Hello, everyone. Welcome to Managing the stress of time and competing priorities. This is the fourth and final installment in the 2023 Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate Webinar Series. Most of you probably know that those of you or those individuals that viewed all four webinars, either live or via the recording link-- which are still available, give you more details about that here in a moment-- will receive, at the end of 2023, the Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate.

And so let me remind you of this year's topics. Back in February we kicked off the program with How to effectively supervise a hybrid work team. We came back in May and we did How to become a more effective manager. In August we followed with How to give difficult feedback to your employees, and then today of course, Managing the stress of time and competing priorities. And so again, if you have not had the opportunity to view all the three previous sessions today, in addition to attending this one, and you still would like to receive your Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate, there's still time.

All you have to do is hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation or reminder for today. And when you hit Reply, those go right into the inbox of our administrative team and just let them that you would like to have a recording link of one of the sessions or one or more of the sessions that you missed this year. Again to remind you, in February it was How to effectively supervise a hybrid work team, in May it was How to become a more effective manager, in August it was How to give difficult feedback to your Employees, and then again, the final topic is today Managing the stress of time and competing priorities.

So again if you would like a copy of the links to any of those previous sessions, all you have to do is hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation or reminder for today and ask our staff. We'd be happy to send that to you. And once you complete reviewing those links-- To get your certificate, you have to have viewed all four of the sessions, including this one, either live, when they were presented live like today, or via viewing the recording. And so again, it's not too late.

If you missed any of the prior sessions, just reach out to us and let us which session you missed and we'll send you the recording links for those as well. All right folks, before we get started on today's session I want to make sure our technology is working for us today. We got a great turnout today. If you can please locate the Raise Hand icon in the GoToWebinar software in the upper right hand corner of your screen, and if you can see the slides clearly and hear my voice clearly, can you please click on the Raise Hand icon now?

Thank you, folks. Looks like we're good to go technology-wise. I also want to make you aware that during these educational presentations provided by Deer Oaks, participants are in listen-only mode, which means, of course, you won't be able to audibly ask questions during the formal part of the presentation-- which should last about 30 minutes today, give or take-- but again your questions are important to us, and so when we get to the end of the formal part of the presentation today, I'll open it up for questions.

At that point, please feel free to type any questions you have into the question box in the GoToWebinar software on your screen, and we'll get to as many questions as time allows today. Let's go ahead and get started folks.

I've got four objectives for our time together today. I want to discuss, first and foremost, how time constraints can cause additional stress and pressure in our lives that can be harmful to our relationships and productivity. I also want to talk about the importance of prioritizing how we spend our time so that we're focusing our time in areas that are most important to us and spending our time in ways that give us the greatest effectiveness and life satisfaction. I also want to discuss several practical approaches for planning our days and our time effectively, and then last but not least, I want to talk about reasons to avoid procrastinating

All right, as a jumping off place folks, let's talk about just how significant time constraints or significantly time constraints can cause stress in our lives. Now it's interesting, as I've gotten older-- I've been in the workforce now over 40 years-- as I've gotten older, I've come to really appreciate, probably more than ever before, that time is a limited quantity, right? We all have only 24 hours a day, which breaks down into 1,440 minutes and 86,000 seconds each day. It's all we have to work with. And when we get to 11:59 PM tonight, this day will be over and we'll never be able to come back and live this day again.

So whatever time today we didn't use in a way that meets our priorities, or we didn't focus in a way that helped us be productive and helped us enjoy our time, we can't get that back. And that really, again as I've gotten older, that's really important to me. I want to make sure that I'm focusing more on quality instead of quantity in the way that I'm spending my time and managing my time.

Now, of course folks, also if you think about it, when we're under time constraints, when we're on deadline, when we're in a hurry when we're trying to get a lot done in a short period of time, that daily time-related stress actually is one of the main causes of high levels of stress in people's lives. And that can be personally or professionally, right?

And I know we all that, I know I'm preaching to the choir about that, but think about it folks, if you're sitting around on a weekend-- we just had a nice weekend, it was nice weather in many parts of the country this past weekend-- if you were just hanging around the house and just relaxed and not in a hurry and enjoying time with your family or leisure time doing things that you enjoyed, you probably weren't feeling a lot of time constraints, right? You weren't feeling rushed, you weren't feeling in a hurry, you weren't feeling like you had to get things done as quickly as possible, and as a result you probably had a lower level of stress in general, which allows you to enjoy your days more, right?

