Tweet

Get that monkey off your back!

Guest post by: Paul Puckridge

Article Overview: Whether you’re the CEO of a multi-million dollar business, a manager of a large team, a supervisor or a hard working employee, chances are there’s someone in your working life who will try to load extra things onto you. These ‘extra tasks’ are often called the ‘monkey on our back’.

Get that monkey off your back!

Whether you're the CEO of a multi-million dollar business, a manager of a large team, a supervisor or a hard working employee, chances are there's someone in your working life who will try to load extra things onto you. These ‘extra tasks' are often called the ‘monkey on our back'. Even in your family or personal friendships you can probably think of people who are good at trying to throw monkeys onto your back!

Meet the monkey!

Monkeys can often seem harmless enough. But in reality they are distractions and occurrences where extra work or additional tasks are given to you by someone else. These distractions, or monkeys, if not managed will stop you from achieving your own important goals or objectives.

A ‘monkey' is transferred to us the moment that we accept the responsibility for its care. The monkey could come in the form of a crashed computer, an angry customer, a document that needs to copied or a seemingly simple request for help from a friend.

Individually, each monkey thrown onto your back might seem harmless enough, but imagine the results if you were to take on a couple of new monkeys every day... that's a lot of bananas!

Here is a simple monkey test to see if you could be inadvertently attracting monkeys from other people.

1. Do people often drop things on your desk and ask you to do them?

2. Do you find it hard to say "no" to other people?

3. By the end of the week, do you realise that you have overcommitted your time?

4. Do you feel like you are a magnet for ‘things to do' from your manager?

5. Do you find yourself volunteering for things only to regret it later?

6. Do you know that you are just too nice to people?

If you have answered "yes" to 3 or more of these questions then you are in serious jeopardy of damaging your back by carrying too many monkeys. In all seriousness, you need to find a way to get rid of them.

How to manage your monkeys

One of the first things you will need to learn about training monkeys is to use the word "no". If you feel like you are a monkey magnet then you should start to be more assertive. When someone asks you to do something, rather than just accept their request, ask them to explain a little bit more about the task or what's involved. If you feel that you can do the job without being overwhelmed then give them a timeline that suits you.

Rather than say, "Sure leave it to me", say something like "I have a lot on at the moment, so I can have this done for you by Friday afternoon."

Final thoughts

Don't flinch even if you feel you want to. Hold your ground. If it's your manager asking, you might also want to explain what you are already doing. There are many other techniques that you can learn to master your monkeys. Just remember that being assertive is not only the first rule of monkey management, it is also the most important.

Related Articles
  Monkey Management
  Monkey Management: 3 Simple Solutions to Reclaim Your Time, Focus, and Sanity
  How you must be like the wise old German Shepherd
  Next Steps to Success
  Monkey See, Monkey Do
  Balance Your Life Simply By Changing Your Attitudes and Beliefs
  Getting My Attention
  7 Ways to Stay Sharp in Sales or how to catch your first monkey
  Parenting: What you do that sabotages your child’s success without you knowing it
  When You Feel Like Killing a Client by Robin J Elliott
  Are You Monkeylike? Joint Ventures
  Monkey See - Monkey Do
  Monkey See, Monkey Do
  Monkey Trap Marketing
  Is Your Sales Training Missing These Ingredients?
  Problem Employee? – Attack the Behavior Not the Person
  Traditional Sales Training is a Waste of Time and Money!
  Direct Marketing Excellence explores… Being Too Needy
  Breaking out of Our Mental Prisons
  Sales Training, without supporting Sales Management Training,

Article Tags: Daily Planning, Get Organized, Gtd, Paul Puckridge, Planning Your Day, The First Hour Of The Day, Work Smarts, Worksmarts



Related Forum Posts
Re: How Do You Check Google Ranking? - I have download grease monkey plugin in my Mozilla browser when i check Google ranking for keywords it give results in serial way like 1.2.3..... so it is easy to check Google Ranking.
Re: How Do You Check Google Ranking? - I often sign out all Google account before checking Google Ranking and i use "Grease monkey" Software which make it very easy by giving the SERP's in serial order.
Re: 10 ideas to make you money in 2010 - Hi Yinka, Don't do too much to slow down "global warming" just now... The recent hot air blowing around in Copenhagen must have disrupted weather patterns in the northern hemisphere because it has been brass monkey weather up here ever since. I wouldn't be surprised if climatologists begin dusting off their 1970s reports on the "new ice age"...
Re: Will you buy the cheapest car in the world or...? - [quote="BuzzAroundBooks":35o3ry2a]Hi ideasuniversity, I probably wouldn't buy the cheapest car in the world because I'm a firm believer in "you get what you pay for". A person would probably be better off buying a used Honda Civic than a new Nano Tata for $2500. I just wouldn't feel safe in a Nano Tata since the price would give it a lower perception of quality and value.[/quote:35o3ry2a] This remind me of a quote that says "If you pay peanuts, monkey will work for you"
Just chill! - Working smart and not always hard is the name of the game! Sometimes you need to take step back and hust chill- the ideas will run to you. Sometimes we block ideas because we are too busy doing what we do. Sometimes you need to let go even fall- you can't rise unless you fall and who says you are perfect. You don't have to be- just be unique. Thats what makes you different and people are attracted to different so when next you feel that you are burning out- take a step back and you may see things clearer from the back, Sit back and take notes to make improvements. what can a burnt out candle do? Unless you wqant to mould something really good out of the wax


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

What should your free giveaway be?

Understanding Influence

The Right Job - Part Five 'Compensation'

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.