Get Off That Wheel!
Do you find you feel like a hamster in a wheel spinning and spinning, but seemingly not going anywhere? Are there days when you know that you must have gotten a lot done but can’t remember exactly what all you did? We can get lost in the day to day grind and easily lose sight of our goals if we don’t have direction and a set path to follow. That’s where management skills will come in handy.
There are two definitions of manage:
- Be in charge of (a company, establishment, or undertaking); administer; run.
- Succeed in surviving or in attaining one’s aims, especially against heavy odds; cope.
One requires you to take control.
Plan For it
Our commitments and responsibilities may feel overwhelming if left unchecked. With appointments, housework, social events and school activities demanding our attention, it can seem like our days are controlling us instead of the other way around. In order to take charge of your day, you must plan for it.
Start with your morning and go from there. Schedule your day out even when there isn’t much going on. Each day is an opportunity to do something great. Finish that project, start something you have been wanting to do for a long time, or just get a better handle on your everyday tasks that are currently burning you out. When you have it written down to reference, it’s easy to follow the proposed plan instead of trying to create one on the fly. Be specific when you are making your list or writing it down in a planner. If it’s too broad, enough emphasis will not be put on it and it could get looked over. Also, when planning ahead, details are important for recollection later. I can’t tell you how often I have written down partial information only to have no clue what the message meant later when I referenced it. Unless you have a memory like an elephant, I suggest more detail.
Keep Your Chin Up
At some point, preferably now, it has to be recognized and accepted that it is physically impossible to get all the things that need to be done all the time. There just simply isn’t enough time in the day for all of it. This doesn’t make you a horrible person or a lazy person to have not accomplished everything on your to do list today. It clearly makes you human.
So, why do we beat ourselves up when we can’t finish it all? Besides the excitement we get to check off a job well done, there are feelings of obligation to it all even those things that aren’t priority. We can feel like we are letting others down or have a misplaced feeling of guilt for not completing all the tasks on our list. This can rob us of confidence and joy in our daily lives.
Make it So, Number One
To make sure your day doesn’t get unruly, you must assign priority to your tasks. We all have things that we must get done on a daily basis for everything to run smoothly, but there are still other things that need to get done or that you would like to accomplish as well. Setting an acceptable goal for the day and numbering each task in order of priority will ensure that your most important tasks get done first.
Because, even though we think we are pretty darn good at it sometimes, we weren’t meant to multitask. We are actually horrible at it. When our attention is divided, we lose focus on one task to complete another, resulting in a partially completed job, or one that isn’t done with greatest effort. The shortened saying, “a jack of all trades is a master of none” can be applied here. If you try to complete several things in one day, the quality of your work will be poor. Something will get forgotten, rushed, or not addressed at all. It is much better to have two or three priority tasks to focus your energy on and see to completion then to have too many irons in the fire and not be able to quench in time. You must ask yourself this question. Do you want to manage your life, or do you want to succeed in surviving your day?
"Either you run the day, or the day runs you."
