adjust your work in new circumstances

Dear readers, The author of the article is a member of a women’s business club. The club is engaged in research and search for solutions to optimize work processes for ambitious people. Yes, it turns out that often our respondents to surveys are women. However, we often take decisions from our male colleagues. Our research is initially aimed at helping women develop in development, but all solutions are applicable to IT specialists regardless of gender. So don’t pay attention to the women’s issue and take the solutions if they are useful to you. If you are triggered by “gender” pain, then do not read this material. Thanks for understanding.

The deadline is coming, and I still don’t have a horse lying around! How can a specialist establish processes at work in order to get everything done?

Are you familiar with this situation: “I’m working, all the processes are set up and then bam – restructuring and you are charged with new responsibilities that you don’t know. You have to learn new things, I’m late at work, the bosses are unhappy…”?

Katya, 38 years old, head of the passive banking group writes:
New leadership has arrived. Decided to merge us with IT. I am now not a group leader, but a leading specialist. I was charged with accessing the system and I need to find out how to do it and how our database is structured. Before that I only worked with the interface. They gave me one task to unload. If you have time. And then the programmer helped!

Problem

The specialist has new work tasks. And if before she managed to do everything, now it’s unclear how to allocate time in order to get everything done. She doesn’t know how to act in this situation, blockages begin, she starts overworking, but still doesn’t manage to do anything… And the deadline is getting closer!

Consequences

The employee fails to complete all tasks by the deadline and lets down those to whom the promise was made. As a result, this leads to a damaged reputation, neurosis, reflection and burnout.

So Elena was in good standing with management, all projects were completed on time, clients were delighted and gave her the highest marks. However, suddenly two events happened – the analyst quit and a colleague went on vacation. Elena previously told management that she would like to try herself in analytics. As a result, she is given a large project for analytics, and at the same time, some of the projects are transferred from a colleague who went on vacation. At the same time, their responsibilities did not disappear anywhere.

So, the specialist has many projects and he does not want to give up on them. A super task has been set – to do everything!

List of possibilities – solutions

We describe all the actions: what exactly am I doing to achieve the ultimate goal?
We control production.
We create a schedule of tasks.
We try to reduce the time required to perform some operations, if possible.
If possible, we get an assistant – a person or a program.

Solutions

Solution 1: We describe all the actions: what exactly am I doing to achieve the ultimate goal?

It is necessary to describe in detail all the actions performed during the day, i.e. make a list of tasks to be performed, for example:

She sat down at her workplace.
Turned on the laptop.
Checked messages on social networks
Texted with a colleague
Called the customer
Had breakfast: drank coffee, ate porridge
Watched videos on YouTube
And so on…

After analyzing these actions, you will be able to see what unnecessary types of actions you are performing and what can be eliminated to free up more time for solving useful tasks.

For example, Alexander, 38 years old, head of analysts, is looking for another analyst to join his team. It takes him an hour to complete the interview with all the shuffling around. There can be two of them per day. This infuriates him terribly.
He talked to a colleague from another company and explained how the interview works. And a colleague offered to help with this task, since she just wanted to gain experience in conducting interviews.

Solution 2: Controlling production

After you have compiled a list of tasks to be performed, you need to record the time it takes to complete each task. This way you can analyze how much time it takes to solve a particular problem. It also reveals how much time is spent on tasks that can be reduced, eliminated, or delegated. For example, it may turn out that up to 80% of the time is spent on counseling, communication, and answering calls. Of course, in this situation there will be no time left to complete reports.

This solution has another obvious advantage – when you understand how much time each type of task requires, you can more effectively manage your schedule and to-do list, and also motivate adequate (convenient for you) setting deadlines in front of other colleagues. Less stress in planning – that’s what we’re after, right?

For example, Alisa, 34 years old, consultant, went freelance and now needs to communicate in advance the time to complete this or that work. Pay only for estimated time. Now she records when she started working. When I finished, to understand my output.

Solution 3: Schedule tasks

You need to make a detailed plan to complete each task.

To do this, it must be broken down into operations.

For example, one of the participants of the LivreLady Business Club shared her experience in the field of assessment.

The assessment report can be divided into 7 stages:

Conclusion of the Agreement.
Establishing the characteristics of the Object.
Inspection of the Valuation Object, photographing.
Analysis of the market to which the Object belongs.
Selecting the assessment method(s) within each assessment approach and performing the necessary calculations.
Summarizing the results obtained within each of the valuation approaches and determining the final value of the Object.
Drawing up and delivery of the Assessment Report to the Customer.

Next, to complete each stage, you need to create a schedule, a schedule with a specific time for completion, for example:

Monday, 10:00 – 13:00 – conclusion of the Agreement.

Tuesday, 14:00 – 17:00 – establishing the characteristics of the Object.

Wednesday, 09:00 – 12:00 – inspection of the Valuation Object, photography.

And so on..

It is also customary in our club to sum up the work over the past month; we compile a digest of our achievements and post it in our VK group (https://vk.com/@womantive-mai-iun-v-klube-livrelady). The development of such a project is also divided into stages:

Collection of data on all events carried out by the club.
Preparation of abstracts for each event.
Preparation of abstracts into a single text.
Collecting pictures for the digest.
Design of pictures in the same club style: applying logos, placing them on the cover, etc.
Making a digest layout and submitting it for review to a literary editor.
Corrections as noted by the editor.
Submission for publication in the group.

And as you may have guessed, then a schedule for each operation is outlined and a report on the work of the LivreLady club is developed calmly, without missing deadlines.

Conclusion

As you can see, the problem is completely solvable. Yes, you’ll have to work hard. But it is possible to eliminate it from several fronts – by organizing yourself, those around you, or the space. There are actually more options. In this material, we shared with you an excerpt of recommendations from a collective book; you will find more solutions in the book itself “SHE is outside the mold”

We also share solutions for specific cases of our readers on the channel “LivreLady / Business Women’s Club” (easily searched by name).

We are sure you have your own proven solutions. Share them with us, let’s help each other!

Your options

You have read the article, and if you have a complete understanding of what needs to be done and how, then there is only one thing left to do – start and do it systematically.

Author: participant of the “LivreLady Business Club” and co-author of the book “SHE is outside the mold” Kira Ponomareva