The Coping Club: Prioritizing / Scheduling

Topic: Prioritizing / Scheduling

The Stress Bucket - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KYC5SsJjx8

Definitions

• Scheduling is the task of planning your activities so that you can achieve your goals and priorities in the time you have available. When it's done effectively, it helps you understand what you can realistically achieve with your time.
• Prioritizing is to arrange in order of importance so that you can deal with the most important things before the others.

What Makes it Difficult:

• Everything seems important
• Changing schedules (eg. shift work)
• Feeling overwhelmed
• Don't know where to begin
• Conflicts - can't be two places at once
• Emotional energy

4Ds Method: examine your to-do list at the start of the workday and determine which tasks can be efficiently completed

1. Do
2. Defer (Delay)
3. Delegate
4. Delete (Drop)

Tips for Scheduling Your Day:

• Cluster similar tasks
• Get organized
• Use a planner, to-do list, calendar
• Optimize your tasks
• Schedule self-care, lunch and breaks
• Consider your energy, motivation levels through out the day
• Consider effort needed
• Stick with your boundaries
• Don't over schedule

Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. It uses a kitchen timer to break work into intervals, typically 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. Each interval is known as a pomodoro, from the Italian word for tomato, after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer.

Steps

1. Decide on the task to be done.
2. Set the Pomodoro timer (typically for 25 minutes)
3. Work on the task.
4. End work when the timer rings and take a short break (typically 5–10 minutes
5. Go back to Step 2 and repeat until you complete four pomodoros.
6. After four pomodoros are done, take a long break (typically 20 to 30 minutes) instead of a short break. Once the long break is finished, start over

Coping with Unexpected Change in Schedule

• Be flexible
• Manage our emotions as they arise
• Make a plan
• Shift expectations
• Positive self-talk ("I can cope")

Time Wasters at Work

• Gossiping
• Procrastination
• Excessive meetings
• Email overload
• Administrative tasks
• Micromanagement
• Interruptions
• Multitasking

Strategies to Combat Time Wasters:

• Only have meetings when absolutely necessary
• Set time limits for meetings
• Focus on the task at hand
• Instead of hovering, set clear expectations and goals, provide feedback, communicate openly, and develop employee ownership