Balancing My Workload

In 2018, I set a goal for myself: Don’t work 60-hour weeks on proposals. I decided to get all my work done in a 40-hour week (like a normal human being) and use my free time for my hobby projects, which included an aggressive timeline for finishing and publishing my first novel. It was a tough task to force myself to get my proposal work done swiftly, while maintaining proposal quality and sticking to my aggressive writing schedule.

Unless I’m dealing with a very quick-turn proposal, I never work a proposal on the weekends.

Four months into 2018, on April 8, I finished the final draft of my novel after submitting four proposals, doing pre-RFP prep on four opportunities, writing and submitting numerous RFIs, training three new proposal team members, and completing many random items on my daily task list. How did I do it? I came up with a few hard and fast rules to follow:

1. Be smart about reusable content. As I write new proposal content, I add it to a reuse folder to save it for a rainy day. This saves time later: I won’t have to remember in which proposal I wrote that stirring management story.
2. Multitask when you can. While working on writing my novel, I also wanted to jump-start my research on publishing and marketing opportunities. Since I was already spending an hour at the gym every day, I started listening to podcasts and audiobooks on publishing and marketing my book. These are also great for those hours spent commuting.
3. Pick a designated refresh time and set “do not answer” hours. I have certain hours of the week that I block off, during which I refuse to schedule work. Unless I’m dealing with a very quick-turn proposal, I never work a proposal on the weekends. I would much rather work a long day during the week and keep the weekends entirely free for my personal pursuits. I also stop checking my emails after 7 p.m. on weeknights; if you can’t catch me before dinner, then it can wait until the morning!
4. Prioritize the important things and don’t do the other ones. I love watching television, and I followed many shows. But that was eating up my free time, so I dropped almost all TV. Can someone please tell me what’s been happening on Riverdale?
5. Be realistic; accept only a workload you can achieve in a 40-hour week. I find I do my best work when I know I have enough time to complete it. This sometimes means turning down assignments or opportunities I know I do not have enough time to do. I would rather complete one task well than fail at two tasks.
6. Understand that you will be better at achieving personal and professional goals if you take care of yourself. We’re not workhorses. I realized I needed to make sure I had free time to take care of myself. I made it a priority to get enough sleep, be healthy, and indulge in an extravagance that makes me happy.
7. Let people know what you are doing and why; ask them to respect that. To be successful, you must get buy-in from your boss, peers, friends, and loved ones. When writing my novel, I had to cut back on social time and increase writing time. I let people know in advance what I was doing, so they could be more understanding. Hopefully they will want to hang out with me now that I’m done!

Morgan Barker is a proposal manager with federal contractor All Native Group in Alexandria, Virginia. She can be reached at mbarker@allnativegroup.com.