But when we're under time related stress, when we're on a deadline at work, when we're in at home multitasking, trying to get all of our errands run on the weekends so we can get back to work on Monday and focus on our job, and keep our lives moving forward, that can really-- I love the picture of the man looking at the watch, right? There's so many, probably too many things to do, right? He's got four arms too many things to do and not enough hours in the day to get them done. I know we know what that feels like.

But when we're under time-related stress, that's when our stress level gets higher, that's when we can feel overwhelmed, that's when we can feel like we're constantly in a hurry or we can't even slow down and have good conversations with others because we're always thinking about what we need to be doing next. So let me remind you of a quote many of you have probably heard by Henry David Thoreau. He was one of the famous authors of the 19th century.

Many of you probably remember him from English class in high school or taking a literature class in college or just from your own personal study. He had a really, really great quote that I think really describes the problem with always being rushed, and the problem with always being under a time constraint and it goes like this, "Most people live their lives in quiet desperation. " And I think what Thoreau was trying to get to here is everyone's busy, right?

We all live busy lives. We all have a lot to do. I've never met a person that doesn't have a lot to do in their lives, especially people that are busy in their jobs, raising their families, have a lot going on. I mean, people can feel like there's just too much to do and not enough hours in the day, right? We're busy but maybe we're not getting to everything we want to get to. Maybe we feel like there's just not enough hours in the day or maybe we feel frustrated because we can't spend our time or enough of our time with the people that we really care about and on the activities that are most important to us. And that can lead to frustration, right?

I really do believe that's what Thoreau is getting at here with this quote, that most people live their lives in quiet desperation. And to me, it comes down to the problem with being rushed too often. And so if you are feeling rushed too often, on a regular basis, now we're all going to be rushed at times, that's part of life. We all know that. So there's going to be days where you're on deadline or you're overwhelmed and you just got to rush through the day and get through it as quickly as you can.

Again, that's why I chose that graphic here in the lower right hand corner of your screen. And folks, until about 15 years ago, that was me. I wasn't managing my time very well and I was more focused on volume instead of quality. It was more about quantity instead of quality. I would go to work every day and try to get as much done as possible and, although it's admirable to want to be productive, I wasn't working smarter. I was working harder.

And because I wasn't managing my time very well and I was in a hurry a lot, I experienced much higher our stress levels in general than I think I needed to. And it had some negative impact, not only on my general stress level but it had an impact on my relationships. I remember my wife saying oftentimes back in those days, you don't seem to have enough time for us. You're always so busy with work, you don't seem to have enough time for your family. And she was right.

At times I was working 10 hour days and I would get home and after dinner I'd say, honey, I got to go back to my desk and I got to catch up on something else. And even on the weekends, I would be making up some work stuff on the weekends or trying to get ahead for the next week. And it was, at times, taking away from family time and I had to learn that lesson. So it did get in the way in relationships and even in the workplace during the day, someone would walk up to me, years ago, and say, hey how you doing? How was your weekend? And it was like I couldn't relax and do small talk because my mind wouldn't stop thinking about what I needed to get to next.

Again, the pressure of feeling like I was in a hurry and I just had to go, go, go. And so it did get in the way of the quality of my relationships, both personally and professionally. And also the impact on productivity folks, I think you all are probably aware that if you're traveling really, really quickly through your day, you won't do your best work necessarily. And if you're too much in a hurry, you might not do your most quality work.

You won't slow down and be careful about dotting all the I's and crossing all the T's on a task or a project that you're working on. And if you're rushing through your work that can cause us to make errors or make mistakes because we're not slowing down. And again, we're focusing more on quantity instead of quality. So I find that the worse I manage my time, the more overwhelmed and rushed I am, the quality of my work goes down significantly.

All right, next I'm going to ask you to do a little bit of an exercise with me. If you could please take out a blank sheet of paper. I'd love for you to do an exercise that was kind of a wake-up call for me 15, 20 years ago. And I did it multiple times back then but it really is a good opportunity to take a step back and reflect on what's really important in your life, and compare that to how you really spending your time.

And so again, if you can take out a piece of paper, I'm going to ask a few of you to use the question box in the GoToWebinar software to communicate with me if you'd be willing to, but I'd like you to take a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle. We're going to prioritize the two main areas in your life. We're going to prioritize your personal life. So at the top of one of the columns-- once you've got a blank sheet of paper with one line down the middle so you've got two columns-- now at the top of one of the columns, write My Personal Life. At the top of the other column write My Professional Life or My Work Life.

