I have one too; it’s my “Master Task List” pinned to the wall. I do pretty well getting my work done, but at the end of a busy week I sometimes realize I haven’t done the work I told myself was important – whether it’s about my professional development, my personal development, or my team’s development. It’s so tempting to check off a bunch of things on my checklist, and too easy to think that it’s progress when it’s really not.

You can boil it down to the difference between what’s urgent and what’s important, and often they are not the same. It’s a concept often discussed in time management; you can find lots of time management books, magazines, blogs, and workshop sessions devoted to the topic. I’ll leave it to you to read a few and pick the time management system that works for you. Instead, I’ll share two pieces of advice I’ve learned: one is aimed at helping individuals and another provides a new way for a whole team to create a shared understanding of what’s really important.

5 Ways You Can Stay Focused on What’s Important

Blogger Jonathan Mead, in his wonderfully titled Pick the Brain blog, gives us five ways to focus on what really matters. I see my strengths and weaknesses in each one of these areas, and I think you will too:

1. Set Three “Most Important Tasks” (MITs) for the day. Ask yourself, “If I could only do three things today, what would I feel the most fulfilled in doing?”

2. Focus on providing value. Ask yourself, “How much value will this provide me, or someone else?”

3. Think long-term. Ask yourself, “Will this make a difference in a week, a month or a year from now? Five years?”

4. Tackle first things first. Finishing the most important tasks in the beginning of the day ensures that you can get to other work and still feel you have accomplished something strategic.

5. Have a clear vision. If you can’t envision it, then you can’t measure it; if you can’t measure it, then you can’t manage it. Think about whether or not the work you’re doing is moving you closer to your vision, or if it won’t make much of a difference tomorrow or next week.

A New Way for Your Team to Stay Focused on What’s Important

Lena and I keep coming back to an intriguing idea that was developed in Silicon Valley. In a New York Times  interview, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus talked (among other things) about his success in using a simple system called OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). It was developed at Intel and used at Google.

Pincus echoes Jonathan Mead’s idea of the three most important tasks, but he takes it to the next level. The whole company and every single individual has one objective and three measurable key results. It keeps everyone focused on the same understanding of what really matters.

• The process starts with a pared-down “road map” or plan. Pincus says that if your road map has ten priorities for you and your team, you probably don’t know which of the three matter, and probably none of the ten are right.

• At the start of the week, you write down your three priorities for the week, and on Friday you track how you did. Your list shows each item you were going to do, with both their predicted results and actual results. The results are displayed in red if you missed them, yellow if they’re close and green if you met them.

• If you miss your results consistently, you can see that there’s a problem, dig deeper to find it, and course-correct. It’s much better to do that sooner than later. You don’t want to reach the end of the year with a sinking feeling that your team didn’t accomplish what it set out to do.

This method gives you an objective yardstick. You then can ask for help, renegotiate with your manager, or work with the team to make the objectives more closely tied to reality.

How Do You Put OKRs into Action?

Lena and I are planning ways to put OKRs into action. Our team did several wonderful, thoughtful brainstorming sessions and developed a very ambitious two-year plan. It’s on our shared team wiki, and every month we update our progress. We all struggle to fulfill our daily obligations along with the strategic ones, and we never get as far as we wish.

Perhaps the reason is that we have too many objectives, and we move quickly from one to the other trying to move the ball forward each month. It’s time to make some changes in our process. We’re going to share this OKR technique with our team and see if we can get some traction. If it works, and even if it doesn’t, we’ll be sure to share it with you.

“Time is a fixed income and, as with any income, the real problem facing most of us is how to live successfully within our daily allotment.”  — Margaret B. Johnstone

Now It’s Your Turn

For Yourself

• Read Jonathan Mead’s post on five ways to focus on what really matters (linked above).
• Find a time management system that fits your needs.
• Commit to one change and reward yourself when you meet it. (If you try to change your whole life at once, you will get too discouraged.)

For Your Team or Organization

• Read the interview with Mark Pincus on OKRs (linked above).
• Bring the idea to your team and ask if they are willing to try it out. Be sure to explain the benefit to them — always remember that people will be more motivated if they understand the WIIFM (“What’s in it for me?”).

We Want to Hear From You

Please share your ideas! How do you get things done that really matter as an individual, and what works for your organization?

Read more posts from Your Life@Work.

Learning isn’t limited to semester-long classes and it doesn’t have to break the bank. Here are some free or inexpensive ways to develop your skills and to get inspired.

7 Ways to Build Your Career on a Budget

1. Volunteer. Volunteer with a favorite organization to learn a new skill or practice an existing skill such as video/media, web design, marketing, business development, community organizing, public speaking, teaching, and more. I recently joined the Board of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble to get more experience in marketing, strategic planning and coordinating volunteers.

