STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD

If you have ever thought that daily the work was getting to be a bit much or you are working into the night, I would ask you to try something which first worked for me and then others I taught.

I used to work on a daily dairy, mainly because as a consultant I would bill by the hour so needed a record of my time. Starting with a weekly list one could simply transfer left over Monday's work into Tuesday. Problem was that if you wanted time to relax and get some sleep, come Thursday and the list would have grown longer with the result that one had to work into the weekend. This even if justified as a billing, tended to make you tired, cut into your social life and be worse when you have to put this is as unpaid labor.

Until the day came when I wanted a quiet weekend with no work, so on the start of Monday with my list, I told myself I would work until each job was completed. I remember that took me into the small hours of the next day, Tuesday, which didn't work out much better. By Thursday the list was down a little so by end of Friday there was little I had to carry on into the weekend. After a few weeks even that was cleared and my weekends from there on were clear.

OK so how do you do it? Obviously there are some things one has to carry over when people you need are not available but make sure that is not a cop out and you could have found someone else in a company to help you do the job. This action is similar to putting off procrastination. If something on your list isn't working, try and find another approach. And then is it really a cop out to try and delegate some work? Some people are just job "hoarders" while others believe no one could do the job as well so are afraid to delegate - sometimes in case someone else might do the job better.

After a while you realise all of the above is what managers do displaying the skills required for such a position. With this it has to be remembered that a manager's job is to get everyone working as a team and while yes, the manager might be able to do certain jobs better, the management role is to make the "whole group" operate better. Consequently in following my suggestions one can not only solve problems for oneself but for an organisation as a whole leaving more time for golf...