And now I'm going to give you about 60 seconds. I'm going to put myself on mute, I'm going to give you about 60 seconds to identify a couple of the priorities. Now I'm talking general priorities. We don't have to get down into the minutia but the general priorities in your life. So for example, for your personal life, as I've got here on the screen, most of us prioritize family, health, hobbies, friendships, those kinds of things, continuing education, those kinds of things.

And then on the work side, on the professional side, most of us have our most important projects that we're working on. If you're a supervisor, I know many of you are because this is a leadership certificate course or series, and so many of you are no doubt leaders or supervisors or managers at this point in your career. If you can write down some of those main priorities in terms of, again projects, spending more time with your employees, goal setting, getting ahead in your career, whatever your priorities are professionally.

But folks I'm going to go ahead, I'm going to put myself on mute for about 60 seconds. And so if you could please just jot a couple of your priorities in each of those buckets or in each of those columns. And then we'll come back and compare notes here in a few minutes. All right, folks we'll be back in just a moment.

All right, thank you folks. So for those of you that participated in that exercise, if any of you would be willing to use the question box in the GoToWebinar software in the upper right hand corner of your screen, and if you could jot down for me a couple of your priorities, your high level priorities in your personal life and/or your professional life so we can share notes. And I won't be sharing people's names, I'm just going to be sharing the examples of what people have down as their priorities both in their personal lives or in their professional lives.

One of our colleagues said relationships Number 1. Another colleague said wife friend's house and yard work. That's great. Another one said Work/Life balance on the professional side, another of our colleagues said family, health, friends ranch and travel. Great. Another one said on the personal side keep the flame going with partner, family activities, personal time, that's great. Another colleague said personal dog, spouse, health, family, hobbies and friends. That's great. Another colleague said relationship with God and church community as priorities. That's great.

Another one of our colleagues said-- I'll just mention a couple more, getting a lot, so thank you folks for participating-- said Work/Life, better communication with supervisor, catch up with financials. That's great. And another one of our colleagues said on the professional side, career advancement, completeness, availability, recognition. I like that. And let's see, I'll do one more. Another one of our colleagues combined Work/Life and personal life and said be obedient to God's word and then Number 2 was spend time with family and Number 3 was work.

Thank you, folks. Thank you so much. I know we didn't have time to get to everyone but I really appreciate so many of you weighing in. Folks, hang on to that list that you just made today. What I think is really interesting is so many of us when we get busy-- and again I think this is what Thoreau was talking about when he said that many of us live our lives in quiet desperation-- so many of us when we get busy, we forget our priorities. We just stay busy. 15, 20 years ago in my life when I was really burning the candle at both ends and staying real busy but not getting to the things I really cared about enough, like I wasn't getting to my family. I wasn't spending enough time with my family and I needed to.

I needed to make that more of a priority and so I made some changes. But what leads us to change is first reflection. Take a step back and say, OK, here's my priorities. Now I'm going to give you an example of mine, family, health and hobbies. What were my personal priorities back in those days? And I told my wife and daughter that you guys are my priority, yet I would continually overwork and, at times, put them last. And that was wrong and I had to change.

But it took me doing an exercise like this to get convicted that OK, yes, ideally I would like to make family first but you what the truth is? My work is at the top, because that's where I'm spending most of my time. Now obviously when you're working full time, as most of us are, you're going to be spending a lot of your time, a lot of your waking hours at work, but we have to have some balance, right?

We've got to focus the spending an adequate amount of time in those other areas that are important to us. That's why I think it's important to do this exercise, so hang on to this. The next thing I want to ask you all, because this really helped me. It really helped. It convicted me that I needed to start leaving work at a reasonable hour. The fact that I had focused on family, I started leaving work in a more reasonable hour. I started getting home on time for dinner consistently, where I was a couple times a week coming home late for dinner when I was not putting enough priority on family time. And so that's what I want you to think about today.

I'd like you to circle, as a follow up to what we just did, circle one priority on either your personal list or on your work list that you know you need to spend more time on. So please go ahead and just circle one item. And this is what I did back then. 15 or so years ago when I first did this, I circled family. And I told my wife I'm making a commitment, because she really wanted me to do that and I needed to do it.

