101: Managing Yourself
Managing yourself? What an odd concept. But it's necessary: for career growth, professional development and exploring your strengths. Here are three ways — while you're managing others — that you can also keep yourself on track:
Do your own feedback analysis. Not a survey on your performance, but a prediction-and-follow-up process. When you make a major decision or major action at work, write down what you expect will happen. Compare what you expected to happen with the reality nine or 12 months later. The results will be valuable. “I have been practicing this method for 15 to 20 years now, and every time I do it, I am surprised,” the late business management guru Peter F. Drucker wrote in a 2005 article at HarvardBusinessReview.com. “The feedback analysis showed me, for instance —and to my great surprise — that I have an intuitive understanding of technical people.”
Make yourself accountable. Just as you follow up with your employees — asking how many contracts a sales rep submitted or how many hours a consultant billed — follow up with yourself on how you're spending your time, advises an article by David E. Weliver at MoneyUnder30.com. Reviewing to-do lists each day and every Friday is one way to keep yourself in check. “Even outside of work, you can do the same ... How were your eating habits this week? Did you exercise this month? What can you do better next week?”
Get in the driver's seat in your career. Instead of reacting to opportunities, create them, advises an article at Workplace911.org. This may sound like an insurmountable task, but not when you break it into smaller tasks. “Grab a cup of coffee with someone doing a job that has always intrigued you. Take an online assessment survey. You'll be surprised at how much you can accomplish in just a half an hour,” the article reads. n
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