Your week is done. You have been in meetings all week. No deliverables are done. You have not gone through any of your emails. You look at weekend days and you try to ‘catch up’. There is no catching up.
The reality is that if you continue to believe that you can catch up you will de-motivate yourself. The reality is that you need to believe in your system. You will see more results by committing to your system than to continue to try to answer emails. Instead of catching up, the point is pushing through. The realizaiton that there are no people that can go back to catch those things. You have to realize a couple of things:
If you are scheduling your own meetings, take accountability for the way you schedule or learn a new meeting discipline
If you are not scheduling your own meetings and feel you have agency, realize that you are applying your time correctly; give yourself that grace.
If you took time off, you deserved the time off
If you had to travel for business that was the priority
If you had some super huge project, that there is only so much you can do at one point in spacetime
Information has evolved. There are some things that were super hot that fixed themselves, there are items that were low level that festered. You have to reassess what the situation is.
think of a mantra when you get to this point. I go with “nothing I can do about my week, moving on.” It is not perfect but it go with it because it sounds like me. And if I am heard by my people they get what I am saying. They hear grace that I cam giving to myself. A bit of verbal leadership.
Pushing through is the only option.
My quick fixes have caveats as all quick fixes should. If you are coming to this without a system, then I have hope for you but this post aint it. You need to have a system to prioritize you tasks.
You need this mindset; not every email, task, phone call, or other needs you to respond. They just don’t. That is the hardest part. The anxiety is already building, I know. But if you don’t get this down, then you can push through but you will still wake up after you push through in the middle of the night sweating. Sorry; its on you.
If your boss is an asshole, not much I can do about this with advice. My assumption is that you are in a ‘healthy’ job or at least you understand that there should be a worlk life balance. I have no real standing to talk about work life balance but that is my journey.
My pushing through process:
Again, your mindset needs to be on valueing your time. Every minute of every day should be focused on getting to a point where you feel that you have a command of the here and now so you can be present for your team members.
Check your calendar for new meetings for things that you were not aware of. Look for emails or talk with the responsible people. A stand up meeting with your reports or peer meeting with collegues is clutch here. Don’t just go by rumor.
This is when you cancel and delegate meetings or find a person that can brief you afterwards.
Check your voice mail; people in a panic call, don’t ask me why. But most cluster Fs end up with the statement “ I called you, I texted, I emailed!” So there is some type of perceived hierarchy. Call them back. Text them back, then email. I dunno why this works but it does.
Your first day back, or if you so choose, the weekend, don’t plan to get any real stuff done. You need to re-charge and doing a task will just pro-long the week in your brain. You allow yourself a few hours to “Push Through”.
The first part is knowing how big the iceberg is. Go through your emails in the following way in triage:
Get rid of the stuff that you know for certain are just informational. If you need to take notes on a task or follow up enter that into your system
Note the big players, by seeing how many emails you got from your leaders and stakeholders. This is where I want you to put a pin in it. Hold off on responding. You can read but first, talk with people before you respond. More on that shortly.
Look at how the evolvement of projects and problems happened. A few takeaways are to note who you should have verbal conversations with to console, congratulate, or problem solve with people. This is where you find coaching opportunities if you could help your people navagate through a problem sooner. If you prioritize your people as soon as you come back, it will mean so very much to them.
Let the small stuff go. But if you must, instead of asking yourself for an update to the meeting via email. Check the meeting minutes. If that made you laugh because there are no minutes, ask someone who went that you trust for a download. The email should be “How did _________ go?”. If it was a cluster they will come and tell you. If it was nothing, they will tell you it was fine and that X came out of Y.
Get context or as I like to say, READ THE ROOM. What happened on the site/office? Where are people’s attitudes and what needs attention. Your prioritization may not be what the team needs. Sometimes that is okay but that is why you are in the seat that you are in.
Prioritize: Look at the big player communications; respond back with what you know so they don’t waste time trying to persuade you (if you are in a leadership role), make sure your chain of command, peers, and your reports are aware and escalate accordingly so your management knows you are aware/engaged when you were back. Show that you are attacking the right things the right way with discipline and facts.
It is perfectly acceptable to call them to assuage fears and that you are working on it but give them a date/time on the response
Have a communication plan with key points so the message is consistent (write these points down")
Evolve the data as needed. If you look at the issue and it is a non-issue, get it out as soon as practical so no more bandwidth is wasted on your part or their part.
If the data shows it is a bigger issue, get ready to SCRUM the issue. SCHEDULE THE WEEK ACCORDINGLY.
The emails that need a response get a quick “Understood, I can get X to you on this date”
The emails that need a clarificaiton need a response with the key information you need to get the deliverable completed. You can give them a preliminary date otherwise if they cannot get that information to you that you would have to figure out on your own.
The emails that need a “heard” response go out but time them to go outside of work hours so that you do not create a tsunami of “Oh [you] are back and answering emails, let’s bring them in on this.” Don’t shoot yourself in the foot.
There are just some emails that need to go to the electronic version of the Marianas' trench to be eaten by whatever lives in that digital hellscape. LET THEM FLOAT
Now put your deliverables into your work system, task manager, or even your physical binder. Then start working a now scoped problem.
Good luck.