As any internal communications professional knows, keeping everyone happy will always be a juggle.
When time is limited and you have requests for your skills coming at you from all directions, it can be hard to know what and who to prioritise. It’s one of the most common questions I get asked: ‘How do I juggle all of the competing priorities?’
In this blog ‘How to spend your time on the real priorities’, based on a recent workshop I held for WorkVivo, I will talk about how to identify your key areas of focus and outline some of my top productivity tips to help you maximise your time.
The importance of a plan
When it comes to managing your workload – and your stakeholders -it helps to understand a bit about the basics of human psychology, and why people act the way they do. When you understand how our brains work, you begin to see why having a plan is so important.
While the world around us has changed since we were cave people, our brains haven’t. They’re still wired in the same way as when we were hunting, gathering and trying to hide from predators. Being able to predict what’s going to happen helps us to stay safe. When we can’t, we go into a state of feeling threatened.
For this reason, the human brain loves a plan, it gives us a sense of security, we know what’s coming next and we know what’s expected of us, reducing the fear.
A plan helps negate other factors too, like novelty and distraction. As much as we feel safe with a routine, it’s human nature to be distracted by shiny new things. A plan helps to avoid that tendency to believe we need to be jumping on the next new comms bandwagon, or doing what every other department is doing.
Fairness is important to us too. We like to be treated fairly and we like others to be treated fairly. This can be why we struggle with managing stakeholders, as we simply can’t give everyone equal treatment. We’re naturally emotional creatures. A thorough plan, with reasoning behind it, helps to take some of the emotion out of decisions, making it easier to say no.
What do we mean by stakeholders?
Broadly speaking, stakeholders are anyone directly related to the organisation and what it’s doing – employees, suppliers, customers, investors etc.
When listing them you should get into as much detail as you can around different demographics and groupings.
If stakeholders are not managed well there is a risk reputationally and financially, and chaos can ensue.
You can read more about the importance of identifying stakeholders and some different methods for doing it in this blog.
The key question to ask yourself
When it comes to managing your time and knowing which work to prioritise, there is one question I come back to repeatedly:
How is this adding value?
It can be so easy to get stuck doing things that don’t add value, but what’s important to remember is that, as communications experts, we control the channels. Our job is not to just say yes, a crucial part of it is also saying no and being able to explain why you can’t do things.
The ’why’ is hugely important here. If you’re being asked to communicate something but you can’t understand the ‘why’ or how it’s adding value, that’s where you need to have the tricky conversation and ask the questions.
If you can’t see the importance your audience won’t see the importance.
The majority of the work you’re doing should be aligned to your organisational strategy, so it’s fair to ask how it contributes, where it fits and the impact it needs to have.
Things to consider here:
- Use a briefing sheet or a series of questions to allow you to prioritise
- Always ask questions about the outcome of the work on employees (what do you want them to think/feel/do?)
- Make sure you know how it aligns to your strategic pillars or overarching strategy
- Discuss timeframes – it’s fair to ask why they are what they are
Ultimately, this comes down to judgement. If you don’t know, don’t have the experience, or are being asked by a very senior person, that’s where you need to have a conversation with peers/people that are closer. Don’t just take it as gospel that that something needs to happen.
Beware of false urgency
It might not always feel like it, but you can control the pace of things. Other people might be running at 100mph, but their chaos doesn’t need to become your chaos.
“As soon as possible” is not a deadline. It will mean different things to the stakeholder than it does to you. I will always go back to people and say “I need a deadline. Asap to you is not asap to me”.
If they can’t give you a deadline, you should give them the timeframes, based on your current workload.
To help with this, it can be useful to determine what urgent or important look like for you and your team. The matrix below is a good starting point.
Maximising your time
It’s easy to think “I’m just too busy to do this”, but busy is not an excuse. It just means you’re prioritising other things.
To get out of this mindset it can be helpful to think about how you manage your attention, rather than your time. What are you focusing your attention on? Is it the right things?
Being clear on your priorities helps you feel in control of your time and how you spend it.
I’m very focused on my time and how I spend it, and these are a few things that have helped me:
- Eat the frog – Do the worst thing first, the thing you’ve been putting off, early in the day.
This links back to the power of a plan over emotion.
- Set timers – The maximum time our brains can concentrate on one thing is around 50 minutes, so setting a timer for 30-45 minutes and then giving yourself a reward at the end can be helpful. It could be a cup of tea, a chat with a friend, a walk round the block…anything that helps you to switch focus.
- Stick to no more than five things a day – Having five things gives you room to breathe. If you’re always working at maximum capacity possible then, if there is a crisis, you have nowhere to go.
A really useful book on this subject is Busy: How to Thrive in a World of Too Muchby Tony Crabbe.
Dealing with procrastination
When we’re feeling busy and overwhelmed, procrastination is an easy trap to fall into.
Because we don’t know where to start, we delay starting, or try to spread our focus across too many things.
Knowing what’s fuelling your procrastination is a good way to start tackling it.
It’s usually one of four things:
- Fear – what if it isn’t right?
- Perfectionism – It’s not ready to be shared
- Dependence – I’ll do it when… I’m on top of my admin, for example
- Mood – I’m not in the mood today
Identifying which one it is for you and then making changes to stop yourself from falling into this trap is helpful.
- Fear – Ask yourself questions to remove the control of the fear e.g. “What happens if this isn’t right?”. Find someone to help reinforce your skills and abilities – who can you trust to review the work to make sure you’re on the right track?
- Perfectionism – Define what success looks like for you so that you know what “doneˮ looks like for you, and then stick to it. Remember “progress is better than perfection’—say it often!
- Dependence – Consider why the dependence is there. Is it because you want to do something else instead? Is it a real dependence, or have you made it up?
- Mood – Set timers for the work, set a point in time to reward yourself for what you have achieved, and find someone to keep you accountable.
There’s more useful info on this topic in the excellent book Procrastinate on Purpose: Five Permissions to Multiply Your Time by Rory Vaden.
If you’d like some help working through your priorities or mapping stakeholders drop our team a message at info@redefiningcomms.com
