Time Management for the Project or Program Manager

 

Book Review by Larry Marks of the Productivity Project, Proven Ways to Become More Awesome

As we approach a new year and as most companies, we are working on our performance reviews, we get to think how productive we tend to be. Depending on the work circumstances, type of firm and environment in which we work, we do not tend to think of ourselves as either productive or not. We have annual performance goals that we need to reach such as utilization percentages. We may not think of our overall performance as to whether we are using our time wisely.

There are many published markets that describe techniques how one can explore time utilization. But Chris Bailey has done them one level better. He is not one of those time experts or persons with extensive management or human resources experience. Instead, he obtained his business degree, and spent more than a year trying to explore on himself how to improve his productivity. He tested them too.

I found the Productivity Project useful for several ways. He goes behind the scenes and explores what makes someone productive; such as how much coffee one drinks, caffeine, or meals or exercise one does during the day or what time one wakes up during the day. He does not venture into the type of work one does and that is the variable since being a “thinking intensive” profession such as medicine, a health care professional may be on a different level productivity than an office worker. So, the type of work is the variable too. But the common thread and principle that the author recommends is moderation and experimentation. Moderation on the caffeine, meals and amount of sleep. The key also Chris Bailey mentions is that he spent over a year trying to know himself.  His book deals with procrastination, and asks the reader to understand why do they procrastinate. If it is a task that the person delays performing, then perhaps the person should work on that first.  Chris Bailey offers valuable approaches to improving one’s productivity.

For coffee or tea, experimenting with the level and combination of caffeine and decaf. For meals, he recommends light meals such as salads, and for exercise, he does not describe the type of exercise, but that one should exercise daily. He wants the person to be more cognizant of what they do during the day. He works to identify the problem tasks that take up most of the time. He found tasks such as:

Answering email

Answering meetings

Managing calendar,

Coaching people and business on productivity

Researching and scheduling travel, to name a few. But he found that when he started the day, that one should approach the day with the mindset of what he or she wanted to accomplish during the day, no matter what it is, to manage the time awake to accomplish these goals. That’s the key. He is goal-focused, and meals, any procrastination, exercise supplement and enhance the energy levels of the person trying to accomplish these goals. Chris Bailey has written a novel book that is engaging, though provoking and asks that the reader take an introspective look at themselves to be successful.