How to Take Control of Your Workload Through the Week

Five Actionable Steps to Prioritize Your Tasks

It’s Monday 9 am. You arrive at the office, clock in, and sit on your desk full of determination ready to tackle your week.

Your to-do list is sitting on your desk, patiently waiting to be checked off, one item at a time.

You open your laptop and begin working. At some point, you check the time and the next thing you know is 6 pm.

Panic sets in as you realise you are in the middle of a half-written urgent email that needs to go before the end of day, and have barely checked off anything.

A scenario all too common for everyone — one in particular my entire professional life is built around.

As our lives are getting progressively faster, so does our work. Everything requires our immediate attention as competition is cutthroat.

Unsurprisingly then, rapid shifting of priorities and readjusting of workload with things popping up left and right has become the new norm.

The question is, how do you tackle this?

There is a way

Having handled dozens of web development projects with rapid changing natures, but also as someone who currently oversees a portfolio of strategy-related projects, the ability to constantly juggle through shifting workload has become part of my core skillset— one that I have honed through the years with sweat and hard work.

It’s one of those skills necessary for survival.

Although almost impossible to capture everything that comes your way during the week, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

But be aware the success factor of these steps lies within their consistency to be carried out week-in week-out.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far through my experience that works.

#1 Plan on a weekly basis and plan ahead

First things first.

There is a big difference between planning monthly, weekly, and daily.

Daily is quite granular, whereas monthly is quite vague. Weekly on the other hand, is a concept that us humans can grasp more comfortably and can better orient ourselves around it.

A week is just the right amount of time we feel control over.

Considering that we are addressing workload adjustments and not long-term strategic targets, a weekly plan is the perfect vessel as it offers excellent balance between short-term and long-term focus.

Plus, it leaves enough room for flexibility and adaptability.

I personally do it on a Sunday morning before I engage in any other sort of activity when my head is still clear.

I spend one hour to an hour and a half max, as I have a clear flow of thought where I get everything down in one sitting.

The key is to do it during a time where your mind is calm and collected.

#2 Concentrate on the activities that maximize value for your goals

When planning, it is paramount that you focus on the goals and outcomes you wish to achieve instead of just piling up all tasks individually randomly.

This top-bottom approach is effective as it forces you to start from your objectives and work your way down to the respective activities needed to achieve them, decomposing work into manageable chunks while still keeping you focused on the big picture.

Once this is achieved, you can then concentrate first on the activities that will contribute the most towards those objectives.

#3 Focus on your boss’ priorities and the priorities of their boss

This may not be so obvious but can have widespread benefits.

Think about it.

The common order of business hierarchy consists of team members, managers, and line managers, having reporting responsibilities to their respective supervisor.

Your boss receives their priorities from their boss, which are subsequently passed onto you and the rest of the team.

By identifying what results are expected from your boss to higher levels based on the work that is being carried out within the company, you can be proactive and anticipate what may come your way before it actually does.

This is relatively straightforward to do considering these priorities will most likely concern the projects you are mainly engaged with. Otherwise why would those projects be the ones that are being progressed? Of course, there are exceptions.

Personally, I try to anticipate which updates and which tasks may be requested from myself and my team and pinpoint results needed to be delivered. Then, I work the how.

As such, I prioritize those tasks first. Chances are, if anything not relating to these priorities is neglected, it can wait to be addressed next on the list.

The same goes when you are your own boss and run the thing by yourself.

You focus on the priorities that will have the greatest impact on your goals.

#4 Time block effectively

“Effectively” is vague so how do you quantify it and how do you know you are doing it correctly?

The truth is you can’t really quantify it. Otherwise, we would be talking about efficiency and not effectiveness.

Therefore the activity of time blocking becomes concerned with the desired end goals of the week and how to achieve them.

This means that:

• When you schedule a meeting, you allocate appropriate time, enough to yield the relevant results from that meeting instead of the time you’d ideally want to spend on it.
• When you book yourself busy to complete a task you make sure you book sufficient time to get the job done, as well as to mitigate for any unforeseen deviations.
• When no other choice is available than to shuffle through multiple tasks you make sure you start from the priorities first, then proceed to the minor tasks, and include adequate time buffers in between so that you re-orient your brain.
• And last but not least, you make sure you consider emergencies. Based on your relevant professional experience, you can think of potential events which may have significant impact on your plans. Therefore you factor these in. For example, a live server crashing containing real client data would be a good reason to stop everything to get it back up.

As a starting point, you can assign the required amount of time to your priorities and continue to the rest of the tasks accordingly.

I’m also pretty sure you will have tasks that are common with their effort being known in advance, so you can use this to your advantage when scheduling them.

#5 Recalibrate mid-week

Finally, pausing for a brief moment mid week to see where you stand has far-reaching perks.

It is probably the one thing that people neglect the most and don’t pay the necessary attention to it (maybe because we get so caught up working through our tasks in an attempt to finish everything off).

Just like in life where short pauses are needed, the same can be done in your work life.

When you reach half way through the week, you can momentarily stop and examine what has been completed and what remains.

Surely, things will have changed and as such, you will most probably need make adjustments.

You will be able to catch anything that may have been missed, and the opportunity to gauge progress relevant to your goals (which were defined by planning your week) becomes available.

I assert particular gravity on this point because of the ever-changing nature of my workload. It is a key complementary step to my organisation process that allows me to re-prioritize accordingly.

Once I reach this point in my schedule, I assess my next steps based on 3 factors:

• Completed work
• Pending work
• Time availability

Subject to these and in alignment with my priorities, I shuffle tasks accordingly.

How do you benefit from all these

By doing this you put more control in your hands.

You have awareness of the upcoming tasks in the week and as such, prepare yourself accordingly.

You wield the knowledge of what kind of effort you must put into achieving your goals and that is powerful.

Mentally speaking, your mindset is set in the correct position ready to tackle what’s up ahead.

A roadmap has been created in your brain which you use as your plan to navigate through the week, feeding you with knowledge of how to progress to each next step.

At the same time, you are more effective in handling unforeseen priorities (but also emergencies) that pop up with as minimum disruption as possible to the rest of the things at hand.

Focusing on the end goals means that the big picture is always at centre stage. Consequently, alignment with long-term results is always present, maximizing the likelihood of achieving the strategic objectives you are aiming for.

Lastly, you are psychologically sound. Taking a moment to briefly pause but to also make sure that enough time is placed between activities, means that you take the necessary time to recharge and recover, and prepare yourself for what’s ahead.

Summing it up

Our lives are getting progressively faster, reflecting both personal and professional levels.

Although challenging, it doesn’t mean we are defenseless in containing the situation to the best of our abilities and putting as much control as possible on our hands.

Through these steps, you increase the chances of managing your workload effectively.

What’s also important to understand is these actions can be tailored and modified to your needs accordingly. They are here to help you get started.

The fundamental aspect of this exercise is to start. Once you do that, you can take it from there and adjust accordingly.