69: How to Get It All Done, Even in the Midst of Chaos

Coaching for Leaders

Dave Stachowiak

Management, Careers, Business

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 December 2012

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

All of us are trying to be effective while handling some level of chaos, yet some are more efficient in getting it all done than others. Dave responds to a listener question and gives suggestions for how to get it all done when the reason you aren’t getting it done is because you have too much on your plate.

1) Figure out what you need to do exclusively, that no one else can do

Look at the last really full week you had…
What could you teach someone else to do?
Are you believing the fallacy that no one else could do as good a job as you on all your tasks?

2) Have defined outcomes for a specific timeframe

Contract with your manager on what outcomes are most important
Remember that you can’t hit a target that you don’t have
Keep these priorities simple and easily trackable. The SMART framework can be helpful (see episode #15)

3) Do quality work (be careful about just focusing on speed)

Figure out what performance metrics are important to your organization
Meet or exceed those metrics
If you don’t have clarity, try to find out how your leaders are measured

4) Come to the table with solutions

Present challenges with the scope of work and give realistic projections backed up with evidence
Allow your leader to participate in the decision you’ve made on priorities
What not to say? My team has too much work and is overwhelmed (that’s not taking ownership)

5) Learn how to say no

You can’t be everything to everybody
Set boundaries in advance and trust your gut reactions

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to coaching for leaders. This is episode number 69.
0:04.3	This week's topic, How to Get It All Done, even in the midst of chaos.
0:10.0	Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.
0:15.0	Greetings from the Innovate Learning Studio in Laderra Ranch, California.
0:24.3	This is coaching for leaders, and I'm your host Dave Stahoviac.
0:29.2	This is a weekly show for leaders who want to improve themselves to better engage and develop others.
0:36.0	This week's topic is how to get it all done even in the midst of chaos. Well, welcome back for another episode of Coaching for Leaders. It is the holiday season and the topic today might seem a bit odd going into the last few weeks of the year here and the
0:56.1	holidays and time off and vacation for many people in our listening community and yet how to get it all done even in the midst of
1:06.6	chaos is a topic that is going to rear its head again coming up here in the next couple of weeks or days depending on
1:15.6	when you're listening to this because it is the time of year that many of us
1:21.0	start to sit down at some point in the next week or coming days and think
1:26.1	about what is important to us in the next year.
1:31.8	What goals are we going to set, Whether we're going to write them down or
1:35.3	whether we're going to at least do some thinking about them or maybe even do the
1:40.7	New Year's resolutions as some people call them.
1:43.2	But whatever it is that each of us does
1:46.1	to prepare for a new year at a very natural transition point,
1:50.5	one of the challenges that I constantly hear from my clients, from people that I am related to and my family is how do we get it all done in the midst of so much going on around all of us?
2:06.0	And this is something that all of us struggle with.
2:09.0	And in fact, I received an email from a listener a couple, a month or two ago and I haven't had a chance to
2:16.7	really focus an episode on this yet but I wanted to address this today and the listeners names Jennifer who had written me and said my personal struggle
2:25.6	is being held accountable for things being completed when the reason that they
	...

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