. Then add cooking and cleaning into the mix and it’s easy to see how life can get overwhelming.
A few weeks ago I decided enough is enough. I want to feel happier despite having a stressful job as an accountant. I decided to use my planner to find a better way. Up until now I thought that because I have a full time job I can’t plan my days or structure them how I like because of meetings. What I realised is that this then ended up with my being my email inbox most of the morning and only getting w few useful work projects done.
My strategy?………..
TASK MANAGEMENT
I’m looking at my planner each day and I give myself three projects to focus on at work. Three tasks that need to get done. Anything extra over this is a bonus.
Before I can create that task list for the day I look at the month spread and check that I have all the important big picture deadlines written down. Once I’ve reviewed these I can then look at the weeks and the individual days.
I’ve structured my day so that I’m not in my email inbox all day and on reactive mode. I check my emails once in the morning at 9.30 and then once before lunchtime and once around 4pm. If anyone needs me to do anything urgently they can always ping me on Google chat in-between these times.
The important thing here is that when you’re checking email you’re not stressing. It’s important to read the email and then sort it into one of three buckets: tasks, reference or rubbish. Tasks are emails that contain things that need to be done - I add these to my master list. Reference emails are ones where I’m in CC and don’t need to do anything but the email could be useful in future - these get files once read. Then there’s the rubbish emails - the all staff, junk and just complete nonsense stuff. These get deleted straight after having a look.
Now that the task emails are in my master list I can close emails and get on with my work day. I look at the master task list and look at what is high priority i.e needs to get done. I then organise the list so that the higher priority tasks are at the top. I use a google doc or word doc to do this so that I can cut and paste as needed.
I then take the first three tasks and they make up my day projects. Each day looks different because sometimes there are no urgent priority tasks. I can then do some of the smaller admin tasks that take 5 minutes or less (approving expenses or responding to simple queries etc) whilst having longer and more frequent breaks in the day.
The main thing is NOT to get overwhelmed when looking at the master task list. It is simply a way to catch all the things you need to do so that they’re not circling round and round in your mind causing stress. You don’t need to stare at the list all day. That will drive you crazy and increase your stress levels! Simple go back to the list when tasks are completed and cross them off as well as to add further tasks when new emails come in. It’s a good way to get into a routine of filtering incoming information and soon your brain looks at emails and tasks differently.
This is how I go about my work day and it seems to help create a bit more peace. I’m no longer seeing emails and reacting to them like “ahhhhh another task I need to do!!!!” but seeing it as just a new piece of info that I can filter into the three buckets I mentioned. I’m still experimenting with this and tweaking from week to week but I’m liking how it’s going so far.
If you like the sound of this definitely try it out and let me know how you get on. Don’t forget to check out my Instagram for simple tips and tricks that will help you to get even more time back in your daily life.
See you in the next post :)