Simple strategies to get you out of overwhelm and back in control of yourself, your team and your RTO
9 More Tips To Get Back An Hour A Day
1. Watch out for shiny objects... those things which distract you from your key focus areas.
For many people, the biggest distraction is social media; the 'necessary evil' in businesses and our lives. If this is you, look at tools like Hootsuite and Buffer which can schedule your social media posts across multiple platforms rather than posting infrequently.
2. Use a timer to limit (or focus) your time on particularly activities and stop working on that task when it dings.
3. Look at alternatives to email to help you manage your tasks.
Utilise software like Asana, Slack, MeisterTask etc to manage tasks and communication within projects and teams rather than clogging up emails.
4. Use Post-It-Notes – virtual or paper – to manage the lists upon lists so you can visually see what actually needs to be done, by whom and by when.
This is often the best way to quickly and easily see the workload (and ensuing overwhelm) for you and your team.
5. Have a day without using your mobile phone, or even better yet, a Technology Free Day.
Be one of those businesses who have implemented an Email Free Day across their entire organisation to not only get people out of their chairs and talking to each other; but to help them become more proactive rather than reacting to every email or phone call.
Even though you may think it, the world will not end and your RTO won't collapse.
6. Spend an hour working somewhere else other than your office.
You'd be amazed at how much clarity and productivity comes with a simple change of scenery; be it beach, rainforest, coffee shop or local library.
7. Don't be out of the office every day.
Help educate yourself, your team and your students/clients to the times and days you take meetings so you're building an even more proactive RTO.
Of course, you need to be flexible to meet someone's needs if it doesn't fit into this schedule, but it should work at least 80% of the time. This simple change will help you to start running your RTO your way, rather than having everyone else dictating the terms.
8. Be the Tortoise and not the Hare
Don't always be in a rush to agree to everything (and sometimes everyone) especially when it comes to adding products and services to your core business, or to chase a tender/funding opportunity.
Instead, take a breath and see what saying yes actually means – for you and your RTO. Acting as the tortoise for even five minutes is better than always being the hare.
9. Implement the 4 Ds System
The four Ds are a simple way to remember how to deal with a task such as emailing:
• Do it.
• Diarise it.
• Delegate it.
• Delete it.
As you can see, there is no 'ignore it' because this strategy is all about making a decision about what to do next, even if that's just to diarise to deal with it in an hour's time.