2. Check with your human resources department for career development opportunities like training workshops, leadership or management development, or other special programs. Make a suggestion if your company doesn’t offer what you need. Companies often negotiate good deals with training companies, especially for technical training such as computer classes.

3. Try free introductory classes at non-profits and other businesses. For a small investment of time, you can learn something new and decide if paying for more training is right for you. For example, The Foundation Center in San Francisco offers an excellent free introductory grant-writing session and other workshops. Many organizations have free public programs as part of their mission.

4. Check out extension classes at colleges and universities. Be sure to check for free events, guest speakers, seminars, and introductory sessions. Know that courses aimed at lifelong learners get more expensive as you move  from community colleges to state colleges to state universities to private universities. You can decide if it’s worth it to pay more for university extension classes where you’ll get better locations, convenient schedules, and comfortable classrooms with smaller class sizes.

If you’re not sure whether a class is right for you:

• Before enrolling, don’t be afraid to email the instructor and ask questions. (You may need to do a web search on an instructor to find their contact information.)

Here’s an alternative to taking a class if you’re good at learning on your own:

• Check the required reading lists of classes you are interested in (especially expensive classes) and get the books from the public library.

Finally, consider this:

• Taking classes with other professionals is an excellent networking opportunity. In every extension class I’ve attended, at least one person was in the midst of a career shift or job search. The savvy ones made an effort to enlist the help of the other students and teacher to further their efforts.

5. Target your own community. For the insatiably curious: you’re surrounded by learning opportunities in your own community! It’s easy and entertaining to attend a museum lecture or a community event. Check your favorite events websites.

A few of my favorite organizations for interesting speakers and topics in the San Francisco Bay Area are The Commonwealth Club (free podcasts), City Arts & Lectures (free radio broadcasts), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (many free public programs), the Neighborhood Empowerment Network, The Long Now Foundation (free podcasts), and SPUR. Most charge $20 or less for their events. Engage in a discussion on issues important to you, get inspired.

For the artistic, art collectives occasionally have cheap or free lessons or demonstrations (Rock Paper Scissors Collective and The Crucible). Last but not least, don’t forget your public library — a tremendous resource for learning, help with research, free classes and events.

6. Take advantage of the benefits offered by professional organizations. We join them and then we forget about all the events and publications they offer that we are already paying for through our membership fees. Check their websites regularly for what’s new. Many organizations offer free publications and events on their websites.

You may need to occasionally splurge to make a big splash.  It’s true that professional conferences, events, and training are typically pricey, but it may be well worth your investment. This is precisely the time to do your homework (or attend a free event or session) before taking the plunge.  In addition to learning, professional workshops and classes with a single focus — like leadership, management, sales, design, project management — offer you an opportunity to demonstrate your talents. Motivated people who like to learn seek that quality in others.

7. Ask a co-worker. One of the advantages of working with others is the chance to learn from them. Most people are willing to share their experience. Sweeten the deal by offering to share your own talents with them in exchange — you give them tips on facilitating meetings and they help you with a software product. Leslie and I have complementary skills and we share our experience continually. Get advice on how to do this in 5 Tips for Successful Career Collaboration.

“The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.” — B.B. King, quoted outside the Main Library in uptown Charlotte, North Carolina

Now, It’s Your Turn

1. Determine what you want to learn.

2. Pick the idea above that best fits your need.

3. Commit to one new learning opportunity in the next 3 months.

4. Share your own favorite ways to learn something new for free in the Comments section below.

Read more posts from Your Life@Work.

Is there a better way? What’s the gentlest and most productive way to turn your Monday into an on-ramp to a successful week? We’ve collected some wisdom from the blogosphere. Some of this advice will resonate with you and some won’t; everyone has their own idea of what Monday means to them and how to make it better.

9 Tips for a Kinder, Gentler Monday

1. Do catch-up work quietly for the first half of the day – read email, newsletters, blogs, and articles. Recharge your imagination and then plan for the week.

2. Schedule Monday meetings after lunch, not before. You and everyone else will be sharper, crisper, and less crabby after easing into the morning.

3. Take control of your own priorities. Don’t react right away to every email and every perceived crisis. Do the work you planned to do, and check email when you come up for air. Many times, the crisis has dissipated.

4. Plan a midday walk with a co-worker to talk about your joint project. You can get as much done as if you were sitting down; you’ll build camaraderie; and the fresh air will do you good.

5. Schedule a workplace event you can look forward to, like lunch with one of your favorite co-workers or a potluck with your team.

6. Use Friday to plan for the next week. Prepare a to-do list with priorities assigned; clean up half-done work; and tie up loose ends. Organize your work space, your email folders, and your piles of paper.

7. Create comforting rituals, one before you leave home, one when you get to work, that signal a transition from one space to another.

