Autumn is always a busy time of year. After the summer holidays are long past, clients remember that outstanding project you discussed back in the spring and all of a sudden, you’ve got your normal day to day client work plus a number of major projects to handle.
Being busy is, for the most part, a very good thing, but you have to make sure that the work is done properly and on time and within budget. It’s all a bit of a balancing act and if it’s your business, it’s your butt on the line if things go wrong.
So how do YOU manage things?
We all know about having proper procedures, checklists, schedules, time planning and all of the other things that well-run and well-organised businesses should have in place. I’ve been to several time-management workshops over the years and read all of those books written by “highly successful business owners”. They all help a bit, but ultimately you have to find a strategy that works for you.
In real life, it doesn’t matter how much well thought out planning you put into things; unless you’re running an army or robots and have exactly the same amount of work to do every day, we can all get stressed and over-whelmed if we feel that we can’t control things. And that’s just the business side of our lives – you might be happy working all weekend, but I guess your husband/wife/children won’t be happy if you’re never around.
I’m currently very busy juggling a number of major things, including client assignments, routine work and a number of business development/marketing projects. A couple of the client assignments are large projects and very important for the clients concerned – all major jobs with a number of different technical and delivery issues. You know the feeling – when you feel as though you’re literally fire-fighting all the time and it’s easy to miss something, however many lists, scheduling, yellow stickies or corporate time-management procedures are in place.
So here’s my (probably somewhat maverick!) approach to managing when things get particularly busy:
Is anybody going to die or be seriously hurt/injured if I don’t get this work done this week?
Okay. I realise this sounds somewhat overkill for dealing with work overload, but actually I find it a good place to start if I’m feeling overwhelmed. Whether you’re a professional advisor or you’re making or selling goods, being late with a bit of work isn’t going to cause physical injury to your client or customer.
Thinking this helps me to put things into perspective. And that’s when I start getting things done and getting on top of the workload.
Is the work time-sensitive? Is it going to cost my client any money or lose a contract if I don’t get this done this week?
So the next thing is whether my client faces any penalty or other cost because of a late VAT/tax return, or if my work is critical to a particular deal, such as a property transaction. If the answer is yes, then that work gets priority. If the client has goods stuck in Customs waiting for paperwork, then that work gets priority.
Is the work important for some other reason, e.g. a presentation to the board, or to meet a deadline for a valuation?
That’s my next criteria. Why else could something be time sensitive? If a client has asked you to complete a project by a certain date, I make sure that I know why. If you understand your client’s situation, then it helps you to work with the client to get things done when they are needed. Some clients are particularly fastidious about timescales, others less so; sometimes their boss is putting pressure on them and they need your work to meet their own deadlines.
How important is it to me?
We all have different reasons for prioritising things. If you’ve a child with a school problems, or an elderly parent who needs urgent help, you have to put that first. That’s life. For 99% of business owners, our business is there to support our life, not the other way round.
And when it comes to the business, client needs aren’t always the first priority. You might have cashflow problems and need to talk to your bank; your internet service might let you down and you have to sort those things asap so you can focus on DOING the work.
Your immediate priority might actually be a proposal to a potential client or a presentation to an industry group, to make sure that you have business in the future. Either way, it all adds to the pressure that we put upon ourselves as business owners.
The yellow stickie solution
Ultimately, you have to learn to prioritize because if you don’t, it will cost you money with unhappy clients and lost business. Sometimes you start the day having no idea how you’re going to get everything done and you know that you’ll be working at least a 10 hour day, if not longer.
Personally I’m a great fan of the yellow stickie solution. I have an ongoing to-do list for weekly and monthly planning, but most evenings I make a point of physically writing down the most important 4 or 5 things that I need to do. That has 2 benefits:
• It’s a fact that the physical act of writing so much down helps you remember and organise information in your mind.
• I know what I’ll be doing as soon as I start work the next day. I don’t wake up in the night trying to decide what to do next.
IF IN DOUBT, DO SOMETHING. It will get something off that action list AND focusing on a piece of work means your brain won’t have time to panic.
And finally, some advice from a client
Several years ago, I was discussing the problem of workloads with the FD of a large corporate group. He gave me some very sensible advice:
• Discuss deadlines with your client, AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE. If you think you’re going to have problems meeting a deadline, talk to your client. Chances are that the client will be able to give you some additional time, or alternatively agree that some of the work can be deferred.
• When agreeing work with a client, always ask why they need something by a particular date so you understand the client’s perspective.
• And finally, the FD pointed out that unless the project is particularly time sensitive, the “Friday afternoon” deadline is often a bit redundant because usually, the client won’t even look at the letter until the following Monday at the earliest. So if you’re panicking about a 5pm Friday deadline, talk to the client and find out whether they really need the letter on Friday or if they’ll be happy if it arrives by 5pm on Monday. That way you’ve got the weekend and all day Monday to get it finished.
Whatever you do, you’ll find a way of getting the important stuff done. It’s just a case of finding what works for you.
Right, back to today’s yellow stickie….
Marie
October, 2015