Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #108| How Task Triage Can Revolutionize Your Day, Reduce Overwhelm, and Improve Productivity
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: How do you let go of your to-do list when everything seems equally important and like it needs to get done?
- 0:05Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:23Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former overwhelmed working woman and current life coach.
- 0:27Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences, and in each episode you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease and relaxation to your life.
- 0:39Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friends, thanks for joining today.
- 0:47Michelle Gauthier: As you heard in the intro there, we are going to be looking at a question from a listener today, and it sounds like this listener is making the assumption that everything on her to-do list feels like to her, that it's equal priority, and also that it all needs to get done.
- 1:02Michelle Gauthier: And it makes sense that she would feel like that, because sometimes, when we look at our to-do list, everything feels urgent and important.
- 1:08Michelle Gauthier: But today I'm going to tell you a quick method that can be super helpful when you're trying to just take a look at what's on your list for the day and do a task triage.
- 1:18Michelle Gauthier: I love the term task triage because it makes me think of triage in the ER.
- 1:23Michelle Gauthier: You wouldn't say everything that comes into the ER is of the same priority, right?
- 1:27Michelle Gauthier: So the person who has a cut on their hand and the person who has a sore throat but couldn't get into their regular doctor, and the person who's having a heart attack and the person who just got into a car accident are all gonna get addressed at the same time.
- 1:40Michelle Gauthier: We know that's impossible.
- 1:42Michelle Gauthier: Think of your tasks that way too, because the truth is we really can only work on one thing at a time.
- 1:48Michelle Gauthier: So you do have to choose and prioritize if you want to get anything done.
- 1:52Michelle Gauthier: As you know, probably from doing this yourself, when you look at your to do list and it all feels equal and it all feels urgent, you just don't do anything because you can't work on all that at once.
- 2:01Michelle Gauthier: So let's talk about how to triage the tasks that are on their to-do list.
- 2:05Michelle Gauthier: So the first thing you need is a to-do list, so make sure that you have that swirling around in your brain.
- 2:12Michelle Gauthier: That will take you, you know, a minute or two, and then we're going to put these into three categories.
- 2:17Michelle Gauthier: It can be easy to just take a piece of paper, divide it into three sections and write the tasks in each section, or just put a category one, two or three next to the task.
- 2:27Michelle Gauthier: So the first are essential.
- 2:28Michelle Gauthier: So these are tasks that align directly with your core goals or values.
- 2:33Michelle Gauthier: These are non-negotiables.
- 2:35Michelle Gauthier: These are things that you absolutely have to do.
- 2:37Michelle Gauthier: So maybe if you're like a relationship manager, your must-do tasks are return the calls from your customers as an example.
- 3:17Michelle Gauthier: I don't know, it depends on the job.
- 3:17Michelle Gauthier: So only you can know what's essential.
- 3:19Michelle Gauthier: You can also have really essential things that aren't work related, like the other day when I had on my to do list to log into my daughter's school system and sign the permission slip for the field trip that was supposed to be the next day that I hadn't done yet.
- 3:34Michelle Gauthier: Right, so you could have some essential, urgent things that need to get done.
- 3:38Michelle Gauthier: The next category is delegate.
- 3:40Michelle Gauthier: So these are tasks that someone else can handle for you, even if it's not done exactly your way.
- 3:46Michelle Gauthier: That's the part that you have to either get comfortable with or just get okay with being uncomfortable with.
- 3:53Michelle Gauthier: Now there's many, many examples of this, and one of these, a very simple example, is grocery shopping.
- 4:00Michelle Gauthier: If it's on your list, can you get a delivery service to do that.
- 4:03Michelle Gauthier: It's so easy to do that these days.
- 4:05Michelle Gauthier: If it's at work and you have a whole team full of people and maybe there's someone on your team who you think could be good at this, even though she or he wouldn't do it exactly the way that you did - can you delegate, or even delegate to them for a first pass?
- 4:23Michelle Gauthier: Things that I have permanently delegated in my life are: laundry! I never, ever do laundry anymore, and it's amazing and I absolutely love it.
- 4:31Michelle Gauthier: Grocery shopping.
- 4:32Michelle Gauthier: I never go to the grocery store anymore unless I just feel like it for some reason.
- 4:38Michelle Gauthier: Tons of work tasks that the magical Kari does for me, that I delegate, and she handles.
- 4:44Michelle Gauthier: So freeing yourself from having to do every task and putting it on the delegate list is super important.
- 4:51Michelle Gauthier: And then the last task triage is eliminate tasks that don't need to be done at all or can be postponed without significant impact.
- 5:00Michelle Gauthier: For example, when I open my fridge and it's dirty and I think, oh my gosh, I really need to deep clean this whole entire thing, I can honestly let that go for now.
- 5:13Michelle Gauthier: If I ask myself if I wake up tomorrow and this is not done, what will happen?
- 5:18Michelle Gauthier: Nothing, it will be like one day dirtier, I can do it at some other point.
- 5:22Michelle Gauthier: I could even try to bump it up to the delegate category, but for now I can just take it off my list.
- 5:28Michelle Gauthier: If it makes you paranoid to like actually delete things off your list, just make a separate list of things that you would like to do on a rainy day or things that you want to look at again in a month, and then make a reminder on your calendar to say, look back at that list of things that I took off my list.
- 5:44Michelle Gauthier: Sometimes, when people clean out their closet and they're really nervous about giving things away, I tell them to put it all in a big box or bag, put it somewhere like their basement or their attic, and then if they don't miss it or think about it again, then just take the whole thing and give it away and that's how I feel about these eliminate tasks as well and give it away.
- 6:04Michelle Gauthier: And that's how I feel about these eliminate tasks as well.
- 6:07Michelle Gauthier: So, in summary, this task triage method will help you listener who asked this question identify what's essential, what can be delegated and what can be eliminated, and if your brain is telling you which you know that it must have been to ask this question that everything is equal, just remember the emergency room.
- 6:23Michelle Gauthier: Things are not equal and you have to just figure out for you which things are actually essential, which ones can be delegated and which ones can be eliminated.
- 6:35Michelle Gauthier: If this episode resonated with you, would you please share it with a friend who could use a little less overwhelm or some great tips for how to manage her task list?
- 6:44Michelle Gauthier: It would also be wonderful if you would leave a rating and review for this podcast.
- 6:48Michelle Gauthier: Every single one helps.
- 6:49Michelle Gauthier: It's what helped us get to top 2% rating and this year I'm continuing to go for top 1%, so that means we can help more people be seen more and accomplish more of my personal goal, which is to help all of us choose not to be overwhelmed every day so that we can enjoy our one precious life.
- 7:11Michelle Gauthier: Also, if you have a question that you'd like me to answer on a Quick Hit Thursday, just click on the link in the show notes that says send us a text.
- 7:18Michelle Gauthier: I can't respond to the text, but text me your question with all the info you can provide and I will give your answer on a future Thursday.
- 7:25Michelle Gauthier: See you Monday.
- 7:27Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 7:35Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work head over to my website at michellegauthiercom.
- 7:41Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.