With the weekend just around the corner, many of us might be struggling to catch our breath and stay ahead of our deadlines. With the grind taking over, it is understandable that your efficiency would be suffering a tad bit.

Wednesdays are poignant because even the most creative, productive and efficient ones hit the mid-week slump, and it’s a slide downwards from there onwards. This is from where the concept of WorthWorkin4 Wednesdays was born. So, here are a few efficiency hacks that help me stay ahead of my deadline curves:

To-do List and Prioritization

When you are handling multiple deadlines and chores, it’s natural to keep track of everything that needs to be done in a given week. If it’s mid-week already and you feel that you are lagging behind and a bit lost. Then start your day by making a to-do list. This includes your personal and familial chores and commitments and not just work related deadlines.

Have a bird’s eye view of everything that needs to be done by the end of this week, then prioritize things according to importance. You would realize that not everything that is urgent is important. Most of the times, we end up doing whatever needs to be done urgently. And these urgencies end up taking away a major part of your day or week, and the important task keeps getting delayed, until it ends up becoming urgent.

This creates a lot of chaos and stress, which can be avoided if you have a To-Do list at hand to refer to. This hack makes it easier to keep track of things and execute them according to their priority.

Schedule a Meeting

When you are feeling sluggish and lazy around a deadline, scheduling a professional meeting to give and take follow-up and share progress gives you the kick in the pants. It doesn’t build pressure or make you feel answerable to others [your team, clients, etc.], rather it put things back into perspective.

The ability to show and share progress or work-in-progress make you feel motivated. It often helps you set, re-set new targets, goals and deadlines, in case things are not going according to the plan. To initiate a meeting is a hack that gets the blood pumping and shows your confidence and determination to others to achieve your goals.

Meal Plan and Automate

We have to get work done, deadlines met, but we have to cook meals and put it down on the table. A very important task when you have a family to raise. Yet cooking some complicated meal from scratch when you have deadlines going on add to your stress and affect productivity. But having a meal plan at hand at the start of the week saves your mental energy and make quick adjustments as and when required. What personally helps me keep sane and keep the sight of my profession goals is to automate a few things. Hence, cooking up extra and freezing them up for mid-week productivity slumps help me immensely. Likewise, quick meals like noodles and omelet and bread not only make the belly full but also save you a lot of time and energy.

Delegate More

Chores and endless chores just take the wind out of an already hectic week. Laundry to wash and fold, meals to be cooked, a gazillion things to constantly pick off the floor and put back where they belong. If you are raising a family, it makes sense to raise your family as a team. A very basic hack efficiency hack is to assign roles and responsibilities, whether you are working at an organization or at home, so you have more time at your hand mid-week to bring your work up to speed.

This means that whoever reaches home early can get the meal started and get the washing machine going. Kids can pitch in smaller chores like clearing away the table, putting dishes in the sink, picking up their own toys, sorting laundry, taking the trash out, etc. Trying to do everything on your own not only exhausts you, but it also sets a wrong precedence for the family.

To Round Off…

We all go through days where we are the daily grind gets to us and we struggle. It is only human. Nevertheless, there are small efficiency hacks that ensure that we don’t end up steering too far from our goals due to the mid-week slump. Some of these hacks we discussed this week are making a mid-week To-Do List and prioritize your goals, having a mid-week meeting with your team or client, automating mundane tasks, and delegating stuff to others according to their capabilities. Remember, striking the balance between work and life is challenging. All we need to do is to keep trying living up to our potential, because we are worth it.

Let’s Talk and Share

If you have an efficiency hack that helps you ward off procrastination and mid-week productivity slumps, then do share them with the WW4Society audience in the comments. After all, we are here to help ourselves and each other grow and glow!