Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is to keep your work in perspective. Most stuff
Speaker 1: is not a true emergency, and staying calm will make
Speaker 1: work more sustainable. So I know that in many workplaces
Speaker 1: these days there is a constant sense of emergency. Every
Speaker 1: deadline brings panic and a sprint to get things done.
Speaker 1: I know lots of places are short staffed and everyone's
Speaker 1: trying to do more with less, but is it truly
Speaker 1: an emergency. I know of a wise manager who reminds
Speaker 1: her team when they are getting stressed out. You are
Speaker 1: not first respect. Paramedics, EMTs, firefighters and police officers are
Speaker 1: first responders when an emergency occurs. They do, in fact
Speaker 1: drop everything and deal with it. But if your work
Speaker 1: is not fighting fires, providing critical medical care, or stopping crimes,
Speaker 1: then you are probably not dealing with a true emergency.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not saying your work isn't important. It probably is,
Speaker 1: but it's best to behave in line with the actual stakes.
Speaker 1: Keeping a sense of calm makes life more sustainable, helping
Speaker 1: your workplace have fewer things that feel like emergencies can
Speaker 1: also make life more sustainable for everyone around you, So
Speaker 1: how do you do that? First, you don't have to
Speaker 1: mirror everyone else's frenzy. Even if people around you are
Speaker 1: canceling everything else and insisting they'll need to work all
Speaker 1: weekend and such, that doesn't mean you automatically have to
Speaker 1: do this. Do you have enough time to do your
Speaker 1: part of your project before it's supposed to be done?
Speaker 1: If so, awesome, someone else's panic doesn't need to be
Speaker 1: your panic, and you don't need to augment theirs. Even
Speaker 1: if you're not leading the team, you can work on
Speaker 1: reducing the sense of emergency. For projects involving multiple people
Speaker 1: and multiple steps help map out the schedule and when
Speaker 1: each step needs to happen. It can help to make
Speaker 1: the relationship between incremental steps and the finished product as
Speaker 1: explicit as possible. For instance, you might say for the
Speaker 1: report to be published by March first, the final text,
Speaker 1: photos and graphics have to go to the graphic designer
Speaker 1: by February fifteenth, so that the report can be sent
Speaker 1: to the printer February twenty second, Or for the mailing
Speaker 1: to go out in Monday's mail, I'll need the spreadsheet
Speaker 1: by close of business Thursday. You could even go on
Speaker 1: to say, if I get the spreadsheet on Friday, we'll
Speaker 1: have to get the mailing out in tuesday's mail. That way,
Speaker 1: your colleagues won't assume that if they run late, you
Speaker 1: will be working all weekend to get back on schedule.
Speaker 1: And to be clear, for the vast majority of things,
Speaker 1: a mailing going out on Tuesday is really not that
Speaker 1: different from one going out on Monday. The earth will
Speaker 1: keep spinning, No buildings are going to burn down. Of course,
Speaker 1: if your workplace is in a constant state of emergency,
Speaker 1: communicating about timelines will only get you so far. You
Speaker 1: may need to be prepared to deal with time crunches
Speaker 1: that should have been avoidable but for whatever reason, are not. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: there are still a few ways that you can insulate yourself.
Speaker 1: For instance, you can build in as much buffer to
Speaker 1: your schedule as you can, work ahead on projects where
Speaker 1: you can, and don't overschedule yourself so there's always slack
Speaker 1: in your schedule so you can get unexpected big tasks
Speaker 1: done fast. If you know your colleagues and just realize
Speaker 1: that every Monday you're going to be turning around a
Speaker 1: big task that landed on your desk over the weekend.
Speaker 1: You are going to be much happier than if you
Speaker 1: get to your desk Monday morning expecting to accomplish something
Speaker 1: in particular and end up having to delay it until
Speaker 1: you've dealt with the latest emergency. Just plan that there
Speaker 1: will be an emergency. Dealing with so called emergencies also
Speaker 1: requires knowing yourself. If you are energized by a tight
Speaker 1: deadline for an important project, or if you tend to
Speaker 1: get everything done at the last minute, you can just
Speaker 1: try to make the most of that adrenaline rush. But
Speaker 1: do try not to spread this to everyone else. Most
Speaker 1: stuff will get done. Most unexpected complications aren't truly unexpected.
Speaker 1: The vast majority of normal working stuff is not actually
Speaker 1: an emergency. We are better off not taking it quite
Speaker 1: so seriously. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and here's to making the most of our times. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
Speaker 1: or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
Speaker 1: vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
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