Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #114| The Secret to Keeping Productivity Up When Your To-Do List Doubles

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#114| The Secret to Keeping Productivity Up When Your To-Do List Doubles · Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing

• 0:00
  Michelle Gauthier: Ever feel like you're finally getting back on track and catching up and then you look at your to-do list and it reminds you that you still have way too much to do.
• 0:08
  Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
• 0:17
  Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
• 0:22
  Michelle 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.
• 0:33
  Michelle Gauthier: Hi friend, thanks for joining.
• 0:37
  Michelle Gauthier: A listener recently sent a message to me and asked a great follow up question about episode 107, which is where I talked about how to handle unexpected disruptions like snow days or snow weeks.
• 0:49
  Michelle Gauthier: In that case, she wanted to know how do you manage the week or two after when your to-do list has basically doubled.
• 0:55
  Michelle Gauthier: So what you're going to learn today is how to bounce back from that week where you kind of have to drop everything.
• 1:01
  Michelle Gauthier: Really just choose your top priorities and let go of everything else.
• 1:06
  Michelle Gauthier: What do you do in that next week?
• 1:07
  Michelle Gauthier: So today I'm going to teach you exactly how to do that by adjusting your expectations, prioritizing the volume of work that you have, and how to use batch working in order to make the work that you do much more efficient.
• 1:24
  Michelle Gauthier: By the end of this episode, if you combine it with episode 107, you'll know how to handle a week where something big and stressful comes up and what to do the week after that.
• 1:34
  Michelle Gauthier: Even the something big and stressful could be like a really great vacation where you're not doing any work the best kind of vacation and you come back and you have everything that you didn't do while you were on vacation.
• 1:45
  Michelle Gauthier: So this is a good strategy for that as well.
• 1:48
  Michelle Gauthier: Let's dig in.
• 1:49
  Michelle Gauthier: First, I want to read the exact question that the listener sent in.
• 1:52
  Michelle Gauthier: She said thanks for your great podcast.
• 1:54
  Michelle Gauthier: Aw, thanks.
• 1:55
  Michelle Gauthier: I found the episode from the snow week really helpful for handling unexpected events.
• 2:00
  Michelle Gauthier: I would be interested in a follow up to that, like how to handle a week or two after the week of the unexpected event, when there's everything you already had planned plus everything you delayed from the previous week.
• 2:11
  Michelle Gauthier: So thank you for this question.
• 2:14
  Michelle Gauthier: By the way, as a side note, if you're thinking, oh, I want to ask a question.
• 2:17
  Michelle Gauthier: How do I ask a question?
• 2:18
  Michelle Gauthier: I just updated this in the show notes.
• 2:21
  Michelle Gauthier: In every episode you will see a link that says send me a message.
• 2:25
  Michelle Gauthier: It used to send me a text that I couldn't respond to and I hated that and I couldn't tell who it came from.
• 2:29
  Michelle Gauthier: So now I have it, where you send me an actual message, I can see who sent me the message and I can reply back to you.
• 2:35
  Michelle Gauthier: So if you have a question you'd like me to cover on Quick Hit Thursday, please send me a message.
• 2:41
  Michelle Gauthier: I'd love to hear from you.
• 2:42
  Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so in the original episode that she's talking about, I gave you three key strategies to focus on during a really stressful week.
• 2:49
  Michelle Gauthier: So reframe your perspective, know that you're not going to get everything done and prioritize the top three things of what really do matter, and then manage your mindset to just counter the negative thoughts with new thoughts and intentional affirmation.
• 3:04
  Michelle Gauthier: So that's essentially how I said to handle the stressful week itself.
• 3:08
  Michelle Gauthier: Now let's talk about the strategy for the week after.
• 3:11
  Michelle Gauthier: So the first thing and this is the first step in many things we talk about on this podcast, but it is adjust your expectations.
• 3:19
  Michelle Gauthier: So, for example, in just a few days.
• 3:21
  Michelle Gauthier: Here I'm going on a vacation.
• 3:23
  Michelle Gauthier: Example in just a few days here I'm going on a vacation and when I get back from that vacation, I cannot think, okay, I had fun last week, but now I'm going to have to make up for everything that I didn't do while I was on vacation.
• 3:35
  Michelle Gauthier: Or when we had that snow week, to say, okay, that that was terrible.
• 3:38
  Michelle Gauthier: I got my top three things done, but now I still have all these 17 other things to do and I need to get all of those done, as well as everything else I already had planned for the week.
• 3:48
  Michelle Gauthier: Instead, give yourself a recovery week mindset.
• 3:51
  Michelle Gauthier: Try to reduce commitments where possible.
• 3:55
  Michelle Gauthier: So saying no to extra meetings, optional obligations.
• 3:58
  Michelle Gauthier: Anywhere you can find time for yourself, find it.
• 4:01
  Michelle Gauthier: For me, this might mean something like okay, if I go to my daughter's horse lesson and sit and watch her lesson, it's about a three-hour process because even though the lesson's one hour, she needs to be there an hour early.
• 4:13
  Michelle Gauthier: It usually takes her about an hour after we have to leave our house to get there in time, etc.
• 4:17
  Michelle Gauthier: So when I need to find some time, I will come back and not attend that three-hour commitment so that I can do other things.
• 4:26
  Michelle Gauthier: Other thing I would recommend is adjusting your deadlines.
• 4:29
  Michelle Gauthier: Take a look at what you've committed to.
• 4:31
  Michelle Gauthier: You know sometimes we set deadlines for ourselves and they're really ideal.