8. Get ready on Sunday. Get up early on Sunday to reset your body clock. Finish chores, straighten the house, and pack your tote or briefcase. If you care about fashion, plan your wardrobe to wear your best “go-get’em” outfit.

9. Practice gratefulness. Consider the many people out of work who would love to be in your shoes. Walk through the door of your office with a smile and recognize the wonderful opportunities you have waiting for you this week.

What do you do to make your Mondays calm and productive? Please share your comments below!

Maybe this quote will cheer you up:

I always give 100% at work:
13% Monday
22% Tuesday
26% Wednesday
35% Thursday
4% Friday
– author unknown

Now It’s Your Turn

1. Read these blog posts to find ideas that resonate with you:

• Five Tips for Improving Monday Mornings
• How to Get Rid of Monday Morning Blues
• Getting Over Mondays at Work
• How to… get through Monday

2. Plan one thing you’ll do differently to ease into Monday.

3. Do it! See how you feel.

Read more posts from Your Life@Work.

Do you ever wonder what would happen if you refused to deal with all those meetings, emails, and random interruptions? Do you ever dream that if you could just block off a few days to get organized, to really think without interruption, you could do something innovative? And do you also secretly wonder if, after years of running frantically, you even know how to innovate any longer?

My inspiration for this post is a video interview of Jason Fried titled “Why You Can’t Work at Work”. Fried is the co-founder of 37signals, a maker of software tools for project tracking, collaboration and information sharing. (Many of us have used their project tracking software, Basecamp.) Yet with all those great tools to foster communication and innovation, he still gets frustrated with interruptions, especially those created by meetings:

The modern workplace is structured completely wrong. It’s really optimized for interruptions — and interruptions are the enemy of work. They are the enemy of productivity, they are the enemy of creativity, they are the enemy of everything. But that’s what the modern workplace is all about, it’s interruptions. Everyone’s calling meetings all the time…you don’t work at work any more.

Easy to Say, Hard to Do

Jason Fried’s solutions are striking. While I admire them, I’m not sure how to introduce some of them to our organization and gain acceptance. But they are certainly better than all those tired remedies I read about all the time.

In contrast to Fried’s innovative solutions, those great-in-theory remedies don’t work for our organization:

• No, I can’t check my e-mail only twice a day, because we’re an e-mail culture and you’re expected to respond quickly.
• No, I can’t opt-out of meetings, because we are a culture that highly values consensus.
• And no, if I make myself unavailable by closing the door then I can’t provide one of the vital services of a project manager: serving as the “glue” that pulls together everyone’s news, ideas, and concerns. Besides, talking to people and learning new things — either one-on-one or in a group — is one of the great pleasures of the workplace.

But our team has made some changes about the way we hold meetings; the result is more opportunities for reflection and innovation during the day. These ideas might help you too.

6 Ways Our Team Reduced Meeting Madness

1. Eliminate redundant meetings. We had two weekly one-hour meetings with about 90% overlap in attendees (different projects, same players). We spent most of our time trying to remember who knew what (or getting bored because we’d repeated everything at least twice). We consolidated two meetings into one, saving countless hours and untangling our communications in the process.

2. Share information in a shorter time span. We took the newly consolidated meeting and made it a dual-purpose event. The first segment of the meeting is an operations review for our entire team of fifteen people. We each give a one-minute update on our projects and ask for help or advice as needed; we finish in thirty minutes or less.

That meeting we consolidated in #1 above — it now takes place in the remaining thirty-minute segment. People who aren’t part of those two particular projects are free to leave; the rest of us only need thirty minutes since we shared broadly in the first part of the meeting.

3. Stop taking elaborate meeting notes and sending them to everyone via email (or worse, as a document attachment to e-mail). Instead, use a collaborative space like a wiki or Google Docs to record agreements and commitments. It reduces e-mail traffic; saves space in each person’s email client; and eliminates storage of the document on the organization’s shared drive (a place where documents get stored in mysterious folders never to be found again). It puts information where everyone can easily access it, making it a snap for people who missed the meeting to learn what happened.

4. Hold meetings that really matter. Recognize when an email thread is spinning out of control; people don’t know what steps to take; or there is tension in the team that needs to be resolved face-to-face. That’s the right time to call a meeting. Specify a start and end time. Set an agenda showing desired outcomes. Designate one person as facilitator to help people reach those outcomes. Make sure each task has an owner, a due date, and a clearly defined work-product. (Get more tips in our post Envisioning Successful Outcomes.)

5. Delegate work to small, nimble teams. Last year we held extensive planning sessions to create three-year goals and objectives. Recently we were asked to propose five related goals for this fiscal year. Since we already had a shared understanding, we trusted a small team to draft the additional goals. We posted it on our wiki, collected feedback, and then gained consensus in a quick thirty-minute meeting.

