-
Rate your work by
order of importance and manage your time effectively; don’t bite
off more than you can chew.
-
Manage by
objectives, to capture the initiative on as many problem areas as
you can.
-
Build an
especially effective and supportive relationship with your boss.
Understand his problems and help the boss to understand yours.
Teach your boss to respect your priorities and workload and a keep
assignments reasonable.
-
Negotiate
realistic deadlines on important projects with your boss. Be
prepared to propose deadlines yourself, rather than have them
imposed.
-
Study the future.
Learn as much as you can about likely coming events and get as
much lead time as you can to anticipate them. Manage and plan
actively not reactively.
-
Find time every
day for detachment and relaxation. Close your door for five
minutes each morning and afternoon, put up your feet, relax
deeply, and take mind off the work. Use pleasant thoughts or
images to refresh your mind.
-
Take a walk now
and then to keep your body refreshed and alert. Find reasons to
walk to other parts of your building or facility. Greet people you
meet along the way.
-
Make a noise
survey of your office area and find ways to reduce unnecessary
racket. Help your employees reduce the noise level wherever
possible.
-
Get away from
your office time to time for a change of scene and a change of
mind. Don’t eat lunch there or hang around long after you should
have gone home or gone out to enjoy other activities.
-
Reduce the amount
of minutia and trivia to which you give your attention. Sign only
those things that really require your study, understanding and
approval. Delegate routine paperwork to others whenever possible.
-
Limit
interruptions. Try to schedule certain periods of "interruptability"
each day and conserve other periods for your own purposes. Take
phone messages from your secretary and return all calls at a
certain time (except for emergencies, of course).
-
Make sure you
know how to delegate effectively. Inventory a typical day’s work
and find out how many things you tended to that could have been
assigned to someone else whose job it really should have been.
-
Don’t put off
dealing with distasteful problems such as counselling a problem
employee or solving a human relations problem in your staff.
Accept short-term stress instead of long-term anxiety and
discomfort.
-
Make a
constructive "worry list". Write down the problems that
concern you and beside each one write down what you are going to
do about it.
- Get a complete catalogue of
current worries, so that none of them will be hovering around the
edges of your consciousness. Get them out into the open where you
can deal with them.
