If you have a lot of work, chances are you could benefit from greater clarity in 3 areas.
1) You are not clear about your ‘business model’
You probably know what the ‘outcome’ you want is, but you may not have clear strategies to achieve it. In other words, the person who is the boss (whether YOU are the boss of your own business or reporting to a boss in an organization) is not clear about the business model.
Business owners come to me and say “I want to earn ___ (fill in the blank, say $250K). When I ask what your business model is, I often get a blank stare. If you are unclear about your business model “throw spaghetti against the wall”, or try to do anything that generates revenue or saves costs. Is your model going to have 25 high paying customers at $10K each? Or 100 people paying you for $2500 service, or 1000 buying a $250 product. Do you have a justification for your answer based on market research combined with your unique strengths?
If you work in an organization, often the strategy is not well thought out at a higher level. Here’s an example of how gaining this kind of clarity can be successful: I coach a senior at a fashion company where frontline workers were buried with work and morale was plummeting. My client led a meeting with the senior cross-functional team and came up with a formula to clearly decide which designs he would follow and which redesigns, ad hoc changes, offshoots, he would not. The workload at all junior levels was reduced by almost 50% in one month. If you are in an organization, are you aware of a clear strategy being implemented, and if not, can you ask your boss to help guide you?
2) It is not clear what its function or its most leveraged activities are.
As a business owner, you can fall into the trap of doing everything yourself and thinking that you can’t pay someone else to do the things you’re not good at. That keeps you in a cycle of trying to do everything and not having time to do the marketing that will help you grow enough to hire an in-person or virtual assistant. Can you name the 3 activities that directly make you the most money, and if so, what are you doing to conserve your time for them?
If you work in an organization, are you clear about the essential function for which the organization pays you? I know, I know: what’s problematic these days is that you’re often doing the work of 2-3 people. Have you identified what your strengths are that make you invaluable in your current position? Are you making the best use of your strengths, and if not, can you ask about re-sculpting your role, getting the necessary training, or delegating to the people who work for you? What decisions are you empowered to make that would choose one clear direction instead of many?
3) You are not clear about your priorities
In a nutshell, you may be doing work that others have created urgency on, but that is not YOUR priority. Your priority is to fulfill the functions you’ve identified in #1 and #2 above, and to do so in the order of their expiration date and greatest impact to other people.
If you’re in an organization and have conflicting priorities, the job that belongs to the person who has first-hand control over your position and bonus takes precedence.
4) You are unclear on how to handle difficult interpersonal situations, such as saying no or rejecting your boss.
You may know that your boss is asking you to do “too much.” Or you may be saying yes to the demands of others and not conserving your energy for what you identified in #. #2 above, because you are not clear on what your own value is.
To respond effectively to a boss or client, you need to be clear about what you can and cannot say. There are 3 legs to any project you are asked to do: Time – Resources – Scope. What you can do is negotiate the terms of any of these. For example, if you are asked to do something very quickly, you might say yes, but ask for more resources or reduce the scope.
Often the problem is your own need to say yes when you want to say no. That means that you are not clear about your own value, you think you have to say yes for other people to like you or want to do business with you. Keep an eye out for solutions to this in an upcoming people-pleasing blog.
Leave a comment on my blog about your challenges with work overload.