5 Ways SkedPal Can Help You Reduce Stress

Many people operate in environments where they are subject to a number of unexpected and urgent tasks, meetings and commitment. What’s the best way to respond using the powerful capabilities built into the app?

Often, when planning our days, we plan for an interruption-free day that rarely materializes. To solve this problem, you need to account for your “true time demands”. Your true time demands are defined as the ones you already know you have PLUS the space for potential new ones.

You probably have two types of these potential time demands: the predictable, and the unpredictable. The predictable ones can be forecasted. For example, you know when a rainy season is likely to disrupt your schedule. In much the same way, a major project delivery date, a VIP visit to your office, or an upcoming meeting that usually overruns by 2 hours are all examples of interruptions that are likely to create predictable time demands. They happen every day, so they aren’t complete surprises.

Here are ways to reduce your stress by predicting the rainy days at work.

1. If you’re predicting a “rainy day” in your week, add a buffer task for that day. So, let’s say you have already captured both your fixed and flexible tasks. But, you know that you will most likely be interrupted next Monday. You don’t exactly know what the interruptions are going to be, but you do want to budget an estimate. So, add a task with due date of Monday (and start date of Monday) with title ‘Buffer’. Select the Time Map and Duration based on your estimates for that day. Use a ‘Must-Do’ priority so the buffer task doesn’t get postponed. On Monday, you’ll be very pleased you did this! When you’re not exactly sure what day is the rainy day, set a time frame (a week, or a few days) for your buffer task. This can be done by setting the start date, and due date of the buffer task. This buffer task keeps floating like a bubble in your schedule until you decide you no longer need it; i.e. either the interruption never happened, or if you’re beyond that.
2. Be realistic when estimating the amount of time a task will take. Another example of potential time demands are unrealistic estimates we have for getting a job done. Sometimes you know in advance that you’ve never been able to get this recurring task done in 30 minutes. It always takes longer. Yet, you tend to give an estimated duration of 30 minutes in your schedule. This is known as planning fallacy, “a phenomenon in which predictions about how much time will be needed to complete a future task display an optimism bias (underestimate the time needed).” If you aren’t sure, take your best guess and add some extra time as a “fudge factor.” It’s better to have a generous fudge factor than a moderate one. Remember our tendency to be over-optimistic — it’s the planning fallacy, a trap we all fall into.
3. Manage expectations pro-actively. The second type of tasks/events that are not accounted for in our plans are unpredictable time demands. There is no way to forecast them, and they’re more difficult to manage. They’re the storms or the flash floods of your work. You know they come, but you just don’t know when and how much time you need for them. For example, your laptop crashes, and you lose several hours trying to recover it; Your client makes a decision who they’re going to hire in 36 hours, and want your proposal by mid-day today; you know (perhaps all too well) how hectic it gets in these situations. The best way to deal with this dilemma is to pro-actively re-plan the rest of your day/week. If you know you’re tied up with an urgent task for the next 4 hours, and you’re worried about your commitments, and due dates, the first step is to find out exactly what is going to be impacted. That’s very easy to do with SkedPal: First, block out your next 4 hours on your SkedPal calendar. You can click on the calendar (future time) and drag the mouse. Then, re-schedule and see the messages for the impacted tasks. Once you know what the impact is, communicate any potential changes to your stake holders.
4. Keep Your Mind Clear by Capturing Every Task. Always clear you mind of every ad hoc task you need to get done by capturing them in SkedPal. Capture them as they come to your mind. Don’t leave out anything, no matter how small it is. This will not only clear your mind, but it also helps you have more realistic plans. The small chores here and there sometimes add up to significant sums. If you only capture some of the tasks you need to get done, your schedule is half baked. There is a caveat here for new users, though.
5. Don’t let your calendar heat up. If your calendar heat map shows a heated schedule for most of the week, chances are that you do not have a realistic plan. If you have a lot of Must-Do tasks, and a heated schedule, you might want to re-negotiate the due dates with your stake holders. And, if your due dates are self-imposed, always use the Should-Do priority instead, so that SkedPal can give you some relief, resulting in a more realistic plan. Below is a description of color codes (heat map) for your scheduled tasks:

Heat Map Color Codes

This task is fully scheduled and there is sufficient slack to re-schedule it in case you can’t complete it at the scheduled time.

This task is fully scheduled, but beware that you don’t have much room to postpone it.

This task is fully scheduled, but is at risk because there is very little slack to re-schedule it if you can’t complete it on time.

Summary

Think of SkedPal as a friend who can help you manage your day with ease. All you need to do is bring your everyday life with all its challenges and interruptions to the app. Learning to interact with and use SkedPal in these five ways will help solve these problems with just the click of a button, ensuring you keep your valuable peace of mind.