–By Robert
During our last Leadership Lab, a participant posed a thought-provoking question in the Q&A session: ‘How do I decide what to do when everything seems equally important?’
Our expectable responses in the Q&A were:
1. Not everything is equally important.
2. One must differentiate between important and urgent tasks.
3. Decide which task will have the greatest impact.
I bet you can think of as many responses to this question. However, this question continued to resonate with me, as I felt the answers provided hadn’t fully addressed the participant’s concerns. Therefore, I’d like to add a few more thoughts in this blog post, as I find this question incredibly intriguing. Who of you hasn’t sat in front of a mountain of tasks, wondering how to manage them all? It happened to me quite often.
I hate it, and I mean this seriously, to have too much on my plate at once. It leads to cognitive overload, which slows me down. When I have one or two important projects, I don’t need a third or fourth added. And there are still all the little things that need to be taken care of.
So here are my top 5 tips (let’s see how there actually will be by the time I finish writing) on how to avoid such overwhelming situations.
1. Learn to Say “No”
Perhaps the most important insight I’ve gained in my career is that prioritization begins even before starting on tasks. There are certain things we must do, although if we look closely, they are not as numerous as they seem. These tasks are often mandated by external forces such as our boss, laws, or cumbersome administrative processes. However, most of our workload comes from a kind of negotiation with ourselves or these external entities. This is where prioritization and discernment first come into play. It’s essential to learn how to say “no” in a tactful and effective manner. This skill is vital in managing our workload and maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
2. Prioritize Systematically
When assessing the importance of a task or a project, what criteria do you use to guide your judgment? Identifying the factors that influence your decision is crucial. I recommend creating a set of values or criteria to help determine the significance of each task. For instance, if career advancement is your current priority, tasks that facilitate your next career step should be moved up on your list or be given preference. If a particular research project is paramount, then prioritize it accordingly. If family or personal freedom ranks highest for you, then base your task acceptance or rejection on these values. Being able to do this effectively presupposes clarity about what you want. Once you have this clarity, prioritization becomes much more straightforward and manageable.
3. Keep an Overview
Making sensible decisions about what to do next is only possible if you have a complete overview. This includes both small tasks, like answering an email, scheduling a meeting, or ordering a resource, and larger ones, such as writing a grant or conducting experiment X. I personally try to tackle these smaller tasks once a day, for which I’ve allocated specific time blocks in my calendar (an email block and an admin block). The logic behind this is straightforward: completed tasks don’t need prioritization. However, I’ve set an important rule for myself: I don’t exceed the allocated time for these tasks. Whatever isn’t completed goes onto a simple to-do list and is carried over to the next day. Without this approach, it’s easy to let small tasks, which provide instant gratification of “I’ve done it!”, eat into the time reserved for more important things.
For larger tasks, I’ve found the Kanban board approach to be effective (they are easily set up in task management tools such as Asana, Clickup, Trello). Each task and project is sorted into a backlog based on its importance. Progress is then monitored and tasks are moved through the stages of “To Do”, “In Progress”, “In Review”, and “Done”. Of course, the actual planning and prioritization process is somewhat more complex, involving breaking down a project into necessary outcomes, turning these into tasks, and scheduling them. Therefore, this next point is also crucial.
4. Take Time to Plan
Difficulty in deciding what to do next can often stem from not taking the time to create a plan. Personally, I find it overwhelming to make decisions about what to do next on the fly. Having at least a weekly plan and reviewing or adjusting it daily helps me immensely. When I set up this plan, prioritization is the first step. I start by reviewing my backlog, determining what needs to be completed this week (considering hard deadlines and externally imposed meetings), and then schedule these tasks. Following this, I organize my tasks in the calendar according to their importance, ensuring I allocate ample time for each task to be confident of completing them. Moreover, I always plan an extra two hours per day for unexpected occurrences. If I don’t need these two hours, it allows me to get more work done or even pick up my kids from daycare earlier.
Now coming to the end of this post, I only managed 4 points, but my time block for writing the blog is over. So I’ll settle for 80% of the planned goal, hoping to have still provided some value.
By the way, for those interested in integrating these concepts and more into their professional lives, we are launching a new cohort of our Research Management Mastery Program at the end of January. In this program, you and your team will directly implement and apply practice-tested systems. Over half a year, you have time for implementation, and our coaches will be there to support you. This program is by application only and you can get more information in our LeadershipLab recording: LeadershipLab Recording. Alternatively, you can directly schedule your personal strategy session with us here: Strategy Session.
Robert