I’m overwhelmed by to dos!
I hear it all the time-there’s too much to do and not enough time to do it all.
How many minutes ago did you say that one?
This is especially true when you are managing your own career or running your own business.
When you are overwhelmed by tasks, you are less effective-right? But did you catch the word tasks?
That’s right, most of the time we are overwhelmed by tasks. This could be a clue to how you are prioritizing where you place your attention.
Let’s make a few lists so we can see this right in front of us.
List 1: What things do you do, most days that produce income?
This would include, making booking calls, checking back with past presenters for future gigs and referrals, making deals for recordings, publishing, finding opening act slots, endorsements, sponsorships and recording sessions with other artists, teaching, networking, building relationships, writing, composing, rehearsing or practicing and perhaps most important—strategically planning for your creative and business future. Please add anything to this list that is unique to you.
List 2: What are the things that you do to support your income producing activities?
This would be activities such as maintaining mailings lists, researching new gig opportunities, bookkeeping, marketing and promotions, mailing stuff out like contracts, CDs, merchandise and marketing materials, website creation and maintenance, making travel arrangements, advancing your gigs, maintaining your instruments, gear, touring vehicles and other equipment.
Are you seeing a pattern here? Can some or most of the things on List 2 be handed off to someone else, like someone you hire part-time?
Perhaps when you remove some of these support tasks from the income producing tasks, you create more space for the items on List 1 that, for now, are the things you need to be focusing on.
If you have an agent booking your gigs, then you may be able to remove those items from List 1. If you don’t have an agent, then those items are crucial to your livelihood. Once you remove the support items though, you can concentrate on those items that move your career forward and increase your income.
These two lists can help you reframe your priorities and reorganize your time so that your time is spent doing the most important things to build your career.
It is also much easier to use List 2 to help you create a job description or multiple job descriptions and find some help. This help might be in the form of a person working part time on some of these items and perhaps outsourcing some of the tasks, such as website development and maintenance or mailing list maintenance or start using an online mailing list service if you don’t already.
When there are tools available to automate certain tasks, find them and incorporate them.
Check out some of the Virtual Assistant Websites such as:
freelancer.com
There are many others…
These organizations and websites offer you an opportunity to find people to fill any sort of job or help with specific projects. I used someone that I found through one of these organizations to help me with a few projects and it was a fantastic experience. Those projects are now up and running and the help has been paid for many times over.
By creating these two lists, you can more profoundly visualize the distinct areas of your world that require your attention and those areas that really don’t. The longer you ignore the distinction, the longer you may remain in a state of overwhelm. Remove overwhelm now by acknowledging what you must do and what you ought to allow others to do on your behalf. Take some time this morning and make these two lists. Then this week take the necessary steps to apply the lessons discussed here. Give yourself more time for the things most meaningful to you and let overwhelm be a thing of the past.
Are you feeling overwhelmed by the tasks stealing valuable time from your important income producing to-dos? What steps have you taken to reduce the overwhelm and take charge?
Leave me a comment below.
I can’t wait to hear about your success.
Thanks to Carol Ehrlich for this week’s Graphic Image.
Check out her work at v360.com
Now, Thanks to the Band Curfew from the UK for providing the Biz Booster theme Music, Future Dance.
And for more career boosting tips, articles, books, resources, tele-seminars and online courses, visit me at Performingbiz.com
