Before we delve into the ins and outs of juggling multiple roles, let’s take a moment to appreciate the concept.

You might be juggling 2-jobs-in-1 (for example, being a Finance Manager as well as handling recruitment matters for your company), or you might literally have two completely different jobs, or you might be handling a demanding role together with family responsibilities too – all of these take their toll.

It’s a common problem to feel the pressure of coping with multiple roles, each competing for your attention, and the effects of this can be extremely adverse.

Often, rather than taking a step back to break the cycle, we continue to accept tasks for fear of letting someone down. Some people love the thrill of having multiple roles – for a while – until, all of a sudden, the workload begins to creep up on them and they become unable to cope.

Many careers and job titles now include multiple roles so it’s crucial for us to learn how to deal with the stress that comes with this in order not to start feeling a lack of satisfaction and suffer burn out.

Many people are under the opinion that management should provide better strategies for coping for the strain of multiple roles. That’s a great plan if you work for an organisation that is inclined to implement such strategies, but what about smaller operations or offices such as often find on the Islands?

We have put together 9 tips on how to juggle multiple roles without sacrificing any more of your time or letting others down.

1. Analyse the situation

Go back to the basics. Take a pen and paper and start to understand the full picture of the situation. What are your objectives? What are you currently doing to manage your roles? What are the benefits of each role? What are the costs of each role? You should also include a list of the responsibilities within each role and what your strengths and weaknesses are for each.

Suddenly, once you get things down on paper, our responsibilities become less daunting and appear to be more manageable, especially when you highlight the positives.

2. Prioritise your roles

There are various ways you can do this: Some people prefer to have one role as a priority; others try to balance the roles in terms of their importance.

As an example, let’s take somebody with three key roles: two are jobs, one is their family life. For me, I prioritize my work roles depending on the time of the day and calendar. Mealtimes and at least one hour in the evening are dedicated to my family, with no work and no mobile in sight.

By separating your roles and dedicating a certain time for each, you avoid one role from running into another, which would affect the quality of your productivity.

3. Prioritise the tasks within each role

Each role has micro-roles and tasks that need to be completed. Many CEOs and self-employed people take on numerous roles within their company. Imagine a carpenter: His (or her) role is to make furniture; but he also needs to purchase supplies, maintain his workshop and invoice his clients. Which must he do first? In his situation, he needs to invoice his clients first or he won’t have the cash flow to buy supplies.

Once you’ve broken down the roles into priorities, and then the tasks for each role into an order of importance, it gets easier to know where to begin.

4. Create an action plan

The most important part of juggling multiple roles is being on top of your time management.

You must learn to maximise every minute of your day. This implies setting a timeframe for your day or your week and sticking to it.

By allocating times of the day for certain activities, you prevent yourself from feeling as if you are letting others down. For example, I don’t work between 7am and 8:30am because I don’t want my children to be late for school.

5. The magic of To-Do lists

Speaking for myself, I couldn’t survive my multiple roles without my multiple To-Do lists. Each morning, I set aside 10-minutes to write down the things I need to achieve in that day.

When planning your list, make sure you only have the important things for that day. If you start overloading your list, you’ll end up with an unmanageable programme. I also have a weekly list. So things that aren’t for that day’s list will usually make it to my weekly task list.

To-Do lists are a great way of motivating yourself and providing a sense of satisfaction. As you cross off the tasks you’ve completed, you’re able to see the progress you are making.

It’s crucial to stick to your list. Keep it somewhere obvious and plan a reward for when it’s complete.

6. Pareto’s principle

The 80/20 rule can be seen in so many examples. Microsoft discovered that if it fixed 20% of its most-reported bugs, 80% of the computer errors and crashes would be solved. 20% of the world’s richest people control 82.7% of the world’s income. 80% of the effects come from 20% of the cause.

When planning your time focus on dedicating 80% of your time to 20% of the activities. Of course, this will only work if you have prioritised your roles and activities within each.

7. Learn how to handle interruptions

Everyone wants a piece of the boss. Whether you are a Team Leader, Manager or CEO, regardless of your door being closed, people are going to interrupt you. I know we have a number of apps to help us with things like this, but personally I love pen and paper: on my desk, I have a notepad for interruptions. Every knock on the door or phone call gets jotted down on the pad. Once I have completed my tasks for that block of time, I deal with what’s on the pad.

If you stop your current activity to deal with an interruption, you’ll never complete what you are doing. Although we live in a ‘right now’ society, many of our interruptions can be dealt with in an hour or two. Just don’t forget to write them down.

8. Learn how to say ‘No’

I have no problem saying no to my children, but when it comes to my professional life, I struggle. Most people don’t like letting others down. But the truth is, by saying yes to one person, you’re likely to disappoint another. This is often the case when our work collides with our weekends; it’s normally the family that suffers.

Saying ‘No’ is not a bad thing, when done in the right way. Be polite, smile, don’t waffle on about excuses. Most of all, try to offer an alternative solution to the problem. Others will respect you and understand that this is part of your sensible time-management system.

9. Ask for help

As the director of my business, I often find it very difficult to hand tasks off to other people, which is silly. We can’t do it all and, by giving others extra responsibility, we are showing that we trust them.

Regardless of your role, there are some things that other people can do to help you and there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Asking a colleague to double-check your work is sensible, just as asking your mother to take the kids for an hour will delight her.  Asking for help is not a weakness.

In conclusion, you may be in a situation where just changing one or two things will be enough to help you successfully juggle your roles. Or you might need to take on all of the above ideas. The principle behind each of these methods is that they can be adapted to suit your situation. Being the manager of an international company involves just as much juggling as being the boss of a busy household: Both roles require you to prioritise, make a plan, stick to it, and ask for help when necessary.


IS YOUR FIRM LOOKING FOR PROFESSIONAL STAFF?

Contact us today with details if you’d like assistance or to schedule an introductory call to see how we can help.