The easy way to develop your skills

People generally learn a range of skills when they’re at school/college/university. Then, for various reasons, some people stop learning. It might be initially frustrating, or they may think they lack motivation or opportunity so they stick with what they know.

But they’re missing out on a lot – often learning a new skill can blossom into an unexpected passion, introduce you to a whole new circle of people, push your career in a satisfying new direction or give you a whole new perspective on the world.

And it doesn’t have to be work-related skills – interests like learning a language, or how to cook, or how to appreciate art will enhance your life, and you never know where they might lead.

The easiest way to make this happen is to schedule your learning into your routine, perhaps just a little time, but regularly – that’s the secret. Just keep showing up – building your skills little by little.

You’ll look back in a year and realise you’re well on your way to mastery. And as well as your new skill, you’ll also have a great sense of satisfaction.

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Doing a lot but not getting ahead?

Greg has a lot to do.

He begins each day with a huge task list, determined to complete as many things as he can. He gets through a lot but at the end of each day there are always a few tasks that don’t get done, usually the ones that take a little longer – so they’re moved onto the next day and become a little more urgent.

Greg is playing the volume game; he’s judging his performance by how many tasks he can do. While he feels like he’s getting a lot done, he’s constantly stressed out by the high number of urgent tasks that interrupt his day.

If Greg approached his task list in a different way, he’d find that while initially he might not get as many tasks done, he’d end up with a smaller number of urgent tasks, more time and less stress.

So how do you approach your tasks differently? Try to identify tasks that have specific benefits – these are the important ones:

•    Identify if a task is something that will save you time in the future. An example is taking the time to work out proper estimates for a project – if you estimate poorly, the impact on your time in the future will be much greater than the time you spend estimating.

•    Identify if a task will increase your understanding of a project – this will help you avoid a crisis in the future, which is always time-consuming. For example, forming a deep understanding of a new project today may result in a question which, if asked now, will allow you to decide a course of action that will avoid a problem in the future.

•    Identify if a task is directly related to generating income, either for your company or for yourself.

•    Identify if a task builds a relationship with a customer – relationships lead to business.

•    Identify if a task builds a personal relationship – personal relationships improve the quality of your life.

•    Identify if the task improves your ability to enjoy life – tasks involving health, personal financial security and stress reduction.

You’ll find the number of important tasks is quite small and on most days, you’ll have time for other tasks. And if you make sure you get the important things done, you’ll have less urgent tasks, you’ll be more in control and ultimately you’ll be more successful.

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What you need to get productive right now

I meet a lot of people who are overworked, stressed out and generally feeling like everything is piling up on top of them. Many of these people work in IT, and for them I think that’s part of the problem.

The peculiar thing about tech-savvy people is that they tend to look for technological solutions to their productivity issues. They look for productivity software, mobile applications, collaboration tools and the like, but usually don’t get long term value from these gadgets. There is an initial flush of productivity when these tools are first adopted, but within a few weeks they’re back to where they were: stressed and overloaded. And their technological solution is languishing on the hard drive, half full of weeks-old actions and tasks. The ’solution’ has just added to their workload.

Solve the issue

If you’re trying to get productive, there are really only 2 things that you need:

1. CLARITY and
2. FOCUS

Clarity

CLARITY is being specific about what the task is that needs to be done next. Define it, quantify it, and describe precisely what you’re going to do about it.

Focus

FOCUS is a decision to get that task done, forsaking all distractions till it’s finished. The phone rings – ignore it and get on with it. An email arrives – ignore it (or better still, close your email). Every time you decide to stay focused is a victory for you and it makes it easier to stay focused for the next task. And the next, and the next.

Productivity tools can help, but only after you’ve got clarity and focus.

So decide NOW to have clarity and focus, and your productivity will start to build. And as your productivity gains momentum, you’ll find your stress and sense of overwork will fall away – no technology required.

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Best productivity habit of 2008

The best productivity habit I established last year was using my Daily Imperatives list – my focus has increased and I’m getting my must-do items done every day.

