Work Ahead to Avoid Stress
By Tana M. Mann Easton, Lead Efficiency Engineer
I have a very realistic and manageable to do list every day. On days when I overestimate the amount of time my tasks will take or if a meeting gets canceled or if it’s just one of those days when my mind is on fire and I’m completely in flow, I’ll work ahead on tasks that I don’t have planned until future days.
I realized the power of working ahead in college. I was always reading and working ahead on the syllabus whenever I had all of my current reading and assignments done. This habit ensured that I was always prepared for class discussions, and I didn’t have nights when I was tired and forced to read or work on assignments because it was going to be discussed or tested the next day. By reading and working ahead, I made sure that I was always working at my pace without needless anxiety due to procrastination.
In my personal life, there’s almost always some kind of project that I’m working ahead on in order to avoid stress. For example, I have a five-year-old son, and I create a Shutterfly photo book for his artwork every year for his birthday. The first year that I put this book together, I scanned all of his artwork in at one time, and that process took much longer than I expected. To avoid that issue, I now scan a chunk of his artwork on weekends when I don’t have a lot scheduled. Working ahead in this way makes the process of creating these artwork books much easier every year than if I waited until the last minute to do all parts of the project at one time.
In my professional sphere, I am constantly pulling tasks from future days to do today if I still have gas in my tank. I tend to write my blog posts 2 weeks in advance so that I’m not scrambling to write something under duress the night before we usually post. If there are larger projects that I’m working on and I find a day where I finish my task list, I’ll bite off a part of that project to tackle today while I have the time. Pulling items from my future to do list to my present to do list is a big key in how I accomplish all of my tasks without feeling stressed. By thinning out future days, I make it much more likely that if something unexpected pops up, I’m able to seamlessly handle the unexpected because I don’t have as much waiting for me on that day than if I never pulled items from that day in the past.
If you or your team would like to sign up for our 2 hour Balance and Productivity training to show you how to create a manageable and realistic task list every day and work ahead to avoid the stress in your life, please click here and say hello!
Productively Yours,
Focus to Evolve Team