Buried Alive And digging your way out

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Buried Alive!!And digging your way out

• Paul Goldberg, Principal, Paul Goldberg
  Associates, LLC
• Denise Morris-Kipnis, Principal, ChangeFlow
  Consulting

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Agenda

• Session Objectives
• Brainstorm reasons for feeling buried
• Implications of feeling buried
• Strategies for digging your way out
• QA

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Session Objectives

• For you to
• Recognize that you are not alone in often times
  feeling overwhelmed
• Learn about approaches to address issues that
  result in feeling overwhelmed
• Feel more comfortable in proactively working to
  get things under control

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What makes you feel buried??

• Internal to your organization
• External to your organization
• Personally

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Likely Reasons to Feel Buried

• Internal organizational issues
• Development (fund raising)
• Budget
• Staff management
• Working with the Board
• Managing daily activities
• Short and long term strategies
• Volume of work
• Lack of clear direction
• Trying to do too much
• Resource availability

• External/environmental l issues
• Demand for services
• Laws/regulations
• Economy
• Audits
• Personal Issues
• Difficulty making decisions
• Work-Life Balance

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Implications of Feeling Buried

• Organizational effectiveness
• Staff morale
• Stress levels

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Strategies to Dig Your Way Out

• Recognize you cant do it all
• You cant control everything
• Planning time is time well spent
• The perils of multi-tasking
• Less is more
• Just Say No
• Take care of yourself

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You Cant Control Everything

• Dont even try!
• Separate what you can and cannot control
• Focus on what you can control
• Keep an eye on what you cant control

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Planning Time is Time Well Spent

• Take the time to plan
• Upfront investment to reduce rework and missing
  steps
• You can still have flexibility within a structure
• Develop work plans, timelines, priorities,
  resource plans, etc.
• Follow the plan (trust the plan!)

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The Perils of Multi-Tasking

• Our brains just dont work that way
• This is working hard, but not smart
• Very inefficient, unless tasks are truly mindless
• Results in rework
• Puts others off

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Less is More

• Getting one thing done is better than working on
  ten and finishing none
• Most of us have dozens of things to accomplish
• You make some progress on all and finish few
• Quality vs quantity
• Most satisfying to get actually complete things
• Being busy vs being productive

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Just Say No

• Not everything is of equal importance
• Concentrate on what you are saying yes to
• Provides clarity to yourself and others
• Saying no is empowering

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Take Care of Yourself

• Be yourself - you are you all day long!
• Myth of being different at work and home
• Home and work life intermingle recognize it to
  be present at work
• Take time away from work

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What Will You Do Differently?

• Make a commitment to yourself
• Write it down
• Check up on it every day

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• QA
• and
• Discussion