It was the right thing to do but my life was out of balance and part of it was I wasn't managing my time enough. And folks, time management starts with focusing on priorities. If we don't know what our priorities are or we're not focused on them and making them a priority, then we won't spend enough time on them intentionally. So again, circle the one priority that you listed today that you know you need to spend more time on moving forward.

So let's go ahead and do that. So circle that and again, how I started to improve that is once I circled it, then I developed a plan. The next piece here, folks, is you have to intentionally spend more time in those areas. It's a key to effectiveness and life satisfaction. And I had to start putting it into my day timer and putting it into my to-do list. So I started putting in my day timer, "leave at 5:30".

Up to that point, I didn't. I would tell my wife in general, I'll be home around 6:30 for dinner but I was not scheduling "leave by 5:30". Back in those days, it was a long commute. I lived about an hour away from my house and so if I didn't leave by 5:30, I oftentimes wouldn't get home on time. And it would be uncomfortable and I'd be apologizing again. But once I started scheduling "leave work at 5:30," guess what? I was getting home then regularly by 6:30 and I wasn't running late very much.

Every once in a while, sure I'd still you run into traffic like we all do, but I became pretty consistent in getting home on time and demonstrating to my family that I was serious, that they really were first, that I put them above the work that I did every day. And so folks, whatever area that you circle, just make sure that you integrate, that you start writing that into your schedule. Like for example, if you say taking more time for yourself, if that was something that was on your schedule, make sure you put it on your schedule, like schedule taking your lunch break.

A lot of people will work through lunch too often. Practice scheduling leisure time but schedule it. If you don't schedule it, there's an old saying that a dream is just a dream until there's a plan that helps you reach that dream or a goal is just a goal until you've got a plan to help you reach that goal, and that's what I'm trying to suggest right now. Make sure on that area that you've circled today, that you have a plan in place in your daily to-do list or in your daytime or every day or in your laptop-- however you manage your time and keep track of your schedule-- that you are putting those areas that are most important to you into your schedule intentionally, so you're spending more time on them.

All right the next piece that's really important folks is to start intentionally. And I think this is really important for managers and supervisors. I have never met a manager or supervisor-- I've been a supervisor, now I'm a supervisor at Xerox, I've been a supervisor for about 30 years, all told-- and so I have never met a supervisor or manager who doesn't have a really long to-do list. That just comes with the territory. There's just a lot more on your plate when you're responsible for managing others.

You have your own work to do and making sure that others are getting their work accomplished. Good time management, after focusing on priorities, good time management begins with having a good daily plan. I went to this incredible-- Some of you might remember Zig Ziglar, the motivational speaker. He passed away a few years ago. Had a lot of wisdom and really understood time management, but he had this thing about time management that he was saying, that most people over-commit. They over plan their days.

And he said these are well-meaning people trying to get done as much as they can. But what they'll do is they'll end up having 15 or 20 things on their to do list for the day and they are setting themselves, he pointed out, they are setting themselves up to overwork, to feel overwhelmed, to feel like they have to work through lunch because there's not enough hours in the day to get everything done, to work late at the end of the day and leave the office late because they just didn't get everything done that they needed to get done that day.

And that was me up until about 15 years ago. That was me. I mean, I was burning the candle at both ends, working through lunch you probably three or four days a week, showing up home late for dinner at least a couple times a week. And really the biggest problem with that, and where I was falling short, was not only was I not focused on priorities but I didn't have a good daily plan. I was going to work with, again, that volume approach, more quantity than quality.

I would go to work with my to do list of 15 or 20 things every day and try to get as much done every day as possible. And thought that was admirable. I thought, yeah but I'm a hard worker but I wasn't working smart. I was working hard. And so when I went to that Zig Ziglar seminar, I started taking a step back and what Zig suggested is, have a more achievable daily plan where you're not over-committing. It can you to not be so overwhelmed and not be so rushed.

He said that the average human being really should have no more than maybe half a dozen things on your have-to list every day. So he basically said, I love the way he said this, is don't live by your to-do list because no one can get 15 or 20 things done in a day. And everyone has a long to do list, especially when you're a manager or supervisor. But he said make sure that you take that to-do list every morning and circle a half a dozen things, give or take, that are have-to's, things that are priority for the day, that have to get done that day. And now you've got a realistic plan.

