{"id":21101,"date":"2019-06-13T11:30:43","date_gmt":"2019-06-13T11:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/?p=21101"},"modified":"2019-06-13T11:30:43","modified_gmt":"2019-06-13T11:30:43","slug":"do-more-of-what-matters-managing-your-workload-while-maintaining-your-sanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/do-more-of-what-matters-managing-your-workload-while-maintaining-your-sanity\/","title":{"rendered":"Do more of what matters: Managing your workload while maintaining your sanity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Given the speed of communication and the demand for talent, every team currently feels the same pain: there\u2019s too much to do, and not enough time to do it.<\/p>\n

At NOBL<\/a>, we\u2019ve worked with teams of two to 200, and no matter what the size, their first instinct to fix it is to add more people. But this is one problem you can\u2019t grow yourself out of: as you add more people, you inevitably take on more work \u2014 even if it\u2019s just the work involved in managing more people. And of course, budgets often make this a moot point. Once adding resources has been ruled out, teams turn to working harder: working late nights and weekends, double booking meetings, and ultimately, causing burnout.<\/p>\n

So if you can\u2019t add people or time, how can you possibly manage all the work that there is to do? It\u2019s oh so simple and oh so hard: focus only on the work that matters.<\/p>\n

Setting the strategy<\/h3>\n

Before you think about task management, it\u2019s critical to think of the bigger picture: what is your team\u2019s purpose, what are the objectives, and what trade-offs are you willing to make to achieve them?<\/p>\n

Of course, everyone wants to deliver great work on time, but when the deadline is looming, what\u2019s more important: a product that\u2019s perfect, but delayed? Or a product that\u2019s good enough, but shipped on time? What\u2019s more important, quarterly sales numbers, or brand value over time? Should your focus be on higher margins, or should you invest in innovation for longer-term gain? For simplicity\u2019s sake, we like to summarise these as \u201cEven Over\u201d statements: \u201cInnovation even over margin,\u201d or \u201cSales even over brand.\u201d There\u2019s no right<\/em> answer to all of these questions, but if your team doesn\u2019t agree on these trade-offs, competing priorities will make getting things done a constant balancing act.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s urgent, what\u2019s important \u2014 and why it matters<\/h3>\n

Once you have a clear understanding of what needs to happen, it\u2019s time to break down the work and start executing. Everyone likes to complain about the busywork involved in their jobs \u2014 the endless meetings, the mindless paperwork. What they\u2019re less<\/em> likely to admit are their own bad habits: running from fire drill to fire drill, for instance, or checking tasks off a list to feel <\/em>productive. To become more effective, identify what tasks will have the greatest impact on your business. The easiest way to do this is to use an Eisenhower Matrix (see below), which plots tasks against two matrices: how important they are (that is, what will have the greatest impact on your goals), and how urgent they are (how quickly they must be addressed).<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n