What do you do if you're overwhelmed with multiple deadlines and projects?

Stop what you're doing and reasses. Get really clear on the scope of projects, your available time, deadlines, and staff availability. To clear your head, consider a walk in nature or meditation. Evaluate and arrange tasks based on deadlines timeline. Delegate when possible and hire temp staff to help you with the least important tasks.

What I have done with my clients who are in this situation is to stop and do an in-depth review of each project. We assign a time to each project. We then look at the calendar to see where and when we can designate the time to work on the projects. This will involve declining meetings and moving other items around as necessary. What I find is that once we do this and have a plan, the client feels a little bit better and more in control. Sometimes, we inflate the number of hours it takes to complete a project (I do all the time). I also recommend talking to your manager, showing how much time everything will take, and asking for help moving projects or prioritizing.

Having been in this boat many, many times over the years, often just having a "secret sentence" - a "true north" for you and you alone - can help. For me, it's always been "you've been here before and you'll be here again and the work ALWAYS gets done. You ALWAYS find a way". Of course, it helps if that is actually true, which fortunately has been the case for me...probably thanks in no small part to my embracing that attitude. Ultimately, it often comes down to perception vs. reality, and perception can really do a number on people, often at the expense of reality. You'll make yourself crazy if you let it get the best of you, especially since you are likely to be in that boat again down the road...er, stream!

This is the question of Quality over Quantity. Don't be too greedy, and only take so much work that you can handle. By telling your clients "We are very sorry, we cannot take more work until D/M/Y as we do not want to compromise the quality", may make you lose the project but not the client, which is more important than the project itself.

Sometimes our lists get too long with projects and deadlines that we give equal weight and importance to. When you feel overwhelmed it's important to step back and remember why each project is on the to do list, if that why is still currently relevant, if it is as impactful or needle moving as other items on the list and which things simply can be removed. It can feel hard to take things off of the list with the goal of not doing it at all, but if we really take the time to assess and evaluate against broader goals, there are always at least a few things we can let go of.

Allocate specific time blocks in your calendar for each task, negotiating deadlines if possible and utilizing productivity techniques to enhance focus. Prioritize tasks based on their impact on your goals and consider delegation or outsourcing where feasible. Stay organized, practicing self-care to maintain productivity and manage stress. Regularly review and adjust your plan as needed to stay on track. By following these steps, you can navigate through overwhelming workloads more effectively.

Establish which deadlines are time critical or have a consequence to non-completion (i.e., a court imposed sanction) and prioritise those first. Do the most difficult of those tasks first, rather than completing smaller easier tasks as all that achieves is giving you an endorphin hit and still leaves the really important tasks still to do. Ask for help. Never underestimate how important just asking for help can be. When you feel overwhelm, asking for help can be difficult I know, but in my experience sharing your burden with others lightens the load. If you are lucky enough to be able to delegate some work, then do so. Speak to you manager and explain the situation to them clearly and show them all of the work you have.

There are numerous techniques to manage and prioritise tasks. Different personalities will prefer different methods. So don't be afraid to experiment practice and see what works for you. The Eisenhower Matrix is very good at helping you see whether tasks are important or not important. You may find that much of your time is kept busy with tasks that don't lend themselves to taking you towards your goals and they can be dropped. Time block 20 to 30 min blocks focusing on one task without distractions is going to get you further than trying to multitask and juggling numerous activities. Breaking down a large project into small manageable steps with milestones and deadlines will help manage with overwhelm. Negotiate a new deadline if needed

Stop and reflect on that is really important. I suggest using Eisenhower matrix to see how you can optimimze various tasks. Eisenhower matrix is a simple decision-making tool that helps you make the distinction between tasks that are important, not important, urgent, and not urgent. Based on those, you should decide, which tasks need to be scheduled, done asap, delegates and dropped. This tool is extremely powerful and will support your project management by helping you focus on crucial tasks.

When you delegate a task, you want to ensure that it is assigned effectively, carried out efficiently and achieves the desired results. You also want to enable the delegate to work efficiently, confidently and with a clear understanding of their role in achieving the required outcome. A key factor in this is the need to clearly define levels of authority, specifying the boundaries within which the delegate can make decisions autonomously and when they should escalate decisions to you or senior management. This involves providing them with guidelines and metrics to help them make informed decisions, and giving them all the information they need to do their job.

When you're under multiple tight deadlines it can be easy to just focus on the job and drop other things like exercise, gym and eating more convinent take outs that are likely to not be as healthy and nourishing. We've all cancelled a gym session or class due to work when under pressure to deliver. If we manage to keep up daily health habits or adapt them to be more suitable when busier then you're going to be in a much better state to deal with busier times. Making your health and wellbeing the number one priority is a must because if you get ill or worse, you can be replaced. The work never stops so make it work for you and your career wellbeing.

I am a huge advocate for the power of reflection in helping us learn from our experiences. A super quick reflective model I use, is called Bortons framework as is provides a really quick at easy model that can be applied to all experiences. Ask yourself three questions. What happened ? (the experience) - describe this factually. So what (how you felt) - describe this using feelings. Now what (what will you do now) - set some goals to help yourself learn from the experience and prevent it happening again. There are plenty of other good reflective models out there, but I love the accessibility of the one above. The key to reflection is to move beyond being descriptive and explore behaviour change.