How to Cope When You’re Overworked and Overwhelmed

It’s Friday and you don’t know where the week went with piles of “To Dos” left on the list. Ever feel like you’re working as fast as you can but not accomplishing what you meant to? You’re not alone—by along shot! In his classic bestseller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey identifies rule number 1 for coping when you’re overwhelmed. Put first things first.
 

When you start feeling overwhelmed is exactly the time to ask yourself if you are letting the “urgent” but less important stuff crowd out the really important activities that can really make an impact.
 

Analyzing and optimizing your business systems and standardizing operations is one of those important and high impact tasks that perpetually get crowded out by all the “fire-fighting,” and urgent less important activities.

Fridays are great days to pause and consider your personal “systems.” Are they supporting your highest priorities? Remember to put first things first today.

Take 10 minutes right now to see where you could streamline business processes in your organization and identify one action step you can take to making next week more productive.