Here’s how I use it:

• It’s like a to-do list but I only put things on it that must get done today – anything else goes onto the standard to-do list. After double-checking all the items are must-do, the list I end up with is rarely long so I know I’ll get to the less important items as well during the day.
• For every entry on my list, I describe the action and specify the desired outcome. So instead of writing:

  “Fred re documentation”

  I write:

  “Call Fred: Request completion of design document by Friday”

  Then when I get to the item in a few hours time, I can quickly action it instead of having to remember what it was about Fred and documentation I had to do.

• I number the items in order of importance. Occasionally I only number the first few, but I notice that my days are more effective when I number them all at the start of the day.

  I then start at 1 and only move on to 2 when 1 is finished. If I’m blocked on 1, say if I’m waiting for someone to call me back, the worksheet has space to jot down notes like ‘Fred will call back by 3pm’. Then I can easily pick up where I left a blocked task off.

  And if I’m interrupted, I don’t waste time after each interruption deciding what I’ll work on next because it’s on the list.

• There’s a place at the top of the worksheet where I enter important leading indicator tasks that I want to do every day. I also put important administrative tasks here too – those things that work best when they’re updated a little each day.

Once I’ve completed the Daily Imperatives, I move on to my regular to-do list.

The productivity gains from the Daily Imperatives list come from 3 main areas:

1. It’s easy to see the important tasks, and to make sure they get done before the more trivial items.
2. Because I have a clear sequenced plan for the day, interruptions are easier to absorb and I don’t waste time re-prioritising.
3. My stress is removed. I work through the list of imperatives, happy in the fact that I’m getting the most important things done first.

A note about ‘urgent’ tasks – if a task is urgent, it’s usually the result of an important task that wasn’t done early enough. Have a quick review of urgent tasks so you can avoid the same situation in the future, and don’t push important tasks to the bottom of the list in favour of them otherwise you’ll end up with yet more urgent tasks.

You can download my daily imperatives worksheet for free here, or by clicking on the image up there at the top of the post.

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Saved by the Bell Curve?

For any activity – golf, business, financial management, karate, poker, art, work, music etc – there’s a small number of people doing it who are not good at it at all, a large number of people who are average at it and a small number of people who are extremely good at it.

Plot this on a graph and it creates a bell shape – the large bulge in the middle is the people who are average at the activity. While people can and do move from not very good to average, very few move from average to extremely good.

So how do you move to extremely good?

First identify what the average people are doing to achieve their mediocrity. This is what it takes to be average, and you can avoid it or stop doing it.

Then identify what the successful people are doing and start doing that. And watch your success grow.

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Conquer the dark sides of perfectionism

There’s a dark side?

Being a perfectionist is good, isn’t it? It means you do something right, first time and every time and it’s something a lot of people aspire to. Well, actually perfection is a highly overrated goal which can disrupt your working life and kill your dreams.

First, to do something perfectly usually takes a lot of effort. You do it, re-do it, re-re-do it and it’s still not quite right, and you’re way over your deadline. The people relying on you find this frustrating, even if your work is totally flawless – they’re held up by your strive for an ideal when they would have been just as satisfied with an on-time result that gave them what they wanted. They’ll stop getting you to do work for them and you may find yourself moved on.

The solution to this is to know that a ‘perfect’ job is one that exactly meets the expected level of results. If you’re going to be perfect at something, be perfect at finding out what that level is and meeting it, rather than applying your own exacting, and possibly inaccurate, measures.

The real dark side

The second problem with being a perfectionist is that it causes you to delay or, worse still, not start things because you fear you won’t be able to do a perfect job straight away.

As you progress through life, you naturally get better at things, and you grow accustomed to finding success at a decreasing range of activities.

As a child, you put in a huge amount of effort into learning to walk, and most of that time was spent on your backside. Most adults would not put that much effort into learning something, especially if they had such setbacks – they’d say ‘I’m just not good at this – it didn’t work for me the first time, I’ll go back to something I know I can do’.

