So you have a busy week, either because of a spike in job offers or simply because your business is booming. The best thing that can happen right now is that next week will be just as busy, and to be honest, that’s what most of us want! But what if you have so many balls in the air, you end up dropping them all?
Handling multiple jobs at once can get pretty chaotic, but it’s possible with the help of productivity tools and the right mindset for every situation.
Use your phone to make plans
This comes up all the time – your phone has incredible tools to help you organize, so be sure to give them a chance.
One of the most important features is the calendar. Most calendars apps let you create events and attach them to specific contacts and map locations, which greatly helps when visiting clients for the first time, for example. Even better, they will often have integrated traffic warnings, so you can know in advance if you should worry about being late during the ride there.
Use reminders
Basically any reminder app will do, since they all have the basic features you need. While on the field, you might remember something you have to do later. Take some of that load off your head by simple adding a reminder – when you’re back, do a routine check on what you wrote and if you can now perform the task.
List reminders are good as a sort of “brainstorm” plan. Whatever you remember that you need to do later, write a quick reminder for it. It will help you pick up on the little things that come up during the day.
Here are a few great reminder apps we use all the time are (available for both iOS and Android):
- Wunderlist
- Any.do
- Todoist
- MinimaList
- Do!
Prioritize important tasks
Especially if you experience a short break during the day, take a moment to look at your current tasks “in the air” and prioritize whatever is most important. Perhaps an important call, ordering materials that will only get to you in a few days, things like that.
Leave whatever isn’t urgent for later, especially if you’re running on a tight schedule.
Be time efficient
With this we’re suggesting you make the absolute best use of a hundred percent of your time – we all need a break sometimes and that’s perfectly reasonable. But every once in a while you’ll have some time to breathe you were not expecting.
This is the perfect time to serve yourself a cup of coffee and look through your to-do list, because there might be something simple and quick you can already get out of the way. Often times all you have to do is call someone, and voilá, that’s one less thing you’ll have to worry about later.
Give realistic deadlines
This can be tricky at first, but no one knows what you do better than, well, you. If anyone is going to give realistic deadlines, they should come from your experience.
The tricky part is that clients will often have their own timeframes and will want you to adapt to them, instead of the other way around. Often times, contractors will say “yes” to a deadline they’re not sure they can handle to not lose the job and that ends up backfiring.
With the use of your phone to make plans and reminders to keep smaller tasks in control, try to offer more realistic deadlines for clients. It’s much better to say you’ll deliver on a day and actually do it than to say you can do it sooner and fail at it.
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