When I was building the Complete Basketcase in the early years, I had a business partner alongside me, sharing the load, splitting all of the tasks. I recall a conversation from a competitor business whom we had befriended and were catching up over coffee. We were comparing notes, chatting about our industry and how long we had been going. My colleague marvelled at how much we had achieved in a relatively short time. We were quick to point out that there were TWO of us, and that it was all about scale, two can output so much more than ONE.
Now I’m a ‘one’ in business again, I can relate to my colleague even more. Especially when it comes to timing and task management. I write my to do list, (the neverending one) and I underestimate how long a task takes or how much I can achieve in a day. In particular on Friday I was delegating a couple of what I thought were quick tasks – You know the ones, send an email and advise something. Well, one email advisement, turned out to evoke a response from my supplier that created a phone call, and 3 more emails and a continuation to Monday. UGH! I am noticing this more and more. What is this phenomenon? A simple or straightforward task that seems to become either long winded or convoluted to complete or it births 3-5 offspring tasks!
Do you experience this? I would love to know! This week I’m going to reset the timer on my tasks. I am going to give myself some more time to complete and I’m going to breathe through the tiers rather that get mad by them. – Also handy would be to apply the principal of Prioritising – A, B, C, D, E, you may have seen this time management tool. – I have decided for fun to reset that too.
A – Absolutely MUST do – no excuses
B – Bugger it, relax it may not happen today
C – Cancel it – move it to tomorrow
D – Dont even bother with this one this week – move to next week
E – Epic NO – make it ok to not do this ever!
Enjoy your week everyone – and cheers to task management progress!
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