At work, you may stick to the job you know, even though it’s boring, because you think, quite rightly, that you won’t be perfect in that challenging new job immediately. Or you might put off doing that huge paper because you know you won’t be happy with the first draft – suddenly it’s due and your job’s on the line.

Say you dream of becoming an artist, or a writer, or a tennis ace. But knowing the amount of work that will be needed before you reach a level of average proficiency, you don’t try at all. All that effort, just to become average?

So what’s the answer?

Realise what world champions, and toddlers, already know – no-one’s perfect the first time at something new. Keep working on it and you’ll start to see small, ever-increasing successes that will spur you on and reinforce your efforts – the occasional really good brush-stroke, a pretty great turn of phrase or a better than average tennis serve.

And keep trying – don’t let the dark side of perfectionism prevent you from chasing your dreams.

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It isn’t fine when everything’s fine

Ever had one of those days when all you’ve done is put out one fire after another? It’s all you can do just to keep up and your productive, interesting work sits on the back burner. It’s stressful and frustrating – it’s a reactive day.

But it doesn’t need to be that way – most emergencies can be prevented, or at least reduced, by identifying them early and taking appropriate action before they escalate to emergency status – this is pro-activity.

To be proactive, you need to start when everything is going fine. As one of your regular tasks, identify potential problems – ask yourself ‘Is it all really fine?’ and ‘What could go wrong?’ Then either prevent the problem or put an action plan in place to deal with it.

You don’t need to focus on the negatives all the time, just make a small effort when the going is smooth to stop problems becoming bigger than they need to be.

The 10:1 law

There’s a law of software development that says it’s 10 times cheaper to incorporate a feature early (i.e. at the design phase) than at the end of the project. This same rule applies to project management – it’s far less work to prevent an emergency than to have to deal with it, and much less stressful too.

The lesson here is to invest your ‘everything’s fine’ time in seeking and destroying future emergencies. This leads to even more ‘everything’s fine’ time, and a much easier life.

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How are you managing your reputation?

 

Spend a few moments considering the reputations of people you know. Some have a reputation for great technical ability, some for excellent project delivery – perhaps some have a reputation for late task completion or poor punctuality. What do you have a reputation for?

A reputation is a promise. It tells someone what they can expect when they deal with you. Importantly, it’s a promise that’s created not by your words, but by your actions. It’s your personal brand – your personal marketing. When someone recommends you, it’s based on your reputation.

In the same way that successful businesses actively manage their brand, you should actively manage your reputation – it will take you wherever you want to go in your career.

So how do you manage your reputation?

1. What do you want your reputation to be? Do you want to be known for your leadership; for being hard-line and decisive or being a compassionate, consensus-style project manager? Do you want a reputation for being an excellent communicator, a reputation for being responsive, proactive or well organized? Write down the elements that will make up your ‘brand’.
2. What are you doing about it? What specific things can you do – every day – to build your reputation through your actions? How will you conduct yourself – what will you change? Write this down too, so you can do these actions every day.
3. What are you doing (or not doing) that’s undermining your reputation? If you want a reputation for strong leadership, but procrastinate about decisions, your actions are actually giving you a reputation for weak leadership. Remember doing nothing still contributes to your reputation – but it won’t be the reputation you want.
4. How are you monitoring your reputation? It’s a good reality check if you can find someone who will be honest with you.

My suggestion is to take the daily actions you come up with and add them to your leading indicator checklist. That way you’ll quickly incorporate effective reputation-building actions into your routine.

You’ll be surprised at how quickly you can build the reputation you want by simply managing it actively and giving it a little focus every day. Remember, no action is still an action!

What will you do today to build your reputation?

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Play the Project Management Game

If you treated your project management like a professional sports person treats their sport, how would your perspectives change?

You take it seriously but you don’t take it to heart

You strive to do your best; to push yourself to do better than you did yesterday. If you hit a setback, you don’t stress about it all night; you dust yourself off and prepare for the next game.

A new day, a new game

Each day is a new game. You know you can’t change the game you played yesterday, but you can play today’s game to the best of your ability.

