Overextended

So for the next few weeks if I don’t post as much know that I am currently overextended. I seem to have a problem saying no to things. I literally have more work than I can complete by the end of June. It is all high priority and none of it can be delayed.

Part of this was poor planning and procrastination on my part. I’m not normally like that but have been rather apathetic about my job for a few months this year.

So now it is crunch time! I will we working every waking hour. Thank goodness my spouse takes care of the kids during times like this when I need to burn the midnight oil.

If you have any tips on how you like to organize and track projects, please post them in the comments!

An important lesson I’ve learned this month is that other people’s lack of planning does not have to become my emergency. The same people always wait until the last minute to put their requests in to me. This has to change. Today I spent half a day working on something that someone could have completed a month ago.

Getting Things Done (or Not)

It’s Friday night. The end of the week. I feel like I got nothing accomplished at work this week. I am so overwhelmed I can’t keep up.

Have you ever felt this way? I have all these great ideas, but I can’t seem to get them to come to life. The old saying is all talk but no action. But that’s not exactly true. I do lots of thinking, reading, research, networking, talking, communicating. It’s the actual completing the tasks on a task list to complete a project that is my problem.

I do a lot of work online. So let’s say I go to Google to look up something. Something else will catch my attention and an hour later I realize I haven’t finished what I meant to do. I’ve tried even disconnecting from the Internet, but I still get distracted. Focus seems to be a huge problem for me at the moment and it’s a new one. I’ve never had this problem until recently. I can only attribute it to information overload. I have too much input on a daily basis to generate any output.

I’m a big fan of the Getting Things Done method. I think I’ll go back to using the task list next week.

I’ve also over committed myself for the next month. I’m not sure if it’s even possible to get all the things done that I need to do.

It’s been a few days since I’ve heard from my mentor. I hope everything is ok.