At times, I reckon I’m the biggest idiot going around!

I’ve designed time management programs,

I’m known as someone who is highly effective,

I’m often asked how I can get so much done in a day

And yet, I find myself making the same damn stupid mistake.

And it always ends up with me feeling stressed, overwhelmed

and worse… just damn unproductive.

Ever felt like that?

Well I sure have and today I want to talk about one of the major causes of overwhelm and what you can do to stop it.

So are you ready?

Here it is – Stop Multitasking!

Yep, it’s that simple. Just stop and work on one task at one time.

Ok, so I can hear the uproar now:

Niro, how am I supposed to stop multi tasking? I have so much to do and it’s the only way I can get stuff done…

Really?

Let’s think about it for a second. Multi tasking involves focusing on multiple things on one time. It’s like fragmenting parts of your brain and only using a small part of it one task and another part of it on another.

Now I don’t know about you but I’ve never claimed to be the smartest cookie on the planet. So I figure I need to use all my brain on one task.

Honestly! Are you telling me that you can focus on creating an article, putting together a high level sales presentation or taking part in an important face to face negotiation while also being on the phone, having a sandwich and clipping your nails?

If you can, you are probably much smarter than I am and you should stop reading now.

However, for the rest of us mere mortals, you might want to try the following:

Focus all of your efforts on your most important task at one time.

Why?

Let’s say you are working on something important like a blog post, a presentation, the next chapter in your book and you get interrupted, research shows that it can take you around 20 minutes to get back into the flow of what you were doing before.

If you get interrupted just three times a day, that’s an hour of productive time you have lost. (By the way, most of us get interrupted way more than just 3 times each day.)

How many times have you asked yourself? “If only I could have an extra hour per day…”

Well, here’s the answer.

Stop multi tasking.

Instead, make a list of everything you need to do, allocate priorities to each task and then get to work on your most important task

And when you work on that task, work only on that task. Turn off the phone, put a “do not disturb” sign on your door… whatever it takes…. just make sure you can work on your most important task without interruption.

But… when it comes to multi tasking – the biggest interruption comes from within us. I know that just when I’m in the middle of doing something important, my brain likes to vomit up other things that I could be doing.

I’m guessing my brain is trying to help me but it’s help I could do without. I still have not figured out how to stop my brain from doing this.

So instead, I have a note book by my side. And whenever I get these bouts of mental dhiorrea when I’m working, I just jot down whatever comes into my head.

By jotting it down, I can take it out of my head which means I can then refocus on my top priority.

Why not give this a go?

I guarantee that if you often find yourself feeling overwhelmed quite frequently, it’s because you feel like you just have way too much to do at the one time. Whenever, this happens, don’t try to be a hero… instead, stop and take a breather.

Jot down everything you have to do and then work on your top priority.

You’ll be far more happier… and by the way, since you’ll be using all of your brain on one task you might be impressed by just how great that next chapter of your book or that next presentation comes out.

Try it… what do you have to lose? Except for those useless feelings of being unnecessarily stressed and overwhelmed.

And if you’re a female reading this and thinking that it is only us dumb guys who can’t multi-task, trust me… once you start focusing on your top priority and stop leaking mental energy on other things, you will be amazed at just how much more you get done and how much of a better result your efforts produce.

By the way, if you are interested in further information about dealing with overwhelm, see my post about how to handle stress and stop feeling overwhelmed.

And before you go, do me a favour and let me know what you thought of this. Do you think multi tasking is the new biggest time waster?

Until next time,

Niro

PS: If you think this post is valuable, please share it on twitter, facebook and stumbleupon. Thanks so much

I love technology. I’m a big fan of the latest gadgets, social media and anything else that’s happening right now.

But I also hate technology because of all the extra things I have to handle in my life.

Sure I love interacting with people on Facebook & Twitter.
And I love being able to quickly send an email or a message
to someone on my Blackberry while on the run.

That’s all good but…

All the extra little things that I could be doing end up
taking my focus away from the things that actually matter.

I have to be so careful with my time because I could
easily end up being so busy doing the little things that
I end up achieving nothing of importance.

Ever felt that way?

I have come to believe that there are really only two
states that we should be spending our time in.

One is a state of total productivity – complete focus on
our highest priorities that will move us forwards towards
achieving our major goals in life.

The other is a state of complete relaxation where we
spend time with the people we love, doing the things we
enjoy…

For instance walking down the beach holding the hand
of the person you love…

Spending time laughing with your kids….

Taking time to meditate and connect with yourself.

You get what I mean.