And I've been doing that ever since and it really does work for me. I find that 90% of the time, I can get those half a dozen things done in a day. And now the half a dozen things the have-to list is not little things like-- I should qualify-- it's not little things like returning emails. We all do dozens of those every day. I'm talking about significant tasks, OK? So half a dozen significant tasks that day. Now that's in addition to all the meetings you have to attend and staying on top of your email inbox and all those other things. That's on top of that, right?

But I found that once I started doing that have-to list of a half a dozen things, give or take, I didn't feel so overwhelmed. It seemed more achievable. I found that I could pace myself a little bit better. I wasn't rushing through the day as much, and I was giving myself permission to take lunch because I wasn't feeling like I was behind the eight ball and thinking, oh, I got to work through lunch. It's the only way I'm going to get everything done today.

And then by the end of the day, 9 times out of 10, I was getting all half a dozen things done and I was able to leave work on time and it was like a game changer for me. And so I want to suggest that-- and you don't have to do it exactly the way I'm describing and some of you probably are doing something similar already-- but make sure that you have a daily plan that's achievable.

Again, if you have too many things on your daily plan, you are absolutely going to set yourself up to be rushed, to feel like you're in a hurry and to feel overwhelmed, and so your stress level will be higher. But with a smaller, more achievable have-to list, you'll have a chance to pace yourself. You won't feel so rushed and at the end of the day, 9 times out of 10, you'll have completed those things because it's a more achievable list, and you'll feel more of a sense of accomplishment.

Something else that I've learned from time-management experts is it's important to tackle the toughest tasks in the morning. Now even if you're not a morning person-- now a few of you will be an exception, I'm sure a few of you will be very productive from 4:00 to 6:00 in the afternoon, some people are-- but the research shows that most people are more productive before lunch than after lunch. Even if you're not what you would consider a quote unquote "morning person," typically, people will get more done and are more effective maybe from 10:00 AM to noon than they are at 3:00 in the afternoon, where people have that energy lull.

So it is important to try to get your most difficult, your most complex tasks done before lunch. That's a best practice, and staying on top of things and pacing yourself. The other problem with putting your toughest tasks off to the afternoon is if you don't have a lot of energy in the afternoon, you're setting yourself up. And I used to do this. I used to procrastinate and put off more difficult things from the morning to the afternoon, feeling like I was giving myself a break, and I'd put it off till later. The problem was now it's hanging over my head all day.

And then when I would sit down to do those difficult things in the afternoon, I wasn't at my best because I am not at my best at 3:00 in the afternoon. I'm dragging and so that's why people grab a cup of coffee in the middle of the afternoon or some sort of an energy drink or something. Sometimes some people do that to keep going because, and it's funny if you think about the sleep/wake cycle of human beings, it's typical between 2:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon, at least for most people-- some people are truly energized in the afternoon-- but for most people, they start to have that energy lull between 2:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon because your sleep wake/cycle, your circadian rhythm, your body's ratcheting down, getting ready for the next sleep cycle coming up in the evening, for your next sleep period.

And so I did find that it is true that if I focus on the more important things in the morning or the more difficult things in the morning, I tend to get that out of the way. Not only am I more effective in doing that work, but then it's not hanging over my head all day. My day goes better. A couple of other things and then I'm going to move towards wrapping up and give you all a chance to ask additional questions. There's a couple other things that are important. We need to make sure that we're protecting our prime time and our rest time.

Folks, it is important. Everyone, and I love this concept of prime time and rest time, there is a period in everybody's day, we're all different, where we're most productive. For me, it's like 7:30 in the morning till 9:30 in the morning. I have got to stay focused and not schedule meetings during that time because that's my go-time. That's when I have the most clarity, I'm the most creative. That's when I need to focus on my more complex and more important tasks because that's when I'm at my best.

For other people it might be 4:00 in the afternoon or it might be 10:00 AM in the morning to noon, but make sure that you're protecting your prime time. What I mean by protecting it is make sure that you aren't scheduling meetings during that time, make sure that you're freeing yourself up to do your most significant work during that prime time. I think it's really, really important. Some people who use Microsoft Teams, if it's appropriate in your work environment, will show themselves as busy during that prime time, so they don't get interrupted.

And then there's rest time. Folks, rest time is important. Human beings were not created to work 10 hours straight without a break, but unfortunately some people try to do that. I tried to do it for years. And so folks, we need to identify our rest time. If your rest time is lunch, make your lunch break. I took a really nice 30 minute lunch today. For me, I don't need an hour but I need 30 minutes. I do I need that break.

