There are numerous times whereby employees are required to put together a project at the very last minute. At times, employees might be able to pull it off. Other times, it might just result in the project failing miserably. Regardless of the outcome, such a situation always puts the involved parties in a stressful position.
Completing a piece of work at the very last minute is a common situation that employees are bound to find themselves in. However, the downside of rushing out a project or client deliverable at the very last minute compromises on the quality and accuracy of the work. At the very worst, it could ruin the company’s brand and end up driving clients away.
Of course, depending on the scope and urgency of the deliverables, employees do not have to resort to cutting corners all the time. Instead, with proper planning and work allocation, an internal or client work can be delivered accurately without compromising on the quality.
Avoid multi-tasking
Sure, there might be some employees who are superb at juggling numerous projects and deliverables at one go. However, that does not mean that work delivered is up to standard. The fact is that not all work can be multi-tasked and there are some which needs full attention and focus on its own. At the same time, there might be some which are new to an employee and requires some time to understand and figure out.
Prioritise key tasks
To avoid multi-tasking, the key here is to identify which piece of work is more urgent and requires attention and which can be held off a little longer. This then helps to sort out work that need to be done first and as for the rest, it can be done later in the day or perhaps assigned to someone else. Essentially, this reduces the problem of multi-tasking as well.
Set aside uninterrupted time
If there is a particular piece of work that needs to be delivered immediately, the best is to set aside some uninterrupted time to focus on completing the task. It can be blocking off an hour’s time on the calendar or finding a meeting room to complete the work. It does not mean that one has to be completely unapproachable in order to complete every single task on hand, but sometimes setting aside that small pocket of time to simply focus on the work is sufficient.
In the workplace, it is common to multi-task in order to complete tasks at the very last minute. However, there is a fine line between multi-tasking and feeling overwhelmed. If it is the latter, perhaps it is time to speak to the manager or delegate work out to co-workers.
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