The Cooling Stream

First, assemble all of your work in one place. You may discover that it’s strewn between the office, home, your car, and other coworker’s desks. Beginning right now, keep a blank notepad nearby. You may want to begin by jotting down a list of all the responsibilities and projects. This will be your checklist for your paperwork and it will also be your starting place for organizing a usable filing system. Other important tools include a day planner / calendar and post-it notes or a scratch pad. You’ll be amazed at how much better you’ll feel just picking out and assembling these simple tools. Your capability and faith will soar almost immediately.

Now that you’ve got a running list of all your tasks and responsibilities and all your paperwork in one place, you’ll want to begin creating file folders and computer folders. Being organized is half the battle. Use your list to create folders. Once all your paperwork is delegated to its appropriate place, the clutter will stop draining your energy. Take a break and come back refreshed for the next step.

The next step is creating a daily, weekly, and monthly task chart for yourself. Refer to your list of responsibilities on your notepad and note any and all deadlines or quotas. Now break down those deadlines and quotas into weekly and daily goals. You will want to figure out which assignments need daily attention and designate an amount of time to devote to each one. Determine which is the utmost important and assign it the number one. Work your way through until all of your tasks have been assigned a numerical importance.

At this point, you should begin to feel more relaxed and capable of managing the earlier catastrophe. However, if you have allocated all the hours of the workweek and still find it hard to fit in every task and responsibility, its time to have a serious talk with your boss or a reconsideration of your strategy if you are self-employed. Overworked and stressed employees are not productive employees. You might want to approach your boss about redistributing the workload or hiring some extra help. There may be duties that can be outsourced. Be sure to plan out what you will say and take along your task sheets and calendar to show that you are on top of your game.