Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is about how to tackle multiple projects when
Speaker 1: they all need to get done. You have a long
Speaker 1: time to do them, but not a lot of focus time. Recently,
Speaker 1: I heard from a podcast listener who's a college instructor.
Speaker 1: Over the summer, she noted her workload was lighter, but
Speaker 1: she always had projects she needs to accomplish. By the
Speaker 1: end of August, she had new courses to design, old
Speaker 1: courses to tweak, research projects, and curriculum to write up.
Speaker 1: Her question, how should she plan her time to complete
Speaker 1: several projects over the course of a few months. Would
Speaker 1: it be better to work on each project simultaneously, putting
Speaker 1: in a bit of time each day to each project,
Speaker 1: or should she focus on one project at a time
Speaker 1: and only start a new one when the others were completed.
Speaker 1: As she noted, many people have this experience of feeling
Speaker 1: like you have plenty of time in her case, three months,
Speaker 1: and then having the season slip away. You end without
Speaker 1: accomplishing as much as you wanted. In her case, she
Speaker 1: also had the situation I know many listeners are coping
Speaker 1: with right now two small kids at home all summer,
Speaker 1: so these projects needed to be tackled around whatever time
Speaker 1: she could seize. I think the biggest challenge in this
Speaker 1: case is that you can always feel like you should
Speaker 1: be doing something else. So here was my advice. Make
Speaker 1: a list of exactly what needs to be accomplished over
Speaker 1: the summer. In her case, maybe there would be three
Speaker 1: big projects, designing a new course, completely revamping an old one,
Speaker 1: and doing a research project. Then she could assign each
Speaker 1: of these a portion of the summer. YEP, I believe
Speaker 1: in doing one thing at a time. Maybe she would
Speaker 1: revamp the course during the first three weeks, take four
Speaker 1: weeks to design the new course, and then devote the
Speaker 1: next four weeks to her research project. The reason to
Speaker 1: do one task at a time is that you can
Speaker 1: focus all your energy on its completion. When you do that,
Speaker 1: you can make progress even in interrupted bits of time.
Speaker 1: You can also relax because you're not constantly thinking you
Speaker 1: should be doing something else. When you're working on revamping
Speaker 1: one course, you know that there is time to design
Speaker 1: a new course, but that is in July, not now.
Speaker 1: It will get done in turn. As for making progress
Speaker 1: in bits of time around childcare. This two can be
Speaker 1: frustrating if you're unsure what you should be doing, so
Speaker 1: I recommended that this listener break her big projects down
Speaker 1: into small steps and then organize these by what she
Speaker 1: could get done in tiny bits of interrupted time and
Speaker 1: what would require focus. She could aim to do one
Speaker 1: focused thing a day, either during nap time or in
Speaker 1: the morning before the kids got up or after they
Speaker 1: went to bed, or when her partner could cover. She
Speaker 1: could also assign herself a handful of smaller tasks that
Speaker 1: didn't require much time, such as sending an email or
Speaker 1: mailing a form. When she got through those tasks each day,
Speaker 1: she could then relax. There would be time to do
Speaker 1: other stuff later, so she could enjoy being with the
Speaker 1: kids instead of constantly thinking she should be doing something else.
Speaker 1: If she did one big project at a time and
Speaker 1: broke each project down into doable steps, with a short
Speaker 1: list of steps assigned each day, I suspect that she
Speaker 1: would feel like she'd had the most productive summer ever.
Speaker 1: And if you do the same, I think you will too.
Speaker 1: You can do a lot in a few minutes, but
Speaker 1: only if you know what you need to do. Plan
Speaker 1: this out fully focus and you'll be unstoppable. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
Speaker 1: the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod. That's b E the
Speaker 1: number four, then breakfast p o D. You can also
Speaker 1: shoot me an email at Before Breakfast podcast at i
Speaker 1: heeart media dot com that Before Breakfast is spelled out
Speaker 1: with all the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward
Speaker 1: to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
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Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.