Have you ever felt like your workload is increasing so fast that you can’t even focus for long enough to prioritise what needs to be done? We’ve all been there. We also know that during the pandemic, comms teams have really felt the strain.
At Sorted Communications we’re committed to making our clients’ lives that little bit easier. We are perfectly positioned to take the day-to-day comms off their hands, helping them find some headspace to focus on the bigger things, with confidence that we’ve got the basics under control.
In this post, some of our team share their thoughts on how to step back from the chaos, boost your productivity and clear some of the everyday tasks from your plate.
Organise your thoughts and tasks effectively
Our founder and director Ali has a background working in busy NHS in-house comms teams, as well as freelancing, so she is accustomed to managing a hectic schedule.
“I know it is often easier said than done, but my first piece of advice is to be as strict as possible about how you manage your calendar. If you can, block out a few chunks of time in your calendar when you won’t accept calls or meetings. This gives you space to focus and clear work from your to-do list,” Ali suggests.
“If your employer supports flexible working, you could try starting early or finishing late some days and use that quieter time to catch up when fewer people are around.
“Another thing that I find really useful when managing a busy schedule is to batch tasks and theme my days (or half days). For example, you could try setting aside Friday afternoons to do all your admin-related tasks and perhaps a morning or two to work on a particular project.
“Notice when you work best on different types of tasks (e.g. creative, process/admin or people-focused) and play to your strengths by doing those types of tasks at the time of day when you know you’ll be in the right headspace for them. You’ll often get through them much more quickly this way.”
Spend less time thinking and more time doing
Jo is our account manager and uses her top-notch organisational and people management skills to make sure everything runs smoothly for the team and for our clients.
“Our clients rely on me to allocate their work to the right member of the team, who can deliver what they’ve asked for on time, so keeping on top of everything going on is pretty much my job description,” says Jo.
“I’d like to think I’ve developed some pretty failsafe tactics over the years. I know it sounds a little obvious, but a to-do list is a must for me. I find the more information I have flying around in my head, the harder it can be to prioritise and work out what needs to be done when. By getting my thoughts down into a list, I spend less time thinking about my tasks and can actually knuckle down and get on with them!”
Of course, it’s about more than just writing a long list of tasks. Jo explains how she uses the details she has about her various tasks to categorise and prioritise her workload.
“I might have lots of quick, relatively low priority tasks to complete and just a few high priority bigger pieces of work. While it would be easy to feel pressure to focus on just the high priority tasks, I try to work a mixture of short and longer jobs into my day/week to make the best use of my time and make sure everything gets done.”
Jo’s final piece of advice is about deadlines: “Understanding deadlines is so important. I always make sure I’m really clear on this point so that I can work to clients’ or colleagues’ expectations and effectively assess how to order items on my to-do list.”
Ali also adds, “I try to work to a day earlier than the actual deadline as much as possible to allow for the inevitable ‘stuff’ that pops up and derails your carefully laid plans!”
Don’t keep it all to yourself
Finally, Ali recommends something that we can probably all be better at from time to time – asking for help.
“It’s easy to get bogged down in work at times, but it’s really important that you don’t try to cope alone if you’re feeling overloaded. Use your team if you have one, speak to your manager to help you reallocate or prioritise some of your tasks, or consider outsourcing some work. It’s a good idea to speak up early if you’re having issues – deadlines can often be adjusted but it’s always going to be better to do this sooner rather than later.
“And, thinking about flexible working, check when somebody actually needs something from you. For example, if a deadline is 5pm on a Friday, that may well be because the recipient wants it to be ready when they start on Monday, but if you start work at 8am on Monday and they don’t start until 10am, knowing that could give you an extra two hours to work on it on Monday morning. If you know timelines are going to be tight pushing for that extra detail can make all the difference.”
We hope these tips have given some food for thought. A few small changes can sometimes make a big difference.
If you’d like an extra pair of hands to help get everything done, get in touch today to find out how we can help get your communications sorted.