6. Declare one day a week as a meeting-free zone. Even though we never talked about it formally, we don’t hold meetings on Fridays unless it’s absolutely necessary. It gives us a solid block of time to catch-up, think, and plan for the next week.

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”  — Annie Dillard

Now It’s Your Turn

1. Listen to Jason Fried’s interview, “Why You Can’t Work at Work”. Share it with your work team and see if you can find better ways to work together. (Lena and I want to get bolder and adapt more of his ideas.)

2. With the time you’ll gain in productivity, try completing a small innovation project that gets you energized. Read our post on How to Embrace Innovation for some motivation.

Read more posts from Your Life@Work.

My inspiration comes from the title question, one of twelve questions from the Campaign Boot Camp public service fitness test. “Do you want to be something or do something?” means to look beyond yourself and apply your strengths to something you care deeply about — to take action.

7 Ways to Get Motivated

1. Spend 15 minutes a day focusing on something you care about. Make a pact with yourself that you will take this time EVERY day. Do you have an idea for something you’ve always wanted to do but just never find the time to get started? A business idea, a public service idea, something involving friends or family? Take fifteen minutes and write down as much of your idea as you can.  Keep adding to it every day. Eventually, you’ll see your idea turn into a solid plan of action. Slowly is better than not at all. Focus on one thing at a time.

2. Volunteer. Share your time and expertise with a cause you care about. Or better yet, start your own cause. One Brick is a good way to jump-start your volunteering — they offer no-commitment one-time volunteering opportunities with a social twist in many communities including the San Francisco Bay Area. Do you want to learn a new skill or practice an existing skill? Either way, being a volunteer is a good way to do it. Contact your favorite organizations and propose how you can help them.

3. Take a class. Full disclosure — this is my default response to everything. For me, the biggest benefit of a class is that it’s prescribed time devoted to doing the thing you’re learning about. I also like the interaction of hearing others’ ideas and being able to ask questions.  You make a commitment to do the work when you take a class; while reading a book or just figuring it out on your own gives you too much room to procrastinate. Of course, classes are still only a means to an end. You’ve got to take what you learn and apply it.

4. Try something new. What’s the one thing you want to do but you never quite manage to find the time or courage to do? If you’re hesitant, get a friend to join you — or simply to encourage you. If it’s finding time, mark a date in your calendar today. Woody Allen says, “80% of success is showing up.”

5.  Hijack your routine. Instead of watching TV tonight, take one hour and do something different — take a walk, go to an event, visit a museum, talk to a friend, have a game night, work on your business plan, or start a blog. A co-worker explained the religious observance of Lent to me this way twenty years ago and it has always stuck with me: It’s not about giving something up. It’s about getting out of your routine to see your life in a new way.

6. Choose a monthly focus. You have twelve opportunities to focus on something you care about. For example, my goal is to rekindle my love of music, so that will be my focus in August. I’m going to listen to my favorite music every day on my way to work and while I’m cooking, and I’ll discover new music at the library.  I will go to at least one concert and I will learn more about a favorite composer by reading a book or watching a movie. In How to Be Happy at Work, Leslie reminded us that “it takes 21 days to make a (good or bad) habit, so be persistent.”

7. Take a trip. It’s amazing how clear things become when you get yourself out of your daily routine. Vacations are one of those rare times when we truly get away. If we’re lucky, we’re completely immersed in the present moment and we come back refreshed and renewed. Be sure to capture all your new perspectives and ideas for when you return.

“I always knew I wanted to become somebody when I grew up. Now I realize I should have been more specific.”– Lily Tomlin

Now It’s Your Turn

1. Check out Christine Pelosi’s book Campaign Boot Camp: Basic Training for Future Leaders. Even if you’re not interested in public service, she offers practical advice on leadership, team-building, negotiation and communication. Or, take her class Public Service Leadership Boot Camp at UC Berkeley Extension in the fall and spring semesters.

2. Do something meaningful one evening a week (or even one evening a month) to get yourself started.

3. Read these articles:

You Are What You Do All Day from Barking Up the Wrong Tree blog

Realizing Your Potential from Innovations blog (Chronicle of Higher Education)

Which of these ideas would you try? Do you have a motivating idea to share?

The basic concept is simple and easy to remember:

• Say YES to what you value.
• Say NO to the thing that threatens what you value.
• Say YES to what you are willing to do; offer options.

The bottom line is this: you can’t say Yes to everything. There’s simply not enough time in the day, or year, or your life to do everything you want, let alone the things others ask you to do. You’ve got to make choices and prioritize what’s most important. Clearly, this means you’ve got to say No sometimes. So why do you find yourself saying Yes to requests that aren’t in your best interest? Do they matter more because they come from your boss or your best friend – or do you simply feel bad saying No? What do you do? Take a deep breath and focus inward! Consider this, you dilute your quality of life when you extend yourself too far. You risk losing what’s most important to you when you let others fill your work or home life with their priorities.

