Skip the Office And Hack Your Holiday Season!

The holiday season can get pretty hectic. Your family is demanding your attention, your work is demanding your attention, and your brain is demanding a time-out! It’s very easy to slip into panic mode at this time of year, but with a bit of prioritization you can take control of your to-do list instead of letting it control you.

Decision fatigue is a very real thing and it’s often caused by handling those tedious tasks that take up so much of our time. In order to hack your holiday season, you need to optimize how you manage your workload. What can be automated? What can you delegate? Who’s doing what? What’s the timeframe? And where are you going to find the perfect Christmas tree?

Using Buckets to manage your work means you’re not tied to the office all day, so you can keep everything ticking over when you’re out and about. Once your system is in place, managing your workload will be the least of your worries this Holiday Season.

Create templates for recurring tasks

Any recurring tasks in your workflow should be automated by creating a template for each Buckets Card. For example, if you’re running a design agency you could put a template in place for each new client with fields for all of the info required to complete the requested design work. This means that when a new gig comes in, you can simply assign it to the relevant team member (or leave it up for grabs), set a due date, and rest assured that it will be completed on time.

If you have a small team, Buckets Labels can be used to identify which team member is working on which assignment with a quick glance at your Project or by using the Filter. Alternatively, Labels can also be used to group clients according to industry or priority — the options for Labeling are endless depending on what works best for you.

Adding a Checklist for each step of the process will help to ensure that nothing gets missed. Each item on the Checklist can be assigned an individual due date and Label. The comments space under each Checklist item is also a great area for brainstorming ideas with other team members!

Once you’ve set up a template Card, you can store it within the Project you’re working in or in a separate “Admin” Project. Whatever works best for you. Personally, I think it’s handy to create a Column in each Project to store all of your Card templates, so that they can be duplicated and used as needed.

Let’s look at a different example

In a similar fashion, you can set up templates for frequent customer support queries so that all of your staff are equipped to respond if needed. Usually, these templates will be set up in the support system you use or in your email account. However, by setting up a Buckets Project with FAQs and canned responses, you can rest easy knowing that everyone on your team is prepared to deal with any customer concerns.

It’s also a good idea to add a column for team members to answer any new FAQs that haven’t been addressed. Once a new FAQ request is added, it can be drag-dropped back over to the FAQ column once an answer has been provided in the Card. Finally, a third column can be created to deal with any issues that need to be escalated to another team such as development. When a Card needs further investigation/follow up, add the relevant team member and/or move the Card to a new Project to be addressed.

Make A List, But Don’t Check It Twice

The great thing about using a task management system is that everyone on your team becomes a project manager by default. This gives each team member a greater sense of responsibility but it equally makes your work easier to manage. Once you’ve delegated a task to a team member, it’s up to them to take it over the finish line.

Your job is to make sure that each task you assign contains every single piece of information required in order to complete it. Once you make that list, you shouldn’t have to check it twice. And if you do, it’s because you didn’t give the right information in the first place. If your team members have to email or call you to check what they have to do, something is wrong with how you’re assigning the work or the person simply isn’t equipped to complete the task. In either case, it’s time to reassess.

When you have the right systems in place, you can focus on having fun instead of stressing about what needs to be done. I really hope this post has helped you to optimize your workload this Holiday Season, so that you can spend some quality time with your family and friends instead!

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