I work remotely for Deer Oaks, so I went upstairs into my kitchen and I had my sports page and I just relaxed for half an hour. Had a nice meal, it was healthy. Had a salad with some stuff and it was great. And then I had my sports page and I came back from that refreshed. But there's so many days, like I mentioned earlier, in my career when I would just work through lunch and just eat at my desk and just keep working. And that made my afternoon energy lull even worse. I did not get a chance to recharge my batteries.

So make sure folks that you are protecting your prime time and your rest time. All right, the last thing I'm going to talk about today folks, and then we'll open it up for questions, is resisting the temptation to procrastinate. Procrastination is something that people fall into. I think most of us would probably agree that, at least once in a while, we'll be tempted to procrastinate. Some people it becomes a regular habit and it can be a problem. And it was somewhat of a habit for me 20 years ago.

And I would put off the more important things in the morning that were more daunting, more complex, because I would psychologically think to myself, well, if I just put this off till after lunch, I can enjoy my morning. I can start the day more comfortably. But I didn't realize the psychology of procrastination. Procrastination is not a benefit, it's a deception. It makes it seem like if I put this one complex thing that's daunting off till later today, I'll have an easier morning, but the problem is it doesn't go away.

Your brain doesn't forget it. You just put it off to the side but all of a sudden you got that thing hanging over your head. Some of you probably can remember times when you put something off and you wake up in the middle of the night worried about it because you didn't get it started yet or you're not making enough progress on it yet. You got a deadline coming up. So folks, when you're tempted to procrastinate just confront yourself and say, "This won't help me. Putting this off will not help me. It's better to just get it started."

And that's what I want to talk to you about. It's better just to get it started. And so we got to deal with our emotions. If you're feeling you're not your best that day, you're tired or you just don't feel like it, confront your emotions and say, "You know what? I will feel so much better throughout this day and throughout this week if I just get this started today." And that's the technique that I learned.

Because sometimes big tasks are daunting, I found out one of the reasons I was putting things off is because it just felt really complex and I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted to do something. But then I read a really cool article about breaking down more difficult or complex tasks into smaller, more manageable parts. So I do a good old fashioned outline now whenever I've got a significant task or project that I've got to do. And when it feels daunting I will say to myself, OK I'm going to just take 20 minutes and get this thing started today, and I start with an outline.

And once I get the outline, it makes me feel so much better. It makes me feel like I'm making progress. It gets me off the side and moving forward, gets me off the start and gets me moving forward and into the game. And then the next day when I come back to that outline, I just start building on the outline and it just makes the whole process of something more complex flow. But it has really helped me to minimize procrastinating.

Those two things, remembering that it's not actually helping me by putting it off, it's actually going to make my life a little bit more stressful because it's hanging over my head, and then by learning how to get something started by starting with an outline to at least get things moving forward, that's enabled me to minimize procrastinating in my life. All right, folks, I we covered a lot in a very short period of time today.

I want to open it up for questions. If you have any questions, please type them into the question box in the GoToWebinar software in the upper right hand corner of your screen. Where you're thinking about questions, I want to remind you again-- I know some of you joined us a little bit after the beginning today-- today is the last topic in the 2023 Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate Webinar Series and so if you've completed the previous three sessions; the first session in February was How to effectively supervise a hybrid work team, Session Number 2 in May was How to become a more effective manager, Session 3 in August was How to give difficult feedback to your employees and today's session for Managing the stress of time and competing priorities.

If you missed any of the previous sessions, you can still get credit for them towards earning your Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate because again, if you view all of these, either live or by viewing the recording link-- and we have the other ones recorded-- so if you missed either of the previous three, all you have to do is hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today and ask our staff to send you the recording link to, again, either of the three previous ones, which are How to effectively supervise a hybrid work team, How to become a more effective manager or How to give difficult feedback to your employees.

If you need the recording link, just request it by sending an email to our staff. And all you have to do to get to our staff email inbox is to hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today or your reminder for today and it goes right to our staff email inbox. And we would be happy to send you the recording link for one of those previous sessions because again, if you view all four of this year's sessions, including today's, again either live or in person, you will earn your Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate.

