In any given business day, our minds are nothing more than a constant compilation of calendar reminders, emails, phone calls, texts, meetings, tasks, voicemails—and this does not even begin to cover anything that may come up during the day.  With the mental gymnastics that most professionals face each day, how does anything really get accomplished?

king your way through the morning, afternoon and well into the end of the day and not really feeling like you completed much of anything. This is even more so if you work in an environment where you face distractions.  This can range from working in an office filled with “crawlers” (individuals who go from office to office to chat and socialize, eating up valuable work time) to working from home and feeling the need to do housework or take an extended lunch on your couch. Inevitably, your career is simply spent always trying to catch up and keep your head above water.

The real solution behind making a hectic schedule work for you is to stay committed to time-blocking and a strict system of organization.  When you find a system that works, it is imperative that you stick to it and trust that, in the end, you will be a more efficient and effective employee (and a saner and happier one as well). When I say ‘time-blocking’ this means that you need to follow a routine where you designate portions of your work day to focus exclusively on one task and one task only.  For example, check emails only at the beginning, middle and end of the work day, instead of every time an email pops up.  Otherwise, you will find yourself constantly checking emails and feeling compelled to stop what you are doing to answer them.  Another hint is to make yourself ‘busy’ to your employees by shutting your door, holding all calls, and indicating you are unavailable in your messaging system. This way, you will have uninterrupted time to focus on your task at hand and complete what needs to be done.  Lastly, remind yourself that not everything is urgent!  We work in an instant gratification society and tend to expect immediate responses and replies.  Do not fall into that trap.  Set reasonable expectations for yourself and those around you, including your customers, if applicable, and soon you will be working within a manageable schedule.

The more organized and systematic you are in your approach to handling all the variables of the day, the more apt you will be to have some order to your cluttered mind.  It is possible to do it all if you just take the time to place some parameters and protocols before you begin. It’s a diligent process, but it works!