My best wishes to everyone!
Category: General Page 2 of 6
…and Happy Holidays to everyone!
HR
June was a bit of a hectic month. I had a few additional commitments to take care of -on top of my job, and the book launch- and also, I had to take a few days off due to health issues.
As I have promised on several occasions, one of my objectives for 2021 is to publish my book. Today, everything seems to point that in the next days I should have a major announcement for you.
Thanks for standing by.
HR.
A few days ago I got my first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.
I thought it would be harder to book an appointment, but it turned out to quicker than what I expected. It’s very fortunate that I live in a country where there is an unbelievable logistics to get people vaccinated as soon as possible. It is a true privilege for which I have to be very thankful.
HR
I have a very good memory. Really good. Yet, I always take notes.
Plenty of time I see fellow employees or coworkers relying on memory for their meeting minutes, and countless of times I see delays, mishaps or misunderstandings, just because there was an incorrect recording of an event, a task, a meeting or an agreement.
The reason why I keep notes -and by notes I mean use project management tracking resources- is because if someone else was to take over my job, or simply have a quick look at what I’m doing, they should be able to easily figure out exactly every single piece of information about a project.
Always think of the team.
HR
Working from home, masks, events with no crowds, and so many other routines we weren’t used to two years ago… but we’re slowly starting to go back.
From what it looks, 2021 will be “The transition year”: a year to refigure things out, a year in which we may start to get glimpses of the way life worked before this all started.
HR
Happy New Year 2021!
HR
Merry Christmas!
HR
Due to an event that took place recently in my personal life and of which for now I cannot share, but I will later, I will be taking a break from blogging for the upcoming weeks.
I will resume in January or February, 2021.
HR
Working from home has been an interesting transition for a lot of people over the past months, in part because it involves managing requests from internal and external clients that come in a different fashion as we were used to when we had to go to our 9 to 5 office jobs.
I consider myself a very organized person, especially when it comes to prioritizing tasks and deliverables, however I am aware that I am part of a significant minority in the work force. Most people I have worked throughout my life work on a “First come-First serve” basis, whether if it’s tasks, phone calls, emails or anything. I, on the other hand, learned two of the most important lessons in the corporate world at a very early age in my life: 1) You can’t please everyone at the same time, and 2) You can’t please everyone, period.
So what is my thought process when I get seven emails asking for something at the same time? Needless to say a three paragraph blog post is not going to be enough to provide a straight answer to that question, but I will try to give a few quick pointers:
- Stop FCFS now. Take a deep breath, pause and relax (I’m dead serious). Take your time to clear your head and think right. You’ll appreciate what a few minutes of peace can do for you.
- Calculate how much time will each task take.
- Estimate how much of your focus will each task take.
- Separate what’s urgent from what’s important, in order. Yes, you can do it.
- Spend between 30 and 60 minutes to get rid of “Quick, easy and fast” (less than 5 minutes tasks). No more than that.
- Spend the rest of your day getting rid of “Long, hard and detailed” tasks.
- Don’t take any more requests until you get rid of what’s on your plate. Adding up is not going to help. Put it in a second queue list you’ll look at later after you’re done with your original tasks.
- Be honest. If you can’t make a dead line, tell your client right away that you’ll be late. He’ll appreciate and value you for it, rather than you going on mute mode.
- Finally, set goals and be true to them. Finish what you promise.
Good luck!
HR