Some of the most effective coaching tools are often the simplest.
An increasing number of my clients express feelings of overwhelm, stress and the inability to prioritise or make decisions. They flit between tasks, unable to focus or find the flow needed to complete any of them. They talk about working on "urgent" tasks or those that they find easy or most satisfying. They report that their longer-term projects are stalled, creating a sense of work piling up and then suddenly becoming urgent. Clients also describe finding themselves ruminating in the evenings or waking up during the night and worrying about work, impacting their sleep, and physical and mental well-being.
Often, the sense of being overwhelmed is caused by the endless churning of tasks and to dos going around in your brain. We often find that we are so busy doing that we don't make the time to think and reflect. One very effective solution is to get these swirling thoughts out of your head and written down on paper. The act of transferring to paper can facilitate a sense of perspective (Are there really as many tasks as you think?), and slows down the thought process (What are the most important tasks? What can you delegate or say no to?)
Case study 1
A client was struggling with prioritisation. Through our coaching conversations, he decided to instigate a regular planning session. He blocked a weekly time in his diary to reflect on his goals and create this week's task list. Initially he experimented with planning at the beginning of each week as a way to organise his thoughts and document actions for upcoming deadlines, as well as prioritise work for the week. Later, he shifted to undertaking this at the end of the week. This enabled him to reflect on his accomplishments as well as set out goals for the following week. The process created a sense of achievement and a list of attainments to include in future quarterly reviews. This was an additional bonus, as remembering accomplishments months afterwards can be difficult. Critically, knowing that the list would be available at the start of the following week enabled my client to end the week well, and shift into weekend mode.
Case study 2
Another client used written down to do lists to manage her workload, but found these could be unwieldy. This system also didn't stop her from ruminating on the many tasks that she needed to complete. She experimented with a brain dump technique (one of the tools I write about in WeCoach: The complete handbook of tools, techniques, experiments and frameworks for personal and team development).
She wrote each task as it came into her head on a post it note. She then organised them in various ways by sticking them on her wall. This provided a visual perspective of the tasks, the ability to group and prioritise, and re-group and re-prioritise. Additionally, she could achieve a sense of fulfilment when pulling the post it off the wall and scrunching it into a ball when completed! The brain dump technique was also a more effective way for her to deal with the disparate and competing tasks that would be whizzing around in her head that had resulted in procrastination and the inability to focus on the key tasks. My client enthused that the technique, had "changed my life." She loves that the post its notes are tactile and movable, as well as portable.
These two case studies illustrate different ways of managing busy work loads. They share common factors but the key characteristics are:
Making the time to reflect on work tasks regularly;
Creating a space in which getting all of these, large and small, important or less important tasks, down, helps to gain clarity;
Transferring thoughts from the brain on to paper allows them to be captured, and helps to prevent rumination;
Writing slows down the thinking process, allowing for new ideas, associated tasks and priorities to emerge.
In our current fast-paced work environments, we often don't find the time to just sit, think and write.