You work on your game

You continually look for ways to improve your game. You work with your coach to build skills and techniques to make you a champion. Every single day you review what worked for you and what didn’t.

You have fun playing the game

You know it’s a GAME and it’s meant to be fun. You also know this doesn’t mean less work but you put effort in to make it fun because you know you win most often when you’re enjoying yourself.

 

So treat your project management like a game, and yourself as a professional player. It puts you in a great frame of mind and you’ll enjoy the challenges even more.

Play hard and have fun!

Effective project managers live in the future

There are two types of project manager: those who live in the past and those who live in the future. Those living in the past are so busy dealing with tasks that were due yesterday that they haven’t got time to think about what’s going to clobber them tomorrow – they’re reactive. Those who live in the future think ahead, mitigating future risks and finding opportunities for project gains – they’re proactive and as a result, effective.

Leading indicator checklists are a great tool to help you become proactive – but how do you know what your leading indicators are? To identify them, first look at the disciplines you need to be outstanding in your project management role.

The disciplines

Good project management disciplines include:

• Pro-activity: Thinking ahead, anticipating risks, seeking opportunities to advance ahead of the plan.
• Stakeholder communication: Making sure stakeholders feel informed and included.
• Professionalism & reputation: Being prompt in response to calls, emails and queries. Managing meetings effectively.
• Leadership of project team: Being an effective leader, building team cohesion, fostering communication flow.
• Adding value: Finding ways to ’stand out from the crowd’ – to contribute something extra to stakeholders or to the project at no real cost.

You may identify other disciplines that are important for you – great, keep going.

Actions from the disciplines

Now identify all the actions that you can to do to help build that discipline. Some won’t make it into your leading indicators checklist, but they’ll still be useful for focussing on project health, team performance etc.

Make a daily checklist

The secret to success with leading indicators is to turn them into a checklist. This Harvard article about checklists shows why they are so powerful.

From your list of actions, make a checklist of those you can do daily that, combined, will support all the disciplines. You’ll find some actions you can use as a basic core, and some that will vary from project to project depending on targets and people. Pick an effective yet manageable number – too many and you’ll end up back in the past.

My personal checklist always contains at least the following six actions:

Daily Leading Indicators		Why I use this action
Have I spoken with each of my team? Leadership, Adding value		Talking with team members provides insight into their strengths, weaknesses and motivations – vital for good leadership.
Have I updated task status in the WBS and reviewed future tasks? Professionalism, Leadership, Pro-activity		Using conversations with the project team members, you can tell exactly where your project is up to and can quickly identify and deal with any potential problems. Reviewing future tasks also helps you think of optimisations you can make to progress the project.
Have I reviewed and updated project risks? (Pro-activity, Professionalism)		If you want to think about the future, reviewing risks is a great place to start.
Have I spoken with my stakeholders? Stakeholder communication, Leadership, Adding value		I believe that talking (not email) is essential to building effective working relationships. A phone call is quick and establishes a personal connection. The more you talk with customers, the easier it gets, and the easier it is to add value. I find reasons to speak with stakeholders as often as I can.
Have I sent actions/minutes from my meetings on the same day as the meeting? Professionalism, Leadership, Adding value		By being consistently efficient, you set an expectation of performance and professionalism for all members of the team, internal and external. Meeting attendees will learn that your minutes will contain all their actions and makes it far more likely the actions will be done.
Have I followed up phone conversations with email? Professionalism, Leadership, Communication, Adding value		This reduces the risk of you or the recipient forgetting or misunderstanding what was discussed and provides an opportunity for them to clarify anything. Keep the email short, and use bullet points – it’s easier to read and more effective as a reminder.

 

When completing the checklist, keep it simple. The answer to the indicator question is either yes or no.

Use your checklist every day and reviewing your results each week and you will easily identify if you’re consistently missing an action. This lets you rectify it before you slip back into reactive mode.

Leading indicator checklists are a powerful tool to
help you to become more proactive and effective- they keep you on top of your projects and free up more time for you to think about the future.

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