And we have actually awarded that certificate-- this, I think is the 10th year we've done this program, 9th or 10th year we've done this program-- and we have awarded that to over 2000 people over the years. So I really appreciate you all participating in this series this year. Folks, are there any questions? I know we have a lot of time left today. If you have any questions, please type your questions into the question box in the GoToWebinar software in the upper right hand corner of your screen

Again folks, are there any questions today? We got plenty of time. If you have any questions or any comments you want to make, please feel free to type them into the question box in the GoToWebinar software in your screen. Here, we've got a question. How do you make time for anything when most of my day is in meetings? That's a really, really important question, folks. And so one of the things I had to learn to do was I had to minimize the number of meetings I accepted every day.

And some of us may not have that opportunity, some meetings that we're invited to, obviously, are mandatory. We have to go. If your boss puts it on your schedule or if it's part of your job, you have to go, but I found that there were some meetings I could say no to or when I was organizing a meeting I could be a little smarter about how I scheduled it. Like for example, if I already had three meetings scheduled in a day and I needed to talk to someone, instead of just pinging them and saying, "Hey, you got a few minutes to talk this afternoon?" when I already had a pretty busy day, I'd send them an email and say, "Hey, do you have time on Friday?" if it wasn't time sensitive.

And so I was a little smarter about how I was scheduling those meetings and so I wasn't overbooking myself so much. I found that I can't really do more than three meetings in a day and still get all the rest of my work done. So I really try to not schedule more than three, and if I have to go to a fourth meeting, I will but I really try to not over-schedule so I have time to get the rest of my work done.

All right, one of our colleagues said, "Would you be able to tell if I missed one of the series?" Yes, if you send an email to our staff, again by hitting Reply go to GoToWebinar software or in the GoToWebinar invitation for today or the reminder for today, and just say, "Could you please let me know which of this year's series I've attended?" and mention, "Did I attend How to effectively supervise a hybrid work team? Did I attend How to become a more effective manager? And did I attend How to give difficult feedback to my employees?" And our staff would be happy to look that up for you and let you if you missed any of those.

Good question. Thank you.

Folks are there any other questions today?

I really appreciate everyone participating in the series this year and appreciate you being with us today. Let me give you another minute or two to see if anyone else has any questions.

All right, folks it looks like we don't have any additional questions today. So no problem at all. Again, I want to thank you for taking part in the series this year. It is such a pleasure for us here at Deer Oaks to provide these webinars for our client organizations and it's such a privilege for us here at Deer Oaks to be the [inaudible] provider for your organization. So this is a series that's made available to all of our clients across the country.

And so thanks again for being with us and taking part this year. We will do another series, we'll have another version of the Leadership Certificate Series with new topics in 2024. So if you're interested again for next year, we'd love to have you back again. So again, thanks for being with us. It's getting close to the holidays, one of my favorite times of the year, and so I want to make sure that I wish you all a very happy holiday.

I did get one more question that came in so I do want to address that, and then we'll go ahead and wrap up today.

How would you professionally decline to accept additional work without coming off as incapable? That's a great question. I appreciate that and I'm glad you asked that question before we wrapped up today. I think the most important part of that is to have a really good relationship with your boss or make sure you've got a good line of communication with your boss. And I had this conversation with my boss a couple months back.

One area of my work schedule was getting a little overwhelming so I shared with her that I was struggling a little bit and I asked for her advice. And we brainstormed some ideas together and she helped me. She helped me do a good job of getting that part of my workflow under control and it's really helped. This fall my pace of works have been a little bit better and, in part, it's because we had that conversation. I think it's important to have those conversations with your boss.

If you feel like you're being assigned work and it's really putting you in a place where you're feeling overwhelmed, I'd be honest with my boss. And not in a complaining sort of a way, like you said, in a professional sort of a way. And I wouldn't do it via email, I'd have a conversation with my boss about it and say, "I want to do a good job for you and I am interested in this new assignment that you're giving me but I have to be honest, I was already feeling pretty stretched when I got this assignment and now I'm feeling a little overwhelmed.

So I was wondering if you wouldn't mind helping me prioritize a little bit because I do want to do a good job here," would be a way that you could have that conversation with your boss. That isn't you trying to get out of doing work. It's just being honest about your workload and your commitment to doing a good job and asking for their support, and hopefully most supervisors would do that.

And one of our colleagues actually weighed in on that question as well and said, "I would ask for which has more priority." That's great. That's right along the same lines of what I was thinking as well. Thank you for that.

All right, again folks, thanks for being with us today. I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving and a happy holidays, and I hope to be with you on another one of these sessions in the future. Thank you so much, everybody take care.