Here’s how Ury explains it.

For visual thinkers, picture a tree:

• The roots represent a Yes to what you value –your deeply held beliefs and needs.
• Your firm No is the tree trunk rooted in your deeply held beliefs.
• The tree branches extending in many directions from the trunk are the many possible Yeses — the alternatives you propose.

Another way to remember it: A Positive No is “Yes! No. Yes?” Confused? Here’s how it works.

1. Express your Yes! One of the challenges is discovering what matters most to you and then making it your first priority. For example, does your family come first? You may need to say No to additional work, or requests from friends, or the myriad other things that are asked of you – because you know that your first priority is spending more time with your family.

2. Assert your No. You can be more confident in asserting your No when you have a Plan B. If Plan A is the path to agreement or acceptance, then Plan B is your backup. You don’t need anyone’s cooperation or agreement to put your Plan B in effect. It’s your alternative to negotiating an agreement. Remember, you don’t need to tell the other person your Plan B; after all, it’s not meant to be a threat. It’s your way of thinking through all the possibilities and giving yourself the confidence that your needs can be met. The key to saying No successfully is to express your needs and interest without sounding needy or desperate.

3. Propose/Negotiate a Yes? My favorite tip from Ury’s book, and the one I use most often, is to replace “But” with “Yes…and.” It shifts your perspective from a negative either-or stance to a positive problem-solving mode, and it avoids the word “but” (which gets people’s defenses up). The other person has a point, and so do you. For example, a hiring manager tells you the salary you have requested is high. You respond, “Yes, the salary I’m requesting is high and it’s appropriate for the value you agreed I would bring to the organization. And it’s aligned with the market rate.” You are agreeing with their assertion, and by using “and” rather than “but” you are providing reasons without being argumentative.

Here’s how Ury’s process has worked for me:

My scenario: I decided to reduce my work hours this summer to make more time for my family. I was saying Yes to what mattered most to me — my family (the tree roots). Besides asking to work less, I was firmly saying No to my own bad habit of habitually working late (the tree trunk). I thought hard about different options — Plans A, B, C (the tree branches) – and then I spoke with my manager. She readily agreed with my proposal. It was a win-win for both of us: my healthy work-life balance showed in my energetic, positive attitude and devotion to my work (and appreciation of my thoughtful manager!). Coming up with more than one proposal allowed me to think more broadly about my situation. I realized I could be flexible without giving up my primary need of having more time with my family.

“A ‘No’ uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Now It’s Your Turn

I highly recommend reading the book. In the meantime, print out Ury’s tips to empower yourself to say No: Three Steps to a Positive No

Video of William Ury talking about his book.

Leslie recommends this related article on influencing decision makers. Marshall Goldsmith, Effectively Influencing Decision Makers

Which of these ideas would YOU try?

Read more posts from Your Life@Work.

But sometimes we get a glimmer that our perfectionist tendencies are hurting rather than helping us — stopping us from accomplishing more and trying new things outside our comfort zones. We often quote Voltaire: “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” But reciting it hasn’t helped us learn how to focus on excellence rather than perfection. So in this post we’re consulting the experts and learning new skills right along with you.

Let’s be clear at the outset: we want our surgeons and airline pilots to be perfectionists to a very high degree. What we are talking about here is the office work-place and how we can create more by perfecting less.

7 Ways to Define a Perfectionist

Leadership consultant Stephanie Goddard says that perfectionism and work stress always go hand-in-hand, calling it “stress with a guarantee.” She offers these questions to help you determine if you are a perfectionist:

1. Do you find yourself becoming frustrated because you feel that you aren’t as far along as others?

2. Do you feel others (even loved ones) are always assessing you? From your clothing choice to your word choice…that you are regularly being scrutinized by the people in your life?

3. Do you criticize yourself even when you are learning something new? Do you expect yourself to do everything well at all times?

4. Do you find yourself taking part in activities in which you have little interest to gain approval?

5. Do you find that when you do something that satisfies you, your satisfaction is short-lived?

6. Have you been told by the people around you that you focus on the problems in life, and even if everything is okay you find something that bothers you?

7. With most tasks, do you feel that there is a “right” way and a “wrong” way to do them and you are uncomfortable with alternative ways of getting them done?

5 Ways Your Perfectionism Affects Your Work

If we want to be perfectionists and work a little harder, doesn’t that make us more valuable as contributors? Self-improvement coach Celestine Chua shares with us the ultimate irony: extreme perfectionism may actually prevent us from being our best:

1.  We become less efficient. Even when we are done with a task, we linger to find new things to improve. This lingering process starts as 10 minutes, then extends to 30 minutes, then to an hour, and more. We spend way more time on a task than is required.

