It’s lunchtime on Monday and a client emails asking for a call before the end of the week.
You open up your calendar and are hit by a jenga-like wall of stacked appointment squares and rectangles. You feel your heart rate increase and can practically see the calendar sway as you contemplate adding one more item to your schedule.
Catch your breath. You’re not alone.
Schedule and capacity management is something every business owner I know struggles with.
There’s lots of time management tools out there but if you wanna feel better about your schedule and workload you need to start doing two-week lookaheads.
Yes, you need to look at your calendar more, not less.
Lookaheads are a common project management strategy designed to make sure the team is able to anticipate problems and plan accordingly to stay on schedule.
For business owners and leaders it functions much the same way with some added bonuses.
Lookaheads let you
- Build in time to do the work a deliverable requires. It's not enough to have the deadline on your calendar. You need to block off the time to do the work, too. Do it as soon as you possibly can and don’t sacrifice it for others.
- Anticipate crunch times and strategize how to handle them. I can handle a few long days or weeks when I know they're coming and when they will end. With planning, I can build in breaks, do things like make sure I have meals on hand, free up my evenings to rest, and pace myself.
- Stay on top of assessing your capacity to take on more work. Whether you're adding things to your plate or someone else's managing capacity is fluid. The more lead time you have the better you can manage resources and expectations. It also allows you to say ‘yes but’ or ‘not now’ instead of ‘no’.
- Avoid overcommiting. I have a client who knows how many jobs he can start and close at the same time. Lookaheads help him stagger start dates, make sure he thoroughly plans and executes closeouts, and resists the temptation to say yes to timelines that don't make sense. If you need 5 business days to submit a proposal, 72 hours to approve things for your team, or several days to follow-up on an open issue, communicate that and manage internal and external expectations.
- Pull in assistance. When I have to be on-site with a client for a day or have focused work I need to do without interruption, it's time to call in the dog sitter so I don't have to worry about our new puppy. Outsource the things you can to create the time and preserve your energy.
- Minimize switching costs. You're not a machine. But if you were, you would need time to switch from one job to another (clean up, set up, maintenance, testing, etc.) Switching between tasks in a given day or week also requires you to build in time to mentally and physically change gears. The more you switch between projects and clients the greater the strain on your energy, decision making ability, patience, and stamina. So design your days and weeks to reduce that stress.
- Head problems off at the pass. Some activities may be contingent on others. When you take a longer view you can see where problems might occur and, ideally, get ahead of them.
If you’re ready to add coaching to your regular schedule, let’s talk.
