In my earlier post, “Control the sources of work and beneficiaries of results”, I wrote about the importance of maximizing the inflow of workload from your own self and minimizing the inflow of workload coming from others. However, as you would have already thought by now, that is not an easy thing to do. I can imagine countless people would have tried to do this and failed again and again. After all, there are so many things that need do be done each day, and with so many people expecting us to deliver so many different things, how on earth are you supposed to make time for the things that you want to do yourself as well?

The problem lies in that very question. The most important thing to keep in mind is to put your own workload first and then take care of the workload from others – not the other way round! Obviously this is an oversimplified approach, and there would be times when one needs to consider the priorities before deciding on whether to proceed with an item from one’s own list or whether to take up an item that came from someone else. But the point of my earlier statement was to drive the message that on a general note, prime importance needs to be given to the inflow of workload from oneself. Most people fail to get this right because they try to first address the workload coming in from others. Tasks from one’s own list are left for later, and almost always, the “later” time never comes.

Many a times, it’s a matter of convincing yourself that you have enough on your plate already and that you cannot take on anything more than you already have ongoing. Proactively identifying all the tasks that need to be done, and then scheduling them in the time slots available to you helps see for yourself that there is enough to do, if not much more, in the little time that you have at your disposal each day. And when you are totally convinced yourself, you will learn to say no to those who come up with requests that are less important than those you have already scheduled yourself.

I’d like to explain this one with an example. Let’s say you are a project manager and you have a target ahead of you – a project that needs to be delivered in three month’s time.

Being the project manager, if you set aside some time to plan, you would know at least with some level of clarity the various tasks that are coming up over the next few days, and with some planning, a general idea of what’s in store a few weeks from now. You are thus in a position to plan your time at least a few weeks ahead. What you know you have to do is what makes up the list of things that you come up with for yourself. This is what I mean by inflow of workload from your own self. If however you fail to do the necessary planning, then you do not have any plan of action. What happens then is that every Tom, Dick and Harry, from the project team or from outside, makes you dance to his/her own tunes. Because you yourself do not know what you have to do, you get thrown around from one task to another, whether it is relevant to the project or not. This is what I mean by workload coming in from others.

Now let’s assume you have been able to get ahead in the game by deciding for yourself what you should be doing in order to take the project in the right direction. The moment you have an inflow of tasks coming from yourself, the next thing you must do is book your schedule for each of the things as and when they would need to be done. This is the most important step, one that serves multiple purposes, one that is often ignored by many. Firstly, scheduling your tasks makes sure that you have allocated time for doing the things that need to be done. This ensures that you do not miss out on work items when they need to be done, and knowing that you will not forget to do something puts your mind at peace and helps it operate more efficiently. Secondly, it ensures that you have set aside time for your workload the way you feel right. That takes away the opportunity from those in the higher ranks to be able to set a deadline for you, which would have probably been more challenging than what you would want it to be. This is because once you have done your homework and planned out all the tasks in advance, it is easier to see why you would need the amount of time that you have set aside. Had you not done your planning in advance, there would have been less visibility into the number of work items that actually need to be achieved, thereby leading you to agree to a tighter and more challenging target, which at that point in time would not seem that challenging to you due to the very lack of visibility into the details. And thirdly, having a schedule that is packed ensures that you have solid reasons to show why you cannot take up some unimportant tasks that might come up from others, thereby effectively minimizing the inflow of workload coming from others.

And here is the icing of the cake: The farther your plan and concrete schedule extends into the future, the more difficult it becomes for others to push you to do the tasks that they want you to do. That is because most of the time others come to you only at the spur of the moment to get something done, and most of those times, the work that needs to be done in such cases is just urgent by not all that important. So if you have planned your schedule even a little into the future, it would be easy to explain to the other person why it is that you are not able to make time for his/her task – simply because your schedule is already packed for that time and for quite some time beyond that as well. Only if it is very important, will the person actually take the initiative and do the necessary planning well in advance to be able to get on to your schedule before you yourself have put anything from your own list into the schedule for that particular day in the future. And if that happens, there is nothing to worry, because it is highly likely that such a task is a very important task, because the other person took the trouble to plan it so much in advance and actually take the pains to schedule it with you. And if it is an important task, then even if it was not scheduled with you well in advance, you should be able to make time for it by adjusting your schedule a little because an important task would very well be a task worth giving time to.

And finally, to top it with a cherry: By now you have the cake – the schedule with all your tasks well planned out, and the icing on the cake – a schedule that is almost full from inflow of workload coming from yourself, with minimal workload from others. Now, it’s time to top it all in style. Give it your best shot to complete the tasks before schedule. Try to get ahead of the plan by a day or two, if not more, and try to keep it that way. It brings in an immense sense of accomplishment to be able to complete work before it is due. You may then be able to even push into your schedule some fun things that you have wanted to do, thereby increasing the percentage of inflow of workload from yourself.

I would like to summarize it in the following simple steps.

1. Proactively identify what you are supposed to be getting done. It is better to try and decide for yourself what you need to be doing, than to wait for others to tell you what you ought to be doing.
2. Plan in as much detail as possible, the list of work items that need to be accomplished to get the main job done. Don’t wait to be told what needs to be done when it needs to be done.
3. Chalk out your own schedule based on the work items identified. Doing this puts you in control of the plan, and provides many benefits as mentioned earlier in this article.
4. Pack your schedule as much as possible with the detailed list of work items that you need to do to get the main job done. It is important to say here that even your break times – lunch, evening snack, a quick round of exercise, or whatever else it might be – should all be incorporated into the schedule.
5. Plan as far into the future as it is possible, and try and make the future schedule also as packed as possible. Keep buffer slots for “surprise” activities that may come up at the last minute and may need to be taken up on higher priority. This is needed so that the futuristic plan is not too rigid, and can be tweaked as the days approach nearer.
6. Execute your scheduled plan as quickly and as swiftly as possible. And if you manage to complete all the scheduled tasks for the day, and you know in your heart of heart that that was a significant amount of work, consider giving yourself a bonus break.
7. Push yourself to do the work items before they are due. It is an overwhelming feeling of contentment to be able to lead the way through and through as per your own plan and further be able to complete work items a little before they are actually due, thereby making your work seem totally effortless in the eyes of others.

If you follow these steps based on the detailed explanation given earlier, I am sure you would be able to effectively maximize the inflow of workload from yourself and minimize the inflow of workload coming from others. You would then have mastered one of the most important secrets to success.

Do try this out yourself and let me know how it works for you. I would be most eager to hear from you and may be further enhance this technique based on your feedback. Cheers!