But let me ask you a question…

Does checking your blackberry while you’re out on
a date with your lover fit into one of these states?

No.

How about taking client phone calls while spending the
day with your family?

No

What about spending idle time on facebook when you
should be working on your top priority?

No.

Do you get my point?

Now sure, you need to fit in the other things like doing
the laundry, shopping for groceries and cleaning the
house.

But I really believe that if you can create these boundaries
for yourself where…

When you work, your REALLY work!

And when you relax, you REALLY relax…

In other words, by focusing on your top priorities and doing
your best to eliminate distractions from both your work life
AND your personal life, you can get more done and…

You can relax more easily and more completely.

When this happens, guess what? You also become happier
too.

Give this a whirl and leave me a comment below and tell me
whether you’re enjoying more happiness, being more relaxed
and getting more done. I bet you will

Now to go grab a hot chocolate and really relax

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Don't be like a tiger when you're having an argument

The TV show “Two and a Half Men” is one of my favourite sitcoms. I enjoy watching even the reruns as a way of completely disconnecting and just having a great laugh. I always feel recharged after the half hour, although it’s rare that I take away any key lessons. This particularly episode was different.

In this episode Charlie Harper has to negotiate with his brother’s ex-wife Judith’s women’s group about why he is not a bad influence on his nephew, Jake. The women are up in arms that Charlie’s hedonistic lifestyle is having a bad influence on the 10 year old Jake. So Charlie walks into the lion’s den as it were, to negotiate his case. He walks into Judith’s house where there are group of ladies, all hurting from broken relationships in the past and are really looking to put the boot into Charlie. The episode is absolutely hilarious but what I learned from it was:

In times of conflict:

1. Look at the consequences of solving the conflict versus letting it blow over.

Sometimes, a confrontational situation can just blow over or can be ignored. Other times it needs to be solved. In Charlie’s case, he had to go and sort the situation out because otherwise he would not be able to see his nephew again, which is something he could not even consider. Leadership is knowing which conflicts need to be resolved and which can be ignored.

2. If the conflict needs to be faced, then face it!

Most of us prefer to run and hide whenever there is a challenge or a conflict we need to face because it is unpleasant. Well, that can often end up making the conflict situation worse. If you do not take out the weeds when they are small, they will end up taking over your garden. The same applies to conflict. I’m not talking about being someone who goes looking for a fight, but rather be someone who does not run away when the situation causes you to stand firm.

3. Don’t point score.

Many of us in conflict situations attempt to protect ourselves, our job, our reputation or just our ego by trying to prove that we’re right and the other person is wrong. However, the problem is that the other person is trying to do the same thing. As a result, the conflict only gets worse and over time, people sometimes even forget what the original cause of the conflict was. It just becomes a case of proving that you are right and the other person is wrong. Unfortunately, many marriages break up because of this one thing. If the relationship is important to you, the first step in any conflict is to shelve your ego. I’m not saying you need to allow yourself to be trodden on. I’m just saying that once you put aside your ego, you have a better chance of reaching a far better outcome for both parties.

4. Know Your Outcome:

When Charlie went in to meet the women’s group, his outcome was to make peace with them and show that he was a good influence on Jake. His outcome was not to go and prove he was right and have a good argument, although that was his first inclination. When there is an argument or a spirited debate brewing, be clear on your outcome. Have you ever got into an argument with someone and after a while you forgot what you’re arguing about but you just keep arguing? Generally, when this happens it’s because we’re just feeding our ego and trying to prove we’re right. What does that do for the relationship?

5. Be willing to see it from their side:

This is a tough one since a conflict often arises because we don’t see things in the same way as the other person. At the extreme, religious wars happen because neither side are willing to look at things from another point of view. However, it is the person who makes a genuine attempt to understand the other person’s point of view, who will be able to get the best possible outcome from any conflict. On a side note, I’ve often found that when I try and see things from another perspective, I learn more about the situation and we end up with a better outcome than if I had simply acted on my own perspective.

6. If you have made a mistake, accept it.

In today’s society where we are encouraged to shun responsibility and find someone or something else to blame, I’m suggesting you stand out from the crowd. Be the person who has the courage to accept your mistakes and you’ll be surprised at the respect you get from your peers. Sure, some people will still have a go at you but that’s because they are feeding their own security. And really, once you accept that you’ve made a mistake, what more can be said about the issue? More often than not, I’ve found that when I admit making a mistake, I go from a feeling of powerlessness to being back in control again. Admitting your mistake can also often defuse the situation and both parties can now work towards a solution. People will often forgive mistakes of the mind (where a genuine error is made) but they won’t as easily forgive mistakes of the heart (covering up the initial mistake, lieing, blaming someone else etc).

