Personal Effectiveness: 5 Tips for Project Managers

as a project manager everyone's going to be expecting you to be a highly effective professional so in this video I want to give you five of my tips for personal effectiveness managing your own time and how well you use it is at the core of personal effectiveness and so tip number one is about good personal time management and the technique I advocate is drawn from two sources on the one hand personal psychology and on the other project management methodology and I call it the Oates principle at the end of each day takes some time to think about tomorrow and for tomorrow think about the outcomes that you want to generate in the discretionary time you have available that is to say you should already have some time planned because you will have meetings in the diary and other commitments so only work from the hours you have available that are not pre committed and ask yourself what would be the outcomes I want to achieve what do I want to be different at the end of tomorrow compared to now from those outcomes think about the activities you need to engage in to make those things happen yes make a to-do list a task list but this is a finite closed task list not a never-ending to-do list that will always leave you at the end of the day with more to do this is the list of activities that will create the outcomes you want next for each activity estimate the time that it'll take you this is good project management discipline and you know that this is the trickiest part get used to overestimating the amount of time you think it'll take because most of us are over optimistic about what we can achieve and the final step in the oats process is to schedule each of those activities into that discretionary time that you have available in your day that way when you get interruptions if it's not appropriate to deal with that interruption here and now you can look the person in the eye and say I have something scheduled please come back at 3 o'clock so the oats principle it's based largely on human psychology and the project process and it will work wonderfully well in helping you to manage how you use your time tip number two is to cultivate your personal resilience because project management is an endeavor that hits you from time to time with setbacks and knocks and as the leader of your project team and the face of your project to your stakeholders people are going to expect you to be able to bounce back effectively and for you to be an effective operator you need to be resilient to even the hardest of knocks and it's one thing to have a whole set of techniques to help you to rebound but what's most valuable is to be prepared to build in as much resilience as you can and there are four things that will help you to do that and the first is good fuel under the pressure of project management it can be tempting to grab a quick snack here and there to eat junk food quickly and mindlessly but if you invest your time in eating good quality food and taking your time over it it's drinking plenty of water and to limit your intake of inappropriate foods and drinks then you'll be all the more resilient Second Earth good energy make time in your daily and weekly routine for some good quality exercise it doesn't matter what kind of exercise you get so choose something that you enjoy but as you improve your exercise regime you will build up your physical fitness and your mental and emotional resilience third is good relationships when things get tough if you've got relationships you can rely upon for support and for sympathy and for a listening ear then you'll be able to rebound back much easier if you don't have those relationships or if you're not investing in those relationships in the good times and they let you down then you're going to find it tough to be resilient against the knocks of your project whilst you're also having to cope with the problems of not having good quality relationships in your life and fourth is good rest most of us cannot manage without a decent amount of sleep so prioritize getting good downtime and having plenty of good quality sleep give yourself a routine that prepares you for sleep so that you're not using screens right up until the point where you turn out the lights and try to sleep and make sure that where you sleep is comfortable and conducive and for most of us seven to eight hours a day is necessary if you get substantially less than that for any period of time you become so ineffective that in terms of your body's response time and your ability to think clearly it's akin to being drunk so for things good fuel good energy good relationships and good rest tip number three you need to be able to deliver a measured response under pressure and for that I recommend the scope process when you're asked a tricky question when a problem arises when you get challenged when a setback occurs the first step in the scope process is to stop the second step is to clarify what you've been asked what's happening what's going on what are the facts and then the third step is to think about your options what could you do how could you proceed what alternatives are there for your response and if your response requires several steps what's the right sequence figure out the best response and then P is for proceed but you may or may not have got it right so the e in the scoped process is to evaluate the effects of what you're doing or what you're saying observe how that's going down and if you're not getting the right reactions if you're not correcting the problem if you're not satisfying the person who's asked you the question then stop clarify why not come up with some new options and proceed again and continue to evaluate tip number four is to understand the parent adult child model from transactional analysis because as a project manager you need to portray yourself as someone who is confident at all times and yet some of us will find particularly in the early stages of our career and that people around us can make us feel pretty small it's called impostor syndrome how do I get to be here how I deserve this role and that imposter syndrome is coming from what transactional analysis caught the child state it's your inner child it's that bit of you that thinks all I need to satisfy other people I need to do what I'm told or your desire to rebel and if someone tells you off or if someone refuses to comply with your legitimate respect what they're doing is acting from the parent state the parent state is the state that tries to control it is the state that thinks it knows best but also the Paris state is that state which tries to look after you don't worry about this I'll take care of it and that makes you feel small and you either want to rebel or comply because it's comfortable but you know deep down that that's not the confident adult way to react if you feel yourself being belittled patronized or put down or criticized inappropriately stop clarify what's being said your main option is to not respond from the child state by stamping your foot and shaking your head or by meekly submitting and saying yes I'll do that it's to look them in the eye and adopt the adult state and say that's not the way I would like to be addressed what is it you really want so that I can address it properly tip number five you're smart you're bright but what you really want is for people to think of you as wise and for that you need gravitas you need wait for people to consider you as someone whose advice is worth listening to you need that kind of gravitas and there's a lot to do to acquire it but I would say there are two things that are easy to do and have a disproportionate effect on the way you come across to your benefit and the first is pacing slow down people who are excitable and talk quickly and act quickly and fidget a lot do not come across as authoritative on the other hand people who can slow down and speak deliberately who don't fill their conversations with arms and ears and likes and sort of but actually say what they mean they're the people we want to listen to and when they've said what they mean they stop and pausing is the other important part of generating a sense of gravitas so if you can introduce a little bit of slowness and a little bit of stillness into your conversation and your behavior and use it to affect and mix it with animated energy excitement and passion then you can start to build the gravitas that you need for people to look to you as the consummate professional if these tips were inspired by my kindle exclusive ebook personal effectiveness for project managers that ebook has six valuable chapters chapter one is personal time management for project managers then we've got feeling overwhelmed by your project what to do resilience for project managers how to build it and regain it three project leadership challenges for tough times confidence what you need to know to be a confident project manager and gravitas how to be a project manager of substance there are links to this ebook and to all of our kindle exclusive ebooks in the description below if you've enjoyed this video please do give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel and hit the notification bell if you want an email every time I create a new video on YouTube in the meantime I'll look forward to seeing you in the next one

Channel: Online PM Courses - Mike Clayton

Views: 1,473

Rating: 4.8064518 out of 5

Keywords: Personal Effectiveness Tips, Personal Effectiveness, Project Manager, Project Management

Id: m4gmYvjR7hU

Length: 12min 44sec (764 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 06 2019