A common theme amongst current clients is the sense that there’s always more work to be done than there are hours available and that too much stuff ends up in the ‘urgent and important’ box more often than they would like. One client went so far as to say that prioritisation and time management is a cultural problem and that as a company they’re reactive and take a short-term view. He recognised that they lack the strategies required to support the vision.

By nature we are good at over complicating things and too often we can find ourselves bogged down by the detail. That can lead to a sense of overwhelm and from that place procrastination. So, my challenge to you today is simple:

What layer of detail can you strip away?

What additional clarity does that give you?

In a previous article, one of the suggestions I made was to keep communications succinct, whilst remaining courteous. What if that report you’ve been putting off writing had to be a page or you had to get your point across in only a paragraph or even the 140 characters of a tweet? If that were the case, what unnecessary information would you leave out and how much time would that save you?

The author Henry David Thoreau wrote “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”

I would invite you to master the art of simplifying that which appears complicated. The benefit to you is that you’ll get much more work done and gain a sense of satisfaction in your achievement.