Hang over works

I have some bored feelings I could not concentrate on my work. I was out for two weeks and works piled up. I need to write a couple of project proposals but all I could do was draft-draft-draft. My waste basket must have overflowed if not because of the computer. Yeah! the year is closing and another year is unfolding and my job requires new sets of plan, projects that need to be finalized before the year ends, and a lot more of urgent things.

Which one should I do first? Each of us is faced with the predicament of prioritizing in homes, in office, and everywhere. And... I think there must be an easy way. Well, I have tried some trick and they work in the office. These too would work even in the homes.

The first thing is to determine the deadline. In office, most works have their set time. Reports need to be submitted at regular dates; proposals need to be delivered at scheduled evaluation period; communications need to be responded to; projects need to be monitored; and others. In the homes there are bills that need to be paid on time, friends to visit, kid's assignments and projects to help on, and others too. When things pile up, grouping the task according to deadlines would be necessary and determine how much more time you got before each work can be completed.

Next determine how much time each task requires. Each separate tasks may vary in time required to complete. Writing a reply letter may take 5 minutes while preparing a report may take the whole 8 hours. By doing so, you can identify the time line of each task and see if you have enough time to do it based on the deadline and time left for you to do it.

Plotting the tasks would now be easy to determine which things you do first. With the time lines for every task connect them in line together within the time remaining. If your time line exceeds that of the remaining time you can either do overtime (using extra time than regular hours, maybe night or early morning) or delegating.

Delegation is useful a tool. You can make use of staff or hire emergency worker. The only thing you remember is do not delegate works that require careful decision making. You can delegate works such as encoding, data collection, and other physical tasks like paying the bills, etc. But writing a recommendation for a certain problematic project requires careful evaluation.

If there's nobody to delegate overtime is always a must when the normal time is not enough in order to make things done. We cannot do away with it in the office so do with the homes.