What If You Are Swamped With Work?

"If you are swamped with work, take time to get organized.
In between tasks, no matter how busy you are, squeeze in doing things that make you happy like hugging and kissing your little girl if you are at home or just smiling at the closest person around."

Just thinking of a heavy workload can be tiring, yet nothing gets done because you do not know on which task you will get your hands first. Becoming overwhelmed when you need to do so many things will only stunt you. What if you get more organized? Here are simple tips that can help you get your work done.

1. Prepare a work schedule. If you are swamped with work, take time to get yourself organized by preparing a work schedule. Depending on how your tasks come in, you can plan a daily or a weekly work schedule. A simple list of things to do may not be very helpful. You actually have most of the things that you need to do in your head. In your work schedule:

• List all the tasks that you need to get done.
  Be sure to list everything that you need to do including those tasks that can wait, otherwise those tasks may never be completed.
• Indicate a tentative deadline for each task.
• Assign a priority number for each task.
  When prioritizing, consider deadlines as well as tasks that cannot be done unless other tasks are completed.
• Put an approximate time requirement to do each task.
  This may be easy for old tasks but not for new ones. To plan a workable schedule, it is better to overestimate time requirements than otherwise.

2. Mentally picture working following your schedule. As you mentally rehearse your work day or week, discover creative techniques to accelerate the completion of each task. Develop systems or practices that maximize use of facilitating tools and gadgets. Identify tasks that can be delegated to somebody else and put remarks on delegated tasks on your work schedule. Make other adjustments in your work schedule as you deem appropriate or necessary.
3. Do your work following your work schedule. As you do your work, keep a sane pace and stay focused on the task at hand. You need to complete the first task before moving on to the next. Sometimes, you hear people say that they multitask to get their jobs done faster. The truth is people do not have the capacity to multitask like computers. Those who claim that they are multitasking are actually just task switching which requires restarting and refocusing. If you fail to refocus properly, you become prone to errors and mediocrity in your work and completing the task takes longer time.
   Check whether the tasks that you have delegated have been done.
   Cross out the completed tasks on your work schedule.

If you were able to cross out all your scheduled tasks at the end of the day or week, congratulate yourself. If there are tasks that were not completed, just reschedule them for tomorrow or the following week. In between tasks, no matter how busy you are, squeeze in doing things that make you happy like hugging and kissing your little girl if you are at home or just smiling at the closest person around.