Are you CONSTANTLY interrupted by your Employees?
Is there seemingly a line-up at your desk with question are question? Does your email come in QUICKER than you can answer it not to mention phone calls and voicemails.
Is your day CHAOS?
Rather than the UNCONTROLLABLE mess of dealing with it as it occurs, try these few tips to get back some control:
- Set SPECIFIC times of the day to answer questions from your employees. Some maybe daily, some weekly depending on need. Then ONLY allow absolute urgent issues outside these times.
- Check emails and Voicemails 2-3 times per day at SET intervals such as 9am, 1pm, 4pm and respond at those times. Put the times into your voicemail message so as to set the expectation upfront. The key here is to be CONSISTENT and to call back at the next interval as promised.
- BLOCK out time in your diary for work, rather than just using it for meeting reminders. Also allow some buffer time each day to deal with the UNEXPECTED. I also go back through my diary each day and re-adjust the times to the ACTUAL times things occurred rather than the original. That way when I look back on any day in the past I can ACCURATELY say what I did that day at what time.
You should AIM to leave work each day with the feeling you achieved almost everything you wanted to.
