From overwhelmed to organised: Essential tips for managing a busy schedule

So much to do? Constantly busy? Not enough hours in the day to do everything?

This blog will help you with ideas to get you more organised.

I’m going to look at 5 tips to beat the stress of being busy. They don’t involve spending money and can help prevent burnout.

1 – Prioritisation techniques

You probably read that subtitle, rolled your eyes and thought, here she goes…. another person going on about the same old stuff. Please, hear me out a minute here, I came across a couple of techniques researching this, that I hadn’t heard of before. They are the ABCDE method and the Eisenhower Matrix.

ABCDE method involves assigning a letter, A, B, C, D or E to a task dependent on its urgency, anything assigned A is a must do item which are your highest priority.

B tasks are ones that are important to do but don’t have the same level of urgency as tasks labelled as A.

Tasks given a letter C are ones that are nice to do at some point but it won’t matter to anyone or to you if they don’t get done.

Tasks you can label as a D are ones that you can delegate, something you can give to someone else to do, a friend picking up your children one or two afternoons for you for example.

Tasks classed as an E are ones you can eliminate form your list or your life, such as scrolling social media aimlessly.

Is that something that could work for managing your to-do list?

If not, the other technique I came across is called the Eisenhower Matrix and it’s called a maxtrix, because it’s a grid. You list the items into 4 quadrants of a square.

Quadrant 1 is the tasks that need doing urgently and are important

Quadrant 2 is for important but not urgent items, such as exercising

Quadrant 3 is where you put urgent but not important tasks, an example of this would be a meeting that could be an email or someone else could attend on your behalf

Quadrant 4 is where you add the neither urgent, nor important things you have to do. This list will vary from person to person but for me as some examples; playing games on my phone or scrolling social media apps aimlessly

Of course, with prioritisation you have probably heard about doing things in order of the deadline they need to be done, for some people they thrive on having that last minute stress to motivate them to get something done, if you know you’re one of those people then, roll with it. I prefer to plan and know what I need to be doing when and if I can, get something done in advance to save the last-minute panic/stress-head moment.

2 - Time management strategies

So, you’ve got 24 hours in your day, like the rest of us, but it doesn’t feel like enough time. Let’s look at a couple of options which can help.

Time blocking – this involves a planner or diary and you set the time out that you want to use to get a task done in for example, you have Tuesday morning free so between 9 – 10am you block out your calendar to plan the rest of your week

Time blocking doesn’t work for everyone however, try it, experiment and if it works for you then great. If it doesn’t then perhaps you could try the next strategy.

Examples here of time blocking

Pomodoro technique – this tip helps you to break down a task into more manageable time slots or another way to look at it, is getting something done rather than nothing.

Here’s how it works - decide what you want to do, set a timer for 25 minutes, do whatever it is you decided to do and when the timer goes off, take a 5-minute break. Then return to the task for 25 minutes and repeat. If you’re me, the break is often longer or I forget to go back to the task completely however it does mean that for me at least, something has progressed rather than me thinking about doing it.

Give it a try, see what you think?

3 - Breaks

The Pomodoro technique ensures you have a break, and as I said above, I often take longer ones yet breaks are essential to prevent you from getting burnt out.

If you’re working, take a lunch break every day, get yourself away from your working environment.

During the day, if you can, take a few minutes away from your work and then return. This will clear your brain and enable you to de-stress. If you have the option to, change the task you were doing before your break. For me variety keeps me productive and calmer.

It may feel counterintuitive to take a break as what you’re trying to achieve won’t then get done, but trust me on this, a break is the best thing you can do for yourself.

And if you like, have a KitKat too

4 – Boundaries

Setting and managing expectations of yourself and those around you can really help to keep yourself organised in a busy and stressful world. It may sound very simple but in reality, I know this isn’t always as easy as it may appear. I know as it’s something I have had to work on myself in the past.

Saying no to things or to people can be one of those ways of setting a boundary. The stress you can put yourself under when saying yes to something you really wanted to say no to, can start from the moment you said yes, rather than no. This may take work, it may not be easy but it can be done. Communication here is key.

I can help you to work on boundary setting and saying no to others if you want.

Technophobes skip tip number 5

5 – Use technology

For the Pomodoro technique mentioned above, you need a timer, for most of us, we can use the timer in the clock function on our phone. The same with events you need to remember, you can add them to the calendar on your phone (if it’s synced across devices then you’ve got more ways of remembering).

There are apps you can use to break tasks up and help you manage what you have to do such as; Asana and Trello.

I am a bit old-school and very much like writing with a pen onto paper or a notebook yet for me, I have found free printable planners which I can then write on to organise myself for the week. I still have a physical diary but some things I include in my phone’s calendar too. I also write physical to-do lists which I sometimes add to when I’m in the office at work, or at home on the sofa.

Technology doesn’t mean the older ways of doing things don’t work but you can combine them if you want to or forget old-school completely if it suits you better.

If technology is more likely to stress you out, ignore tip number 5 completely.

As I’ve said, some of these may work for you really well and others may not suit you at all. They’re ideas you can try, experiment with and use or ditch as you need.

Book in for a no obligation chat to see if counselling may help you reduce your overwhelm in such a busy life