The blog

Are you feel­ing the accel­er­a­tion now as well? Sum­mer is draw­ing near and we are rapid­ly approach­ing vacation.

A client I spoke to the oth­er day said that ​”it is as if there are not enough days until I go on vaca­tion”. Many of us are in the most intense time of spring right now and need to com­plete and round off a lot before leav­ing work for the sum­mer vacation.

Few peo­ple have the entire sum­mer off, but for most peo­ple the sum­mer-months do have a calmer tem­po. If we are work­ing, then per­haps our client is away from work. There is always at least one par­tic­i­pant in the project who is off on vaca­tion. Things do not pick up full speed again until in the sec­ond half of August.

If you are run­ning a restau­rant by the sea or work in a busi­ness which has its most intense peri­od dur­ing the sum­mer-sea­son, then the calmer tem­po will come some time dur­ing the fall.

Thin out your list

I am guess­ing that you have a rather hefty to-do-list at the moment. It would prob­a­bly be reliev­ing to thin it out some­what and get rid of a few tasks. If so, then do.

You know that things will sim­mer down in a cou­ple of months when there are only half as many peo­ple in the office. There­fore post­pone any­thing that does not need to be com­plet­ed before Mid­sum­mer for the calmer peri­od after when you have more time and breathing-space.

More focused

You will then be left undis­turbed more and will be able to work with these not so urgent things since few­er peo­ple are at the office and in need of you assis­tance and atten­tion. You will not have to feel bad about not com­plet­ing cer­tain tasks dur­ing this more intense peri­od since you have planned to do them lat­er on when con­di­tions are more favorable.

Do this

1. Look through your entire to-do-list and mark the tasks which you would prefer­ably do dur­ing the calmer peri­od to come. These tasks are gen­er­al­ly one of two types:
   • tasks you need peace and qui­et to do
   • tasks which would feel won­der­ful to already have com­plet­ed by the time fall rolls around
2. Now cat­e­go­rize these tasks in such a way so that you find them with­out effort lat­er on. I sug­gest you cat­e­go­rize as or tag them with for instance ​”Sum­mer-To-Do”. If you have your to-do-list on paper, then des­ig­nate a page at the back of your notepad where you col­lect and make note of the sum­mer-tasks, hence mak­ing them eas­i­ly avail­able when the time for doing them comes.
3. Take out you cal­en­dar and sched­ule a thir­ty minute meet­ing with your­self on the day when the calmer peri­od most like­ly begins, and name it some­thing like ​”Plan sum­mer tasks”. This is when you will take out your sum­mer-do-do-tasks and por­tion them out through­out the lull. If you want to be cer­tain that you have time to do them, then sched­ule a few hours of meet­ing-time with your­self every week. If that seems a bit too ambi­tious, then set a few appro­pri­ate dead­lines (if it is impor­tant that the tasks are com­plet­ed before the fall).

Eas­i­er workload

If you post­pone tasks now for the calmer peri­od dur­ing the sum­mer-weeks, you can allow your­self to focus with greater zest and enthu­si­asm on the tasks which are more pri­or­i­tized at the moment since you no longer have to feel weighed down by things you do not have time to do now any­way (and which might not be very urgent). You sched­ule the doing of these tasks for a more con­ve­nient and appro­pri­ate time when they will get done much eas­i­er and faster, which in itself is a kind of improve­ment in efficiency.

What is your way?

How do you make the most of the calmer sum­mer-months in a smart and effi­cient way? Tell me.