Trying To Squeeze It All In By The End Of The Month

Trying To Squeeze It All In By The End Of The Month

Carladenise A. Edwards

Last night, I went to bed really angry with myself. My Halloween was not all that I envisioned.   It was the end of the month and I had three critical projects due to three different clients.  Not one of them was complete.  I had intended to spend the day doing the mommy thing and enjoying Halloween with my kids.  I wanted to fix them orange and black crepes for breakfast.  I wanted to go to the Halloween parade at their school.  I wanted to help them get dressed in their costumes and take them trick-or-treating after grabbing a pizza for dinner.  I even had visions of taking my son to the San Francisco Giants parade yesterday morning.  To me, the benefits of consulting are having some flexibility in your schedule and being able to prioritize projects in a way that brings work-life balance.  But for the last two months, I have had no balance.  So, I asked myself what is going on.  I spent Monday and Tuesday trying my best to move the three projects along and then Wednesday beating myself up over them not being done.

As I was lying in bed taking my normal 4 hours nap (that is the extent of sleep that I have been getting these days), I realized that “I” was only part of the problem.   Recognizing that I was only part of the problem was a bit of a relief, but for a control freak like me, it was not much relief, because I then spent the next few minutes trying to figure out what the other part of the problem was and how I could control it.  Below is what I surmised.

First, the part of the problem I own is trying to juggle multiple projects, expectations, and bosses at one time.  There are only 24 hours in a day and whether I want to or not, I have to spend a few sleeping, a few with family, and a few taking care of my body, mind and spirit.  Of course I never calculate that when I am determining how much time is needed to get the job done.  I simply try to squeeze these things in when I can, because my body or family forces me to. 

Second, I hate being or appearing pushy.  When my clients cancel meetings with me or don’t return my phone calls or emails, I wait. I wait for what I think is a reasonable amount of time before I call them or email them again or attempt to re-schedule the meeting.  It is not in my character to be a pushy sales person or agitator to people who I respect and I know are just as busy, if not busier than I am.  This is a huge problem.  I am waiting for them to squeeze me in.

So my part of the problem is this reliance on squeezing things in. Then I realized that if I own the problem of relying on squeezing in my own life priorities and waiting for my clients to squeeze me in, a lot of time is wasted with me doing what? What am I doing during that time? Well, I am doing a lot of things. I am incredibly busy. I am always tired. I am not sitting around not doing anything. But honestly, I couldn’t tell you what I accomplish during that time. I have to do a better job of documenting what I am doing and when, so that I can monitor my own productivity. I am 100% confident that I should be billing for the time, but I am not. I am 100% confident that I am generating new business during that time, but I have no way of quantifying it. I know for sure that I am perfecting the products and services that I provide to my clients by learning new things, reviewing deliverables, and building relationships, because like I said, four hours of sleep is my standard these days. Please don’t tell Arianna at the Huffington Post -Arianna Huffington wrote a new post How to Sleep Your Way to the Top - Literally or the folks at TEDMED2012 who made sleep deprivation one of their Top 20 Challenges.

So what is the part of the problem that I don’t own?  I mentioned that my clients do not answer email, cancel meetings and fail to return phone calls.  I have gotten way beyond taking any of that personally.  I have learned how to be as succinct, direct, and action oriented in my communication while remaining cordial.  I do drive-byes and I wait in their offices, so that I can grab them during that one moment when they are free, even if it is during a fire drill and we are walking down 8 flights of stairs.  I have pretty much learned every trick in the book to capture a little bit of their time, when I can so that I can deliver the best product possible and meet expectations of quality and performance.  And I have to admit; when I deliver it is pretty darn good. But the one thing I consistently fail to deliver is time.  Well, during my epiphany about me squeezing in critical things like using the bathroom or eating lunch and sleeping, I realized that all of my clients are just like me.  They are squeezing me in when they can or I when I force them, which only occur when we are moments from missing a deadline.  This problem of squeezing things in when I have time is not just my problem it is their problem too. 

I woke up to write this blog, because I thought it may be helpful to my fellow consultants who go through the same thing at the end of each month or when we fall off our A-game and our ability to juggle multiple tasks and projects and bosses and expectations appears  to take a nose dive.  I think it is incredibly important to be introspective, but sometimes it is not 100% your fault, maybe it is only 47% our fault, because we couldn't force the other 53% of the problem to squeeze us in to their incredibly busy and surreal lives.  I mean isn’t that why they hired the consultant in the first place…because they simply were too busy to do the work themselves or to convene the team or to work collaboratively or to learn new things?

Lesson learned: Get some rest.  Do more planning and less squeezing.  Prioritize the top priorities, like family and self.  Remember that it takes two to tango, so go easy on yourself.

Disclaimer: Please pardon typos and grammatical errors in this blog, as I am squeezing this in during what is typically my nap time.