Managing Organizational Behavior 2nd Edition by Timothy Baldwin,Bill Bommer,Robert Rubin

Exercise 7

Getting a Priority Done under Stress
You have been in a management role for two years and find yourself absolutely overwhelmed. While you feel as if you are working hard most every hour of the day, you are frustrated with your inability to get all your priority work done. You have begun to work much longer hours and are experiencing a great deal of stress and a loss of balance in your life. There are so many distractions during the day that you generally fi nd it diffi cult to get started on bigger projects. Now you have a really important project due and have already missed one deadline. You feel guilty about missing that deadline, but you feel so tired and stressed that you aren't sure how you're going to keep from slipping further behind in your most important work.
How would you define the problem here? How might you deal with the many time robbers and distractions that keep you from working on the big project? What specific strategies might you use? What should you do right away?