I have some days with meetings booked all morning and then a bunch of deadlines for work in the afternoon. I end these days feeling completely exhausted and find myself a bit overwhelmed as the day unfolds. Looking for tips to make it through a busy day.
Of course when you're in the midst of a hectic day and hopping about like a frog on a griddle, being calm enough to reach for peace is vary hard anyway, and doing it quick is harder.
To quote Kent Beck in the book Test Driven Development, "You're getting tired, so you're less capable of realizing that you're tired, so you keep going and get more tired." It's a feedback loop that makes you even more unproductive.
You don't have to block everything off. One of the best tricks I find is just focusing on what you do. Driving can be very relaxing once you turn off the radio and just focus on the drive. And you don't have to reach peace, just the process will calm you down considerably.
Also as a Muslim, I can also just tell people that I have to pray 5 times a day. Even if you're not Muslim, it's probably a good idea to take quick breaks at fixed hours of the day. Kent Beck recommends drinking a lot of water so that biology will force you to take breaks.
If none of that works, I just find another job with a more committed focus on people.
If you're attending meetings, you're most likely not doing work towards deadlines, and someone asking for you to do both may need to be reminded of that. Blocking out time in your schedule to work may be effective, depending on meeting culture.
Do try to avoid being distracted, and get work done well during the business day that's available, but don't over stress about deadlines missed because someone scheduled you for excess meetings when you needed to be working.
At some point in your career, you may have enough clout to just skip meetings. Some companies are meeting heavy, and that might not be apparent during the interview, but IMHO, it's super draining to lots of meetings, especially meetings with more than a few people, and usually the more people, the less productive, and of course, the bigger productivity loss from people * work they could have been doing instead.
Might be worth a try to talk to your manager. "So I've got these deadlines, but I'm in meetings all morning. Which is more important? Because if I'm in the meetings for four hours, I'm likely to miss the deadlines." If your manager gives you a clear priority, you can either skip the meetings or use them as a "get out of deadline free" card. If your manager says "Just stay late", then put your resume on the street, because it's time to get out. (At least, it's time if it happens very often.)
As others said, take breaks. Look out the window for five minutes, go for a walk, lean back and close your eyes. Don't try to do even the afternoon as one continuous slog.
If they wanted it done yesterday, they should have assigned more staff to the project.
Rushing or panicking isn't going to help you or them.
3 minutes to sit back, relax, and sink into the feeling you get after spending an afternoon at the beach, slightly bored, nothing to do, nowhere to be.
There’s always three minutes.
In the long run say no to stuff, delegate things and request more resource. I’ve found that in the long run giving it your all and going flat out is under appreciated. And who knows you might expand your empire and get the status that goes with that.
Also check what your priorities are to ensure your not wasting time