2. We become less effective. We do little things because they seem like a good addition, without consciously thinking whether they’re really necessary. Sometimes not only do the additions add no value, they might even detract from the end-product.

3. We procrastinate as we wait for a “perfect” moment. Our desire to perfect everything makes us over-complicate a project. What’s actually a simple task may get blown out of proportion, to the extent it becomes subconsciously intimidating. This makes us procrastinate, waiting for the ever-perfect moment before we get to it. This perfect moment never strikes until it is too late.

4. We miss the bigger picture. We are so hung-up over details that we forget about the bigger picture and the end vision.

5. We fuss over unfounded problems. We anticipate problems before they crop up, and come up with solutions to address these problems. It becomes an obsession to preempt problems. As it turns out, most of these problems either never do surface or they don’t matter that much.

5 Ways Your Perfectionism Affects Your Team

Because we are living in our own perfectionist heads, we don’t think about how our perfectionism may affect our teammates. As project managers and team leaders, Lena and I have seen perfectionism create these consequences for our teams:

1. Your work isn’t timely because you obsess over it until after the deadline, even though your manager has told you it’s much better to be “good and on time” than “perfect and late.”

2. You don’t get many things done, so others have to pick up the slack. At some point, they will say “enough is enough” and quit supporting you.

3. You create tension because you constantly rail against the lower quality of others. (Whether you mutter it under your breath or say it out loud, they can hear you.)

4. You become a control freak, trying to micromanage every aspect of a team project. You’re no longer a team player; you’re now someone very difficult to work with.

5. Everyone quits trying and just waits for you to tell them the right way to do everything. They do a half-hearted job because they know you’ll re-do whatever they’ve done. They lose enthusiasm and interest. They may even become scared to fail; they become perfectionists too.

9 Ways To Let Go

Help is on the way if you want to change. Try these ideas on letting go, shared by psychologist Alice Domar in The Upside of a Job Done Well Enough and coach Celestine Chua in Why Being a Perfectionist May Not Be So Perfect:

1. Cultivate calm: Arrange your schedule so the start of the day can be spent planning, and the end of the day on loose ends.

2. Reward good behavior: Break up assignments into smaller tasks, then reward yourself for meeting each mini-goal.

3. Watch your co-workers: Are they always at work on time? Is every report perfect? Have they ever taken a long lunch and not been fired? Comparing yourself with others might help acquaint you with reality.

4. Stop trying to impress: Pleasing others can take a lot of time. Learn to say “no” when appropriate.

5. Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize: Assign each incoming task to a category: must get done today, would be nice if it were done today, and must get done eventually.

6. Draw a line: Use the 80/20 rule: 80% of output can be achieved in 20% of time spent.

7. Be conscious of trade-offs: When we spend time and energy on something, we deny ourselves from spending the same time and energy on something else.

8. Be okay with making mistakes: If we’re busy perfecting this thing, we can’t get to other important things. The more we open ourselves to making mistakes, the faster we can get down to learning from them, and the quicker we can grow.

9. Realize our concerns usually amount to nothing: It’s good to plan and prepare, but being overly preemptive makes us live in an imaginary future instead of in the present.

Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in.
– Leonard Cohen

Now It’s Your Turn

Laugh at perfection: download The Cult of Done Manifesto and pin it to your bulletin board.

Did you answer yes to some or many of the questions above? Which ones had your name written all over them? Focus on a single area from 9 Ways to Let Go above that you’d like to improve for yourself or for your team.

What’s your reality-check mantra?

Lena and I help each other recognize when we are on a perfectionism binge. Rarely does a week go by that we don’t need to quote “the perfect is the enemy of the good” at least once! What good advice do you need to remind yourself every day? what’s your mantra?

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You actually have more control over your performance (and your manager’s perception of that performance) than you think. Of course once you realize that, you will have to stop feeling helpless and make some changes. But never fear; we’ve identified 5 ways you can take an active role that will give you a better sense of control over your career.

The primary goal is to enlist your manager in your quest for success. Whether you are new to the organization or a veteran, your performance evaluation will be more satisfying to both you and your manager.

1. Set the stage for success.

Your manager wants you to be successful, but you have to tell them what you need:

• Have an open discussion about management styles. Ask your manager about their working style, then explain your working style. Come to an agreement about how you’ll work together.
• Share your definition of success in the job and ask if this is what is valued. If not, ask clarifying questions that allow you to adjust your definition.
• Explain that because your goal is “no surprises” in the annual review, you want to schedule a quarterly review to gauge your progress. Your manager will be happy because they don’t want surprises either.
• Write up your notes and share them with your manager to ensure you have agreement.

