My reflection blog this week is about time management, which I personally consider it a strength and a weakness. In our course material this week it defined there are two sets of skill that are used to effectively manage time and ridding stressors. The first skill set stems around “efficiency” and the second is “effectively”. The two skills sets seem relatively concrete in their general meaning, however for me it was an opportunity to research my own self to determine if I am really an efficient and effective leader.

Efficiency defined by the internet online Webster’s Dictionary as the “ability to do something or produce something without wasting material, time or energy”. I would deemed that I am strong and week at the same time. From a technical aspect of my job I can easily define what’s critically urgent, however my weakest link is saying no to new assignments. I contribute my strength of efficiency in the ability to be organized and aligning education with my career. To manage my time I start each day off with a good ole cup of coffee reviewing everything I have to get done that day. I re-review at the end of the day to assess what I have not completed and review where I can reschedule missed tasks, and the day ahead. To do this effectively, I carry my personal agenda everywhere I go, including the gym.  I have a personal pet peeve is making notes on desks, on the refrigerator, or loosely on a desk, especially if I have to transcribe in my agenda anyway. I will continue to work this kind of approach, because it works for me.

My weakness