Wendy Cole, Leadership & Productivity Coach at iMastery, is an integral Gembridge partner. This month, Wendy has kindly shared with us that “scarcity enhances value” and how to be realistic about what time we actually have to get tasks done. Keep reading to see what she has to say… and thank you for being a guest writer, Wendy!
Scarcity Enhances Value
Do you constantly have a backlog* of work tasks?
Do you confuse your total working hours with the actual time available to get tasks done?
For example, it is likely you have 3 hours of discretionary time a day, to actually get tasks done. NOT 8 hours. Yet you are ambitiously adding 8 hours of work to your daily to-do list. No wonder your tasks are blowing out.
It needn’t be this way.
Let's begin with a basic audit and maths. In the example below, taking care of meetings and general administration equals 5 hours. Assuming an 8-hour workday, that leaves just 3 hours of discretionary time to get tasks done. Which is only 15 hours in a 5-day week. This is typical for many busy professionals.
How much discretionary time do you really have in a day?
Now it is your turn to do the maths. Add your estimates to the table above.
How many discretionary hours do you have in an average day and week?
Knowing how little discretionary time you have in a day can be liberating. Scarcity enhances value.
Valuing your limited time, can motivate you to:
Plan a realistic, prioritised daily to-do list.
Allocate time in your calendar to complete priority tasks.
Hold boundaries and say ‘no’.
Shorten meetings and finish them on time.
Focus and complete tasks more quickly.
Effectively delegate more tasks.
Celebrate progress made in your limited time.
Managers, if you have more than 2 hours of meetings a day, you likely have even less time to get tasks done. What more can you delegate? Remember… the more you delegate, the more time you have to be strategic.
* A backlog of uncompleted important tasks is problematic for many reasons.
Uncompleted tasks are energetically fatiguing. The backlog drains your energy (you might not even be aware of it).
Ambitiously allocating more tasks to your to-do list than is feasible, is demotivating. You are more likely to focus on what you haven’t done, as opposed to noticing your progress.
Uncompleted tasks bottleneck other work and can cause unnecessary last-minute pressures for others.
All my best,
Wendy
Thanks again for sharing your expertise with us, Wendy!