2. Deconstruct your job description.

Your job description is a somewhat unreliable road map. It’s written to be generic, it’s probably out of date, and it doesn’t describe the hidden expectations of your teammates and your manager. Your task is to get specific — to excavate the hidden expectations and fill out the job picture. The goal isn’t to rewrite the job description but rather to create a better guide to planning your performance.

Lena and I realized as soon as we started our jobs that the term “project manager” was defined differently by everyone at our workplace. Here’s what we did to get clarity:

• Break down each job responsibility and determine what it means in practical, every day terms.
• Ask colleagues what their expectation is for each of these responsibilities — and keep asking till you uncover their hidden expectations.
• Document your understanding and share it with your manager and colleagues.
• Negotiate unrealistic expectations and moderate them as necessary.

Here’s a true-life example from our job description. You can see we were able to uncover expectations that were not written anywhere but nonetheless expected.

3. Write regular status reports and review them with your manager.

We each write a brief status report every two weeks and meet with our manager to review it. This takes about half an hour to write and the same amount of time to meet. It encourages you to be specific about the value of your work and to keep your goals on track. Providing regular reports makes it easy to do a fast check-in or even skip a meeting; our manager is confident she knows what we are doing. Most importantly, you’ll avoid falling into the trap of believing you are working hard because you do lots of “stuff,” when in reality it may not be what your manager views as important.

Keep it high-level and focus on tasks that move you towards a larger goal rather than reporting on every meeting you attended. A secondary (but critical) goal of status reports is to keep your manager informed of critical developments so they aren’t blind-sided when asked for information by their own manager. Using simple bulleted lists, we report:

• What I’ve done the past two weeks (and its impact).
• What I plan to accomplish in the next two weeks (and why it’s important).
• Where I’m falling behind and need help.
• Risks and opportunities I want to highlight or discuss.

4. Schedule a quarterly review.

Meet with your manager quarterly to review your progress against your annual objectives. It’s sort of a low-stress mini-review. Are you on track? Where are your falling short? What do you need to change?  Where can your manager help you?  Perhaps you need them to negotiate with another manager, get you software tools, or assign additional resources. While no one wants to hear a litany of excuses, they do want to hear about those concrete actions they can take to help you.

5.  Create an annual summary of your performance and your goals for next year.

Pull out your regular status reports and select the most important accomplishments. You might think, “My manager should know what I’ve done; I shouldn’t have to remind them of my contributions.” But in fact, it’s to your benefit to control what’s recorded about your performance. An over-worked manager will be grateful for your initiative when you tell them: “I know how busy you are, so I’ve written a draft review that explains my performance during the year and my goals for next year. I’m eager to discuss this with you when you’re ready.”

Always remember, you own your career and everything that happens to it. Yes, the performance review cycle presents some special challenges and no, you can’t gain total control; you can’t mandate everything in your review. The important part is that when you enlist the support of your manager, you create an ally who will help you reach the goals you set and make your performance review more meaningful.

“Control your own destiny or someone else will.”  – Jack Welch

Now It’s Your Turn

1. Next Friday, block out half an hour to write a brief status report of your accomplishments for the past 2 weeks and what you expect to accomplish in the next 2 weeks. Send it to your manager. Keep a copy for your performance evaluation file.
2. Take a look at these resources:

• Managing Your Performance (brief article)
• How to Ace a Performance Review (brief article)
• Managing My Performance – A Guide for Employees (PDF)

What’s Your Experience?

Do you have tips for making your performance review a career-building opportunity? As a manager, have you found ways to make the experience valuable? Comment below or e-mail us at yourlifeatwork@gmail.com. We’d love to hear from you.

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When we learned last summer about the mandatory twelve-month furlough and salary reduction at the University of California, Leslie and I went through the five stages of grief — both for our bank accounts and for the forward momentum of our careers. But we realized that if our behavior continued, we’d end up at the end of the year weaker than when we started, with nothing to show for our angst. We asked ourselves these questions:

To get inspired, we considered these Big 5 Mid-Year Game-Changing Questions posed by the author Pamela Slim: 

1. What are you going to focus on? You cannot focus on everything and make progress.

2. What are you going to improve? You cannot grow at a sustained level without making some major system improvements. Sooner or later, you will start to lose ground in the areas that have been natural strengths.

3. What are you going to grow? You have tons of knowledge/material which just needs to be refined in order to deliver powerful benefits to the world.

4. What are you going to leave behind? If you are taking on new challenges, you will have to give some things up. And those should be the ineffective/self-sabotaging parts of your life or business that hold you back from growth.  

5. What are you going to learn? We stay fresh and creative by learning new things. What topic or field lights you up that you haven’t devoted time to learn about?

