Taking Care of Yourself: Some Tools & Tips from the Archives

 

This article is for the work-weary professional, manager or anyone else who feels swamped, is always getting interrupted and who feels like screaming in frustration! The selections below are from my collection Inspirations: Optimize Your Attitude, Maximize Your Results. These three are hand-picked to inspire you to take care of yourself, reclaim your humanity, enhance your job satisfaction and find some peace of mind.

Set and respect "office hours."

This excerpt from The Project Management Minimalist is a short pep talk and set of practical guidelines that will help you set aside uninterruptible office hours so you can be more productive and get into that "flow" state in which we all do our best work. 

 

Check out the book excerpt.

Leverage your signature strengths.

There is much happiness, emotional satisfaction and, arguably, higher-quality output to be had when you are doing what you are purpose-built to do.  Are you leveraging your "signature strengths?"  Learn more in this excerpt from The Project Management Minimalist.

Check out the book excerpt.

Is it time to go "off the grid?"

Ever feel like running away and simply disappearing for a while? Getting lost, going completely off the grid, can be one of the most energy-renewing, creativity-enhancing and simply joyful things you can do!  This article from the archives makes the case for doing so.  

Check out the article.

Get The Project Management Minimalist from Amazon or as a free PDF.

If you find the preceding samples to be valuable, why not go a little deeper. Specifically:

• Learn all about Project Management Minimalism here.  
• Get The Project Management Minimalist book in hard copy, paperback or kindle format here at Amazon.
• Get the entire book for FREE: Download the full book, at no cost (and no strings attached) in PDF format here. 
• Get all things related to PM Minimalism (including a do-it-yourself PM course outline, videos, audios and team-building/class materials) FREE at my Internet Archives Favorites collection.

Enjoy! 

Overwhelmed by chores? Spend more time in Quadrant 2!

[Note: You can download and listen to this entire article as an audio podcast from my Inspired Project Teams archives. However, you might want to refer to the grid below when listening.] 

Stephen Covey’s classic The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is one of the best selling business books of all time. Early in my career, I worked my way through this amazing text and also spent a substantial amount of time listening to the audio version, narrated by Covey himself. In these works, Stephen Covey describes a brilliantly simple grid for analyzing, and ultimately changing, the way you spend your time. Covey's grid may be the best time management tool ever invented!

Google Books listing: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Like millions of others working to become successful, I spent a substantial amount of time applying this grid to my own activities, sorting and re-prioritizing them to make the most of my time and efforts. So, on an individual and personal level, I know this tool really works!

But how about applying this grid to project management? After giving it some thought, I’ve come up with some suggestions for how you might use the grid to better focus the time and efforts of an individual team member or an entire project team. In this post, I’ll share these suggestions with you.

Four-Quadrant Grid Applied to Teams