Feeling stuck? One more post for workaholics. Chances are you have a bunch of projects that you juggle 24/7. So the “My Competing Priorities” exercise might be right for you. All you need is 9 minutes, a pen and a sheet of paper. (No, it’s not about origami.)
At first we can’t rest normally, then we procrastinate and can’t work normally, then we work longer to achieve the planned results. Vicious cycle?
We won’t talk about prioritization methods like Kano, RICE, ICE and so on. Some time ago I wrote about the ICE scoring model because it struck me with its simplicity and seemed like a handy tool on the spot. But then it occurred to me that it often happens that many activities are actually of relatively equal importance. At least in my case, but I’m sure someone else has the same. How do you prioritize when everything is important? ICE doesn’t help much with this.
Before I tell you exactly what I did—and you can just scroll down to the picture at the bottom of the page as it sums it all up—I’d like to add a little more background and also touch on the topic of decluttering.
Continue readingHave you ever caught yourself at the beginning of a task and you have no idea where you left off? This can be especially true when you have multiple tasks and need to split them up by time.
I am sure many can recall such cases. And at the same time, what often happens when we are working on a task is we think “No, I will not forget this” or “I will work on this tomorrow, I will clearly remember everything.”
Unfortunately or fortunately, life has a very annoying habit of not following our plans, and sometimes literally anything can happen between part 1 and part 2 of your task. More days before you can reconvene, an unexpected trip, other major distractions, and so on. And here we are at the beginning of the second part, again having no idea where we left off.
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Today I came across an article on how to become a better listener. The author says that in any conversation, in addition to being able to hear what the opponent is saying, we also need to convey interest and involvement. The article covers some tips on how to convey that interest, including repeating what the person said, nodding, etc. And while all of these things can be in the conversation, just trying to do it on purpose feels fake to me.
But nodding really works, you might say. Yes, if it’s real or looks real, otherwise it might convey something else, like an attempt at manipulation or that you’re pretending to be an active listener but thinking of something else. It doesn’t help the conversation.
I have a better idea, which is also much simpler, because you don’t have to remember all the “tactics” of an active listener, but instead just be. It works for me most of the time.
Continue readingWhat is a toxic team? Toxic people? No, Not really.
Better way to define it as toxic relationships between people in a team. And it’s important, because if we say that people are toxic it is impossible to change, but if we say behavior is toxic, this is a whole different story.
And the good news is that it is totally under a team manager’s area of influence. So if you are managing a team, and it now behaves in a “toxic” way, it is not hard to fix. I’ll tell you four simple steps to take so you can improve it right away.
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Often when we want to develop ourselves we pinpoint our weaknesses as opportunities for improvement. And that is ok when we want to get rid of some behavior that makes us unhappy or hinder our progress.
But look at this from another perspective. If you want to achieve something, progress, then the way of improving your weaknesses will take your focus and rather bring you to zero, if you count weaknesses as minuses. Say, -1 becomes 0.
From the other hand if you build on your strengths you will evolve from plus to multiple pluses, i.e. you will more likely excel at a chosen niche that you are good at and will become even stronger with a stronger competitive advantage. Say, 1 becomes 2 or 3. It is naturally easier to further develop your strengths because you are like a fish in water in this field already. And you more likely do not have a cognitive difficulty to start working on that and dedicate time and effort.
Do you know your strengths?
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When some part of you does not want to do something it will find a reason to justify inaction. For example your conscious hard-working part wants to read a scientific book and your procrastinating part wants to scroll more Instagram stories. And whether you read a book or watch stories depends on which your part wins at a given moment: procrastinating or hard-working.
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