Working for a start-up or fast growth business is exactly that, fast paced. And so it’s really hard to get things done.

I’ve certainly been in this place before and can sometimes find it difficult to focus when I have so much on my plate. I can often find myself just fighting fires and not planning. Not demonstrating those Leadership qualities….

It can be easy to just put your head in the sand.

Eat lunch at your desk.

Run from one thing to the next.

Work long hours to hit deadlines.

Look only short term and forget long term.

But this is not sustainable (or at least it shouldn’t be!) and therefore other solutions or ways of structuring your day need to be considered.

This is what worked for me:

Structuring your day I found that I could procrastinate the entire morning away and then at lunchtime I would be so frustrated that I wasted an entire morning doing….not much!

It was generally checking KPIs, then checking emails, then re-organising the calendar, then flicking onto some work, repeat, repeat.

It’s amazing how much time can be wasted.

Then I found that I could get stuck into proper work mode in the afternoon, but I was constantly bothered by meetings. So it was time to switch it up. I now try to schedule all my meetings in the morning – back to back is fine. Then I block out the afternoons for work time. This has been a game-changer.

I now easily switch from one meeting to the next in the mornings - and in the afternoon I can really focus on the work at hand. My productivity has really increased, even with lots of small breaks and a lunch/walk break at lunchtime.

Try to work out – when are you most productive? Are you a morning, afternoon or evening person? Then block out your calendar and get s**t done! The rest of the time can be for meetings, emails, etc….

Get that calendar working for you While you’re getting your calendar in order, I would also try these out:

1. Putting in that recurring meeting weekly / bi-weekly / monthly - to think and to plan. I’ve spoken about this one a few times and I will continue to do so because it REALLY works. If you want time to think and plan and review – you need to block out time to do so. Otherwise, you’ll spend all your time firefighting.
2. Add in that lunch break. Even just 30 minutes a day. Even if you feel like you don't have the time. Ruchika Tulshyan who wrote for the Harvard Business Review* said, “One survey found that North American employees who take a lunch break every day reported higher engagement based on metrics including job satisfaction, productivity, and likelihood to recommend working there to others.”
3. My default meeting settings is now 30 min. It used to be 1 hour – but I find that most meetings don’t need to be this long and as I have only half a day allocated to meetings, 30 min was enough – especially since I work remotely and I don’t need to rush from one meeting room to the next. So if you have loads of meetings, try to keep them short.
4. I also book in “email checking” time and I don’t have my emails open when I’m in work mode. It’s just too distracting and I can check these every 5 min if I don't. 9am – 9.30am each day is inbox checking and then I do again after lunch and again at the end of the day and that’s all. Otherwise I could spend an entire day in there.

If you find that you're the same, try this one out and see if it works for you.

Planning tasks

I spend either Sunday night / Monday morning planning my week.

I look at what meetings I have and what deadlines are coming and up and ensure that the tasks for each day fit in. I write down up to 3 tasks per day, no more.

I have found that this really sets up the week and gets me focused on the right tasks.

What I have found as an added benefit here, is that if a meeting is cancelled or finishes early – I now go straight to this list and work through, rather than flapping about trying to work out how to use my new found break.

Delegation

It’s also important to consider delegation as well. What can be done by your team and what really does need to be completed by yourself? Are you delegating enough or are you keeping everything for yourself, because it's easier that way?

I like to use Kanbanflow for my team and I use an offline journal for my own tasks. (I know that this is very old school, but it’s how I work best!).

Kanbanflow works well for me, as it not only has deadlines, can be allocated to someone and you can add loads of sub-tasks, but it also has a Pomodoro feature, which I do use when I feel my concentration going.

If you haven’t used Pomodoro before – it’s a simple concept whereby you concentrate on just one task for 25 min and then you get a 5 min break.  You can read more about the Pomodoro Technique here.

I find this particularly useful when you have either a big deadline or a task that you really don’t want to do. Getting the motivation to do 25 minutes of any task is quite easy.

For anyone that likes offline journals – I use the Clever Fox planner. Appreciate that I might be on my own here!

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