7. Be real
Again, I’m asking you here to stand out from the crowd and be true to who you really are. Accept your human frailties. Charlie does this well by first accepting how his behaviour could be a negative influence on Jake, owning up to his mistake and acknowledging the fact that he is still learning how to act around a 10 year old kid. He admits that he loves Jakes and would never do anything to harm him – and if there is anything the ladies can suggest for him to change his behaviour he would. When you are that authentic and that real, people will warm to you and they will more than likely forgive you. This is exactly what happened in the case of Charlie Harper. In fact, the ladies all ended up completely warming to Charlie and went over to his place for drinks. Now that’s conflict resolution from the expert!

So next time you get into a conflict, remember the Charlie Harper 7 step process to resolving conflicts. I guarantee that you’ll be a happier person, the people around you will be happier and if it’s in a work environment, your team will work harder to achieve things for you. Try it out and see and then let me know how you went.

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Have you ever felt overwhelmed or stressed? In today’s world, we are getting busier and busier. There are increasingly more demands on our time so how we use our time is absolutely vital. I recently outlined 15 Tips You Can Use Immediately to Increase Your Productivity but there is one factor above all that we must deal with before we can even look at increasing our productivity. That factor is dealing with overwhelm or dealing with stress.

How often have you felt feelings of overwhelm and stress wash over you? There is so much to do and you just don’t know where to get started. Your “to do” list seems to be increasing faster than you can get things done and you don’t know where to start making an indent. You try working harder, longer, faster – but trying to do things faster leads to silly mistakes which at best require rework and additional time (something you already don’t have) or at worst have massive consequences for you, your work and your company. It all just seems too much and you feel like throwing in the towel!! Does that sound familer? Is overwhelm a feeling you deal with constantly?

For me, feeling overwhelmed and stressed is something I used to face often and I had to get really honest with myeslf. Continually having feelings of overwhelm and stress was not great for my health, my happiness or my productivity. It almost seemed like the more work I had, the less productive I got which stressed me out and overwhelmed me even more. It seemed like a completely negative spiral, which is what I now call The Negative Spiral of Overwhelm and Stress.

So below are my top thirteen tips on how to get yourself out of The Negative Spiral of Overwhelm and Stress, start being productive and moving forwards once again.

Dealing with Overwhelm & Stress #1: Be Courageous: Recognise and Accept when you are feeling Overwhelmed. You need to be honest with yourself and admit that you’re overwhelmed and it feels like things are getting out of hand. For many men, this is tough to do because we feel we have to be in control, which is complete rubbish. It takes courage to be honest and it is only once we accept the truth that we can make a change. So acknowledge that you feel lke things are getting out of control.

Dealing with Overwhelm & Stress #2: Stop! Take A Break! When we’re overwhelmed, we have a tendency to keep working harder and harder, thinking that’s the only way to get out of the situation. That would be like if someone who has a problem sticking to budget kept spending to get their way out of trouble, or if an alcoholic kept drinking to sober up. Sounds dumb right!! Just as dumb as trying to work your way out of feeling overwhelmed.
Instead, take a break. If nothing else, get up and go grab a glass of water. Just moving your body will help you change your state, and that will change your mindset. For me, when I can, I’ll take a long break and go to the gym. The exercise and the moving of my body gets me back into a more positive state of mind. The greater benefit is that the break allow my subconscious to go to work for me and it’s amazing how I am able to find a solution the moment I return to my desk after a good workout.

Dealing with Overwhelm & Stress #3: Make A List. This is something many of us resist. I know I did – I figured I was intelligent and I could remember everything. Besides, writing things down was only going to take  me more time and I did not have any time to start off with. Can you imagine someone who was trying to cut down a tree with a saw but he never stopped to sharpen his saw because he said he was too busy? I’m sure you can see that if he just took a few minutes to stop and sharpen his saw, he’d be far more effective, productive and he’d get the job done in a lot less time. Consider, your writing of your list as your sharpening of the saw. In fact, Stephen Covey in his brilliant book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People talks about constantly sharpening the saw as the final habit, the habit that allowed the first 6 habits to be supported and allow them to flourish. So make a list of everything you have on your plate right now. Don’t try and order it, just write it down. Often, just being able to see everything you have to do, even if it goes over multiple pages can give you back a sense of control because now at least you know how big the elephant is that you are trying to tackle.

Dealing with Overwhelm & Stress #4: Now write down your timeframes and deadlines next to each one – when do you need to get each task done by?

