How To Manage 'Millions' of Projects The Working With... Podcast

This week’s question is all about managing multiple projects, a full calendar and incessant daily interruptions so that you stay on top of what’s important.
 
You can subscribe to this podcast on:
Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN
 
Links:
Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin
Why Your System Must Start At An Area of Focus Level
Your Digital Life 3.0 Online
Carl’s Time Sector System Blog Post
The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System
Carl Pullein Learning Centre
Carl’s YouTube Channel
Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes
The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page
 
Script
Episode 151
Hello and welcome to episode 151 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.
Now, this week I have a fantastic question about how to manage essentially a ton of stuff being thrown at you every day as well as making sure multiple projects are moving forward.
Now before I get to the question, just a heads up for those of you who are enrolled in the Time Sector Course. Last week, I added a new lesson on bringing your areas of focus into the daily mix of tasks. In that lesson, I take you through how to create your areas of focus and how they need to be filtering into the Time Sector System. 
Of course, if you are not enrolled in the course, then you can still do so. It’s an amazing course and will transform the way you manage your work by simplifying your structure and making sure that you are focused on what is important today, and not worrying about what’s coming up next week, later this month or next month. After all, what matters is the here and now. As long as you have done your weekly planning session, you should not be needing to worry about next week and beyond. 
Anyway. I hope you do join in the course. Full details are in the show notes.
Okay, it’s time for me now to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast voice, for this week’s question.
This week’s question comes from Heather. Heather asks: Hi Carl, I’ve watched your videos and agree that separating projects from to-dos would simplify my life significantly. However, as a school principal I have a million projects, some new and some repeating quarterly, and a full calendar. How do you advise using a notes app to help prioritise and see next actions that should go into your task manager? 
Hi Heather, thank you for this question. 
Let’s start at the foundations. There is only a certain amount of time each day for us to do our work. We are not able to work 24 hours a day seven days a week. Aside from the need to sleep and eat it is neither sustainable nor healthy. So, what we need to do is to build some structure into our day and really understand what our core work is. 
You see, knowing what work only we can do and what work we can delegate to our team helps with prioritising. If there is some work only you can do, as a principle, then, of course, this is going to be your priority. Nobody else can do it, so if you do not do it, nobody else will. 
This goes for any team leader or manager. If there is work your team can do, then you need to let go of that work and delegate it. This means, of course, you must trust your team. You must also ensure they are shown exactly what you want and that means you will need to allocate some time to train your team. 
Now, I’ve come across a few people who say “yeah yeah I know that, but I just don’t have any time to train my staff”. Sure, it’s a dilemma, isn’t it? But, if you are unable to manage your workload now, what is going to happen in the long-term? Something important is going to get missed, or you’re just going to have a breakdown. Either option is not a good option. 
In this case, what I would do, is schedule a day for training. 
How do you do this? first, decide what work you can and will delegate