How to find time for two important projects during one busy week

During a busy day full of meetings, phone calls, e-mails, lab work etc, you finally get to have a quite hour to focus on your high-importance activities, those that will propel you towards your big goals. You sit down at your desk with a desktop or on the sofa with your laptop, if you are at home, and are about to begin your work.

Then what happens next is you start getting doubts: which one of the important projects to pick? You have only limited time of about an hour on your hands and you can think of at least two important tasks you can work on. “Should I start drafting that paper?… Or should I finally get a move on with writing that proposal?”

These kinds of thoughts can quickly deflate our willingness to spend the following hour productively. We can easily submit into indecisiveness and as a result start to procrastinate. At this point we might check e-mails, look at the Facebook wall, google our name, read some blogs or start browsing internet for some “useful” information relevant to our work.

If we happened to have just one important thing to work on during this week, such as drafting the paper X – we would just sit down and do it during this hour, following those easy steps. But if there are two important projects on our to-do list – this can be paralysing to some of us. “Paper or proposal? Proposal or paper?” We procrastinate loosing precious time.

One of my FB friends frankly said: “If I have to write something, a paper, or a proposal – I do the programming. If I have to program a new feature – I write a proposal or a paper. If I have to do both – I’m toast …”

So what can we do to help ourselves to use this small window of time in an effective and productive way?

1. Set a timer for 30 min and focus on one task.

If you got two important tasks to complete this week but only have one hour free during the day or evening, set a timer for 30 min to focus on one task. Choose the easiest one first.

If you choose to draft a proposal and you have written proposals before, there is a good chance you can actually complete the first imperfect draft within the set time.

One of my Inner Circle private coaching clients shared with me last week that she has chosen to work on the proposal during this first half an hour. She used one of the previous proposals as a template, did the changes and even sent the draft to her collaborators!

Yes it was imperfect, there were some numbers missing, but this draft enabled her to start discussing and polishing it together with her colleagues. “The whole process was effortless” – my client added 🙂

2. When the timer goes off, stop the activity and congratulate yourself on the completion of the task.

3. During the next 30 min switch to the second task giving it your complete focus. If it is drafting the paper, define a small do-able task, such as compiling the list of the references. Do it imperfectly. Don’t worry if at the end of the 30 minutes it does not seem much. If you keep doing it every day for the rest of the week, you’ll see a significant progress in this project.

4. When the timer goes off (or your child wakes up ;-)), again, stop doing the task and congratulate yourself on the completion. No matter how little you have written, or how imperfectly you have done it – it is still a much better result than if you would have continued “browsing internet for useful information”.

5. Repeat the next day.

This simple technique works magic when we feel overwhelmed with several important projects. And as I heard back from the same client, she successfully managed to work on drafting the proposal as well as continue drafting her paper – all of this during one very busy week.

Related Articles

How to define task and manifest progress in your work

How to make the most out of attending a seminar

Like this post? You will love getting my weekly Productivity Insights ezine!