Dealing with Overwhelm & Stress #5: Write down approximately how long you think it will take you to get each task done. This is often the hardest step for many of because we don’t know. So at times, you’ll need to just take a guess. What you’ll find is that over time, you will get a pretty good sense of how long something will take you.

Dealing with Overwhelm & Stress #6: Add 30%. Since you don’t know how long things will take you, and because of Murphy’s Law (If something can go wrong, it will), give yourself more time than you think you need.

Dealing with Overwhelm & Stress #7: Now put your list of tasks into order of priority. Don’t just use urgency as the key factor but also use importance. For example, going to the gym is not urgent, but it is probably critically important to your overall health and well being. Make sure your top (yet non-urgent) priorities for your week are scheduled and work your life around that. If you find that you are getting so busy that you don’t get to spend enough time with your kids, with your partner or on your health (ie: on the things you value most!), I guarantee this will only make your feelings of overwhelm even worse.

Dealing with Overwhelm & Stress #8: Eliminate: Congratulations – you are almost there! You now have some sense of order for what is facing you. Instead of stumbling through the tunnel blindfolded, you can now at least see how much work you have to get done. It still may not seem very pleasant but now you can start moving forwards again. However, look at your list and now see what can you eliminate. Are there meetings that are waste of time? Are there tasks you are doing that don’t get you anywhere. Remember that doing a task well that did not need to be done at all, is one of the greatest time wasters there is. So look at what you can eliminate from your schedule.

Dealing with Overwhelm & Stress #9: Outsource and Deligate – Are there tasks you can deligate to a team mate or outsource? Remember, you don’t need to do it all yourself. This is another tough one because people will often tell me that there is nobody else to do the work, or nobody else can do it as well as they can. If it’s the first part I understand. There are certain specialist tasks that only we can take care of. However, if you think nobody else can do it as well as you can, I’d advise you to check again. Is it your ego talking now? Remember, some people, as overwhelmed as they are are and as stressed as they are, actually get a perverse sense of enjoyment from this because it makes them feel significant. We all know people who seem to wear the fact that they are busy as if it was a badge of honour. “I’m so busy” can often be heard being bellowed by these people. Don’t be one of them. Understand that other people can do a job well, if you give them enough training. Sure, that may take more time in the short term, but the longer term benefits of having less on your plate will certainly be worth it. Also, look for opportunities to allow your team around you to step up and take on some of your responsibilities by giving them more challenging tasks. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Dealing with Overwhelm & Stress #10: Creatively Procrastinate - We’re all good at procrastination so let’s use it to our advantage. Look at your list and work out what you need to start now and what can you delay starting. Procrastinate on the low value tasks (even though they may seem easier and perhaps even more enjoyable). I’ve often procrastinated so long on these lower value tasks and focused on more important and higher value tasks for long enough that the low value tasks just dropped off my plate.

Dealing with Overwhelm & Stress #11: Set Expectations - If you know you can’t deliver something for 4 weeks, don’t agree to do it in 2, just to make the client or other staff member feel good. All that’s going to happen is that you’re going to be stressed and overwhelmed and the odds are you’ll let something slip. Either you’ll slip on your promised deadline or the quality of work will slip, both of which will be detrimental to the relationship with the person you promised the deadline to.

Dealing with Overwhelm & Stress #12: Renegotiate: For example, if it is your boss who is putting the pressure on you, take your existing work list and timeframes / deadlines to him. Remember, you did that in steps 5 and 6 and explain that for you to meet the deadline for her new task, something else will need to give. Be very polite and cordial about this but at the same be upfront. More often than not, your boss will be impressed that you are so organised.

Dealing with Overwhelm & Stress #13: Keep Fit and Healthy – Clarity of thought is a key ingredient when dealing with times of high workload and high pressure. A high level of health, fitness and energy will allow you to mentally operate at your optimum levels for longer, increasing your productivity and reducing your chances of entering The Negative Spiral of Overwhelm. An additional benefit is that exercise is a great stress buster and as I said in step 2, it can change your physical state which is sometimes all you need to snap out of your feelings of overwhelm and stress.

So now you know my top thirteen tips for dealing with overwhelm and stress. By knowing these steps, will you now never feel overwhelmed or stressed again? Of course not – the truth is that you will feel overwhelmed again at some point or another. However, by following these steps, not only will the number of times you feel stressed decrease, but whenever you do feel overwhelmed or stress, you will know exactly how to get yourself out of it in just a few minutes. Good luck and I’d love to hear how these 13 steps helped you overcome your stress and overwhelm.

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