• 4:34
  Michelle Gauthier: But if you need to push them out, sometimes you can, and then let good enough be good enough.
• 4:39
  Michelle Gauthier: Perfection is not the goal right now.
• 4:41
  Michelle Gauthier: Momentum and you know getting the momentum rolling again really isn't is the priority.
• 4:46
  Michelle Gauthier: So I think the biggest thing in adjusting your expectations is to say, okay, I'm in a recovery week here, I'm going to do the best I can, versus okay, now back to a normal week where I need to do twice as much stuff.
• 4:58
  Michelle Gauthier: So, once you've kind of skinnied it down to the volume of work that you need to do, if it still feels like too much, use this quick method to prioritize what's on your list.
• 5:09
  Michelle Gauthier: So you've got your musts, your shoulds and your coulds.
• 5:13
  Michelle Gauthier: So you must urgent, high impact tasks that absolutely have to get done.
• 5:18
  Michelle Gauthier: For me, that is seeing all of my clients.
• 5:20
  Michelle Gauthier: That's my absolute number one priority.
• 5:23
  Michelle Gauthier: So prioritize those must tasks as number one.
• 5:27
  Michelle Gauthier: Should tasks are important tasks that can be rescheduled within the next few weeks.
• 5:31
  Michelle Gauthier: So, for example, if I have a guest who is going to do a podcast interview with me or I'm going to be a guest on somebody else's podcast.
• 5:39
  Michelle Gauthier: I could say, would you mind if we bumped this out two weeks?
• 5:42
  Michelle Gauthier: And it probably wouldn't be a big problem for either one of us.
• 5:44
  Michelle Gauthier: So think about things like that where you could push it out and reschedule a little bit, and then the could list.
• 5:51
  Michelle Gauthier: So we've got the must, the shoulds and the coulds.
• 5:52
  Michelle Gauthier: The coulds are things that you could do but honestly, these can often be dropped entirely.
• 5:58
  Michelle Gauthier: This past week I was cleaning out my email, which is something that I like to do on a weekly basis, and I have this take action folder and sometimes I'm not going to take action on the thing right away.
• 6:10
  Michelle Gauthier: So I'll go back and look at it and I had like five or six emails at the bottom of that take action and I was like I haven't taken action on these in the past three months.
• 6:18
  Michelle Gauthier: I'm just going to delete them like it was a good idea, but they are going to entirely fall off the list.
• 6:23
  Michelle Gauthier: So when your volume of work is too much, use that quick prioritization must, should, should, could and see what you can do to shift your schedule.
• 6:31
  Michelle Gauthier: The other thing that I recommend that you do is really focus on when you're working on these things.
• 6:38
  Michelle Gauthier: So after a chaotic week, sometimes it's tempting to come back and clear out like small, easy tasks, like replying to emails or checking off low impact to-dos, things that are maybe in that could list, but that creates the illusion of productivity because you're doing things but the big stuff remains undone.
• 6:55
  Michelle Gauthier: On Monday's episode, which was episode 113, I talked for the whole episode about how to batch your work.
• 7:04
  Michelle Gauthier: So if you missed that episode, go back and listen to it, because it's an excellent way to really catch yourself up and make the most out of the time that you are working.
• 7:14
  Michelle Gauthier: To apply batch working to this particular situation, you can set up a catch-up block for emails and admin work that you need to do, instead of spreading them out randomly throughout the day.
• 7:25
  Michelle Gauthier: You can group similar tasks together.
• 7:27
  Michelle Gauthier: So something that I always group together are errands that I have to run.
• 7:32
  Michelle Gauthier: So I just keep a running list in my planner about errands that I need to do, because, basically, if I'm going to leave the house, I just want to do all the things that I need to do at the same time, versus running out several times and then, really, when you're doing this deeper work, which for me would be writing a podcast or creating a newsletter or something like that.
• 7:52
  Michelle Gauthier: Schedule a 60 to 90 minute focus block for yourself and just do that task.
• 7:57
  Michelle Gauthier: Put away your phone, close all the other windows on your desktop and really just get the work done.
• 8:04
  Michelle Gauthier: So, in summary, when you're in a recovery week, the first thing to do is adjust your expectations and know that you're recovering from a really busy week the week before.
• 8:10
  Michelle Gauthier: The first thing to do is adjust your expectations and know that you're recovering from a really busy week the week before.
• 8:13
  Michelle Gauthier: Don't try to do everything at once.
• 8:15
  Michelle Gauthier: Use that must, should, could method and then batch your work so small tasks don't steal your time.
• 8:20
  Michelle Gauthier: Again.
• 8:21
  Michelle Gauthier: In episode 113, you can hear all of the research behind why multitasking is bad and why working in batches really will help you get the most bang for your buck.
• 8:30
  Michelle Gauthier: If you do this, this approach will help you move forward instead of just constantly being behind and playing catch up.
• 8:37
  Michelle Gauthier: Hope that answered your question, Listener! Send me a message and let me know.
• 8:41
  Michelle Gauthier: And if this episode was helpful, it would be great if you would send it to a friend who maybe needs a little breathing room in her schedule.
• 8:49
  Michelle Gauthier: If you haven't yet, I would love if you would leave a review.
• 8:53
  Michelle Gauthier: We are sitting right now at 96 five-star reviews and I would love to push that over to 100 so that the podcast can be shown to more overwhelmed working women, who can start feeling better today.
• 9:07
  Michelle Gauthier: Thanks for listening and see you next week.
• 9:08
  Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
• 9:12
  Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegothiercom.
• 9:18
  Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.