As business owners and solopreneurs, working in a fast-paced environment and juggling multiple priorities is part of our everyday life. But to avoid burnout, we must know how to efficiently handle our work.
In this article, we’ll give you some useful tips on managing your workload better, especially when you have several tasks on your plate.
How to manage multiple projects
In project management, it’s crucial to understand the workflow and how the smaller tasks help accomplish the big ones. Here’s how to do this without overwhelming yourself.
- Set goals: Have a vision for your project. It doesn’t have to be perfect; you’ll likely adjust your process as more information becomes available. But having a well-defined goal and a deadline will be a great starting point.
- Have a plan: Break down your goals into action steps. Set milestones and create a rough project schedule. Prioritize tasks that make the biggest impact for maximum efficiency.
- Select your tools: Personalize this step for yourself and your team members. Project management software, apps, spreadsheets, calendars, and tools that help you manage your time — use whatever means necessary for tracking multiple projects.
Ensure that all team members have the know-how to utilize these resources fully. - Start delegating: No matter how well we multitask, everyone has limited work hours. This is where teamwork and delegation of tasks become essential. Understand your project’s scope and keep a tab on progress, but don’t expect to be personally involved in every task. Delegate work based on competencies and skill set. Conduct regular check-ins with employees and teams to monitor project progress and ensure deliverables are submitted on time.
- Document your process: Record every project's main learnings, setbacks, obstacles, and accomplishments weekly. This creates a real-time log of the multi-project management process that you can refine.
Keep these details centralized for easy access. You may also want to give your project team access to the document to participate in the project management methodology and the improvement process. - Calibrate your week: Plan and streamline your task list for the following week using the process log. Address problems with resource allocation, task management, and team collaboration to iterate and refine the process for the future.
If a new idea doesn’t work, don’t fret — simply move on and try a different approach. If you’re out of ideas, asking your employees what changes they’d like to see can be helpful.
Tips to better manage your tasks
When handling multiple projects, having the right management skills can make or break the process. It’s daunting to know that we’re responsible for our employees’ successes, so use these four tips to simplify the responsibilities:
1. Plan your days
An effective way to allocate time for multiple projects is by time blocking. First, determine what needs to be done. Then, split the calendar into blocks of time for each task by day or week. This allows us to give ourselves firm deadlines for different projects and do focused work on each task without getting sidetracked by phone calls or emails.
Factor in short breaks, lunchtime, and other administrative or personal tasks.
2. Prioritize tasks
In a fast-paced environment, it can sometimes seem like there’s no end to the tasks that need to be completed. But not all tasks are equally important. Prioritize tasks with higher impact, urgent deadlines, or ones that can’t be delegated.
Resource management is a crucial leadership skill. Remember that time is our most precious resource.
3. Centralize the process
Visual overwhelm is a significant source of stress. Solve this problem by using a single platform to visualize project progress and use whatever software tools and integrations are necessary to keep all the projects on the same page.
Keeping an organized workspace will reduce usability barriers and distractions. This also has the added benefit of reducing miscommunications.
4. Have regular meetings
The goal here is to keep up with the progress of each project by scheduling regular, frequent touchpoints with employees. But ensure that these meetings are productive for everyone. Don’t waste people’s time.
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Tools for managing multiple projects
In addition to these management tips, use whatever tools available to make your work more efficient. Here are three ways to handle multiple projects effectively:
- Project management tools: Find applications to help you with data management and scheduling. For example, many workflow tools provide a general project overview on their dashboards and let us plan and manage individual tasks.
- Public schedules: These can be in online or hard copy format. Ensure that all your employees have access to project schedules so that the whole team works in sync. When everyone works from the same schedule, miscommunications rarely happen.
- Pen and paper tools: Charts, graphs, notepads, and adhesive notes are best used as reminders and to organize day-to-day tasks. While these tools are the simplest to use, they’re also easy to lose track of and can easily cause clutter.
Common pitfalls to avoid
We’ve talked about how to manage a project efficiently and how to work with conflicting priorities. Now, let’s get to the mistakes to avoid:
- Miscommunication: When one works cross-functionally, skilled communication becomes crucial. Ensure that employees have the tools necessary to contact each other and be consistent with messaging. For essential updates, loop in all team members and check in during meetings to ensure that the message has been received and understood.
- Micromanagement: Have faith in your employees and in their abilities. Resist the urge to micromanage. Meetings and check-ins can be time-consuming, so ensure that employees have ample time to complete their work outside of these obligations.
- Unclear responsibilities: When employees are not sure of their responsibilities, they spend more time than necessary on certain tasks. That’s why it’s essential to clearly define a task's scope and ensure there are no overlaps.
- Multitasking: Having multiple projects doesn’t mean they all have to progress at the same pace. Don’t try to do two things at once. Multitasking diverts our attention and makes us prone to mistakes. Switching back and forth between tasks makes us inefficient. Do things one at a time.
Finally, remember that not everything will go as planned when working on multiple projects. We should take failure in our stride and learn from our mistakes.
Take advantage of every tool and resource within your reach to get the job done efficiently. If it makes your life easier, it helps you do your job well. Try Practice’s all-in-one client management system to streamline your process today.
