Are you ready to end the chaos that is your life?

Is each day a scramble to the finish? Trying to get as much done as possible, respond to team member questions and needs, deal with customers, moving so fast you often are not sure if you responded or simply thought of responding. When your sent folder is the only way to keep track of what you accomplish, then you likely are not accomplishing much of significance.

I have been there. It sucks. Go go go. Do do do. By 5:15 when the family reconvenes, I am worthless. Mentally exhausted, yet I do not feel like I actually moved the needle on my business’ objectives. Nothing will change if you do not take action to make a change. And the change will not be meaningful and sustainable if it is not focusing your time and energy in the most productive direction.  

Before you can end the scrambling, you need to fully understand the chaos that is your life. Recognizing and appreciating the factors contributing to the feelings of overwhelm, drowning or hair on fire will allow you to prioritize your daily activities more objectively.

As I work with business owners in evaluating their daily activities, the exercise has been fondly named “the chaos that is your life.” There are three steps to follow”

1.       DOCUMENT

Write down how you spend your time. Keep a log of your activities over seven days including how much time you are spending on those activities. Maintain this log for at least seven days so you include a weekend and get an evaluation of how much work you are doing on off hours. Include broad strokes for personal activities during the work day. You do need to pay bills and take your kid to the doctor; you want to understand what portion of your day is spent in those areas versus business objectives so you can assess what is causing your chaos.

This is not the time to judge or make decisions. Simply document.

If you do not think one week is truly representative because of your sales cycle, delivery process, team rhythm, or personal situation that threw everything off, then document for two full weeks. Any more than that and you are likely looking for excuses for the chaos or justification for your feelings versus trying to eliminate or reduce the chaos.

2.       CATEGORIZE  

Once you have your activities documented, consolidate the line items, and add up the time on each. Keep your consolidation at the activity level, not high level. Staying activity focused will allow you to see the specific tasks taking up your time. Add all the hours for the week on prospect calls together, keeping it separate from the sales follow up. When activities require different mediums or skills, they need to be tallied separately.

Once consolidated, put the activities into buckets – sales, client management, product development, team meetings, specific functions, family activities, personal, etc. Then total up your time for each bucket. Calculate what percent of all recorded time is spent in each bucket.

 

3.       ASSESS

With buckets and a clear understanding of how much time is spent on each task on your list, review and see what pops up for you. Things to consider include:

• Where are you spending most of your time?

• Which of these activities is most critical to achieve your business goals?

• What surprises you?

• What ticks you off or highlights why you have been feeling so overwhelmed or exhausted?

• What activities should another team member be doing?

• What are you doing that you do not enjoy or do not do well?

With your newfound insights, determine one thing you can do right away to reduce your chaos? What is one change that will make a significant difference in your week and move your business forward? What steps need to occur to make that change? Write down the answers to those questions so you can reference what changes you want to make on a regular basis.

Understanding the chaos that is your life does not solve the problem, it helps you identify the problem. To truly end constantly feeling overwhelmed, you need to prioritize, delegate, and let go. Having documentation of what you do allows you to determine what needs to be prioritized, delegated, or jettisoned. Then you can start rebuilding your week focused on the right activities.  

We all get overwhelmed from time to time. Things happen that throw us off or pile too much on. But if overwhelm, scrambling, hair on fire and chaotic are words that describe your everyday, it is time to take stock and start making changes to get to a better, more productive healthy place.