I sometimes hear from people that they are overwhelmed by the amount of work in their life. They say “I have too much to do”, and “my workload is heavy”. This comes in a variety of different iterations, but one thing remains true: an overwhelming workload can be downright punishing. It’s no fun when you’re constantly behind, feeling like you always have more work than you can handle and there are rarely any insights or joys to be found. In this blog post I’d like to share with you some of my favorite “hacks” for reducing the overall workload, so that you can feel less overwhelmed and more productive in your daily work.
Here are 5 things that I’ve found to be helpful over time:
1. Reduce distractions. Just a few small changes in your routine can make big improvements in your focus and productivity. A good place to start is with eliminating all the little distractions that come from being on your computer, phone, etc… For example, you might unsubscribe from email lists that don’t really have meaning for you or only read emails at certain times of day. All this can help reduce the amount of time you spend distracted by email and social media. Another way to reduce distractions is to make your work area a sanctuary. Remove everything that isn’t directly related to your work. This will help reduce the amount of interruptions and distractions that you have in your day. One of my favorite hacks for this is using a password-protected journal in my home office, so that people can’t easily come by and bother me while I work. You might think this might be against office etiquette, but I really don’t care about etiquette with respect to doing my work in an actual workplace!
2. Break large tasks into smaller chunks. In order to be at our best, we have a very limited amount of mental energy available at any given time. We can only pay attention to a small number of things at any given time. And yet, we often try to deal with the whole world at the same time, or even if we’re doing routine work, we try to get it done as fast as possible. As such, tasks get left undone because they are too large to manage in one effort. If you can break down your larger…