Our Professional Fitness Plan

Here’s a sample of our goals from September to November 2009:

The FUN part: we treat ourselves to lunch each month and talk about our progress. In reality, our lunch meeting forces us to look at our goals and take action at least once a month. We discuss whether we’re on track or if we encountered any roadblocks. Sometimes, we’ll re-commit to a missed goal, or change the goal entirely. Every so often, we admit that we’ll never do a particular goal, so we drop it. Whatever happens, it’s a chance to offer each other advice and encouragement.

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” – Lewis Carroll

 

 Now It’s Your Turn

Make a 12-month professional fitness plan. You don’t have to start in January — any time is a good time to get working on your career.

1. Set one or more goals each month.
2. Find a commitment partner to help you stay on track. (Read our previous post 5 Tips for Successful Collaboration.)
3. Set a meeting once a month with your partner to check on each others’ progress.

Share Your Experience

Have you found ways to stay professionally fit in spite of diminished professional development resources this past year? What have you done that’s helped your professional development? Tell us about it in Comments below or e-mail us at yourlifeatwork@gmail.com. We’d love to hear from you.

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If organizations have to reinvent themselves, so do you! There’s a benefit to your career and your organization when you have the right skills at the right time — think of these as your portable or transferable skills. What does that mean? If you are an expert in “how we do it here” or in an obsolete programming language, your skills are not transferable. If you haven’t taken a class or learned a new technique in several years, you don’t have portable skills. If the new people in your workplace are using tools and techniques you don’t understand, your skills need a tune-up.

7 Steps to Skills Portability

1. Examine your current job. What tools and techniques, processes and products do you know? Are they widely used, or just used at your workplace? How proficient are you? What software tools do you have at work that you haven’t tried yet? What classes are available to learn new skills?

2. Talk to the newbies in your office. What software do they know? What new concepts did they bring from school or another workplace? What do you admire about their skills? Can they teach you something new? Can you teach them something new in exchange?

3. Look at job postings in your field. What skills do they want? What training or certification do they value? What soft-skills do they look for (for instance, “self-starter”)? What buzz-words do they use in the posting? You can look online to learn what these words mean in your field.

4. Find a skills assessment tool. It will help you determine what skills you possess and how best to label them. You can also rate your proficiency in each skill. (For more information check out “Now It’s Your Turn,” the section below.)

5. Write a one-paragraph description of your service offering. That’s the portable skill set you have now – a package of services that you bring with you wherever you go. You’ll now have a ready answer to the question “Can you tell me about yourself?”

6. Write a description of the skills you want to have in the future. Create a picture of your future self: what skills you’ll have, or what your work-day will look like. Post the description near your desk to give you encouragement and let you absorb the picture of “the new you.”

7. Assess the gaps between where you are and where you want to be. Then build a plan to bridge those gaps one by one. How? Start by picking one gap and asking yourself what you could do to change it. For instance, if you want to get better at giving presentations, you could:

• Learn from watching other presenters and analyzing their techniques.
• Take an online PowerPoint tutorial.
• Practice giving a presentation in front of a friendly audience and ask someone to give you feedback.

Our Stories

Lena and I have reinvented ourselves several times, and we’re happy to share our stories. You’ll see that we have renewed, re-combined, re-purposed, and re-packaged our skills in order to survive in the competitive marketplace. It’s not easy, but it is necessary.

Lena’s Story

After graduating from college I moved from retail work to increasingly more challenging positions in office administration. Like many people, I fell into my first job by following a friend who was an office worker in the booming biotech industry. This began my first career of working in fascinating industries with wonderful people, but doing rather uninteresting work.

My epiphany was realizing that being good at managing offices didn’t mean I needed to keep doing it. After earning my MLIS (Masters in Library and Information Science), I launched a second career as an information architect at the height of the dot.com boom and I joined the California Digital Library in 2002.

Leslie’s Story

After graduating from college I joined the financial services industry, moving from a business analyst to a project manager to a customer service director. After two layoffs, I realized I didn’t care enough about financial services, so I realigned myself as a consultant using my customer service and project management skills.

When I decided to stop consulting, I needed new skills to get noticed by hiring managers. I started an MLIS program part-time while I consulted as a project manager in a campus library, gaining both academic and practical library skills. I used an unpaid internship at California Digital Library to display my skills and to connect with new colleagues. After graduation, I joined CDL in 2008.

Now we are both project managers in a digital library. Although we got here from very different paths, we each brought a toolkit filled with skills that fit the job description and allowed us to interview successfully for the jobs we wanted.

“Progress always involves risk. You can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.” — Frederick B. Wilcox

Now It’s Your Turn

1. Learn more about the concept of transferable skills

2. See how many of your skills you can find on a transferable skills inventory

3. Rate the level of your skills proficiency according to this survey of transferable skills

Read more posts from Your Life@Work.