Archive for the ‘self management’ Category

Keeping balance in your life

Sunday, August 15th, 2010

I think the topic is applicable to everyone who works. Whether you work for someone or for yourself. You do your best work when you are energized and excited. You can only be energized and excited if you have balance in your life – as a colleague of mine says, you need to fill your buckets before you can do a great job.

When you work for someone else, that can be as simple as not taking work home on the weekend, or taking a two week vacation. When you work for yourself, it gets a bit more complicated. You need to find the opportunities between client needs to refresh yourself.

I’ve found myself thinking lately about all the things I have to do. The problem is  I work better at things I get to do. My blinking alarm was telling me that it was time to take a break. But I still had all these things I had to do.

When I get in this cycle I find it works to look at when I think I can take a break – next week, after a milestone/deadline has passed, whatever works.

Then I plan what I’ll do with my time off and as the day approaches I let people know I am taking a day off.

I find the planning helps me feel like I’m taking a bit of time off because I’m thinking of what I want to do. Not only what I have to do.

I planned my day off for last Thursday and protected the day by letting clients and my business partner know I would not be available. And, it worked.

I not only got Thursday off, but I have been doing more reading and relaxing since Thursday than I’ve done for a couple of months. The added bonus is when I think about the work on my plate, and getting more work, it feels like something I get to do again.

What do you do to fill your buckets?

Happy PMing

Perry

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Posted in motivation, self management | 1 Comment »

People skills and your inner voice

Sunday, June 20th, 2010

Have you ever wondered why that team member suddenly causes you more problems when you have less time to deal with them?

It’s not them.

When you get under pressure, your little inner voice, the one you ignore otherwise, starts telling you how to act. It’s a lizard voice in your lizard brain. Rarely will your voice tell you ‘be patient’, ‘ask questions’. It usually comes in the form of “get it done and deal with the people later”.

My voice tends to tell me to ‘just get it done and don’t wait for people to figure it out. You can always show them how you did it afterward”. Not very empowering for the rest of the team.

The lesson I’ve learned over the years – and still have to remember to learn – is when that lizard starts talking I come to a stop and remind myself to ‘be patient’ and ‘ask questions’.

When you start to hear that voice, whatever yours says to you, take a breath think and then act.

What about when there’s a safety issue? I suggest that the best time to make sure you aren’t causing more problems rather than calmly dealing with the situation.

Happy PMing

Perry

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Posted in Team management, Uncategorized, self management | No Comments »

How do you add value to your client?

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

One of the questions that comes up on discussion boards and with clients is what does the Project Manager do? I have to say I’ve had my struggles in answering this question in the past.

I’ve been chatting with clients over the last week and I think I now have an answer – at least for me, your answer might be different.

I take the complex and simplify it. When my client says “it’s a lot of work”, I get excited. I can take the ‘lot of work’ and make it manageable. I love doing that!

Yes, I report on status, I manage issues and risks and I communicate and support others in communicating. But, what I do first, is simplify. I remember a book I read on consulting that answered the question ‘how do you eat an elephant’ – one bite at a time.

So, I take the elephant and I carve it into bite sized pieces. I pull the overwhelming list of activities out of my client’s mind and give it back to them as a schedule.

What’s your answer to the question “what does a project manager do?”

Happy PMing.

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Posted in Professionalism, execution, motivation, self management | No Comments »

PM as e-publisher

Sunday, November 29th, 2009

So, now I’m on the other side of the table from my comfort zone. As the business owner and partner I have to think about much more than just how to deliver. It’s what to deliver as well.

I think we’ve done well in understanding our niche; new authors, good books, all genre’s. And our competition; well, there are lots of flavours of what we’re doing but we look to the traditional p-publishers as the market to watch. Why? Well, they have the market defined and at some point will think of digital as the primary format and figure out how to deal in the digital world.

We agreed to take November off to write our next great novel. It’s been hard for me to stay away from marketing and reviewing other authors’ work. But two more days and we’re back on focus.

My priorities for the next phase – publish books – is to finalize the details of the initiation phase – and move through to execution (how many projects jump into execution with key initiation steps still open).  I hear the screams from the PMs out there – yes we’ve done our planning!!!  It overlapped the initiation phase like so many business projects do, figuring out what we need to do and at the same time figuring out how to do it.

We have some great authors lined up and our first titles should appear at your favourite e-bookstore within the month.

Keep your eye on PaperBox Books - great books on the download

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Posted in Planning, motivation, self management | No Comments »