Crunch time
When you have to do everything right now
The thing about time management is that we don’t always feel like we’re successful at it. Of course, we can imagine ideal work days in which we make sure and steady progress on all of our important projects, stay on top of our email, and also knock out some necessary administrative work—while we also (depending on our preferences) have an enjoyable lunch with a colleague or take time for meditation and the gym.
It sounds very nice. But definitely, for most of us, workdays do not always unfold so blissfully. Instead, we’re racing from one thing to another, trying to squeeze in time for our most important and impactful work, while also handling assorted urgent tasks that get sent our way. And maybe we get a call that our kid is sick, or we have to run home to meet the plumber, or our own medical situation arises.
And then, with so much stuff to do and so little time, we find ourselves in a time crunch.
This was me last week. Some work things came up that I wasn’t expecting, plus I had a deadline on a big project that I was behind on, and I found myself in a rushing to fit in even a baseline of non-negotiable tasks. I had to stay up late one night to prepare my teaching for the next day (and then taught the classes in a state of sluggish exhaustion). (This from a person who generally goes to bed soon after her kids do.) I pushed the big project through to meet the deadline without quite the attention to detail it required. I got other necessary tasks checked off. I also skipped some things. And all the while I felt myself trapped in intense, stressed-out, get it done mode.
Operating in a mode of stress and anxiousness over not having enough time is miserable. Let’s first acknowledge how hard things can get sometimes when work and life come together in overwhelming ways. I don’t see many productivity authors acknowledging this or offering ideas for it.
And let’s also acknowledge that there are structural and systemic reasons why these situations happen—including a tendency to overload employees in today’s squeezed economy, employer inflexibility around life situations that need attention during the workday, and a society that doesn’t do enough to ease the burdens of childcare, eldercare, and care for persons with disabilities.
It is not our fault when we as individuals experience the repercussions of these systemic issues. Better planning and working consistently might help mitigate having so much to do at the last minute, but also they might not.
So, let’s proceed on the assumption that for most of us, some amount of crunch time is an inevitability. What can you do when it happens?
First off, try to relieve the stress. Maybe you have a hard few days ahead, but at 6:00pm you’re sitting down to dinner with your family as usual. Can you put the stress on hold until you have time to work again? Giving your body some reprieve from anxiously watching the clock can help you rest and refresh, at least a tiny bit, while constant anxiety could intensify into something that prevents you from functioning at all. If you’re doing a non-work thing that you can’t get out of, there is no point to worrying about work while you’re doing it.
Give yourself even just five minutes of “time affluence.” In other words, create the perception of being relaxed with time by doing a tiny bit of pleasure reading or chatting with a friend in the hallway—something chill to counter your sense of time scarcity.
Ruthlessly prioritize. If you only have an hour to complete a task that normally takes you three hours, zero in on the aspects that will have the highest impact for the colleagues or clients receiving the task’s output. I normally teach from fairly detailed powerpoints, but this week I kept them very bare bones out of necessity. And it was fine.
Put off non-urgent tasks. Many emails can wait a few days. Something you’ve been putting off for a few weeks can probably wait a few more days, as well. We can’t let the seeming urgency of incoming notifications derail us when we’re crunched. If there were ever a time to try to fully focus, this is it.
Here’s the thing: you will get through crunch times. They will pass. When time is tight, aim to work efficiently without compromising your well-being too much. Know that crunch times aren’t your fault. We can stand up to the systemic problems they represent by doing our best but doing only as much as our minds and bodies can handle.
Perhaps this conclusion is idealistic, but perhaps also it gives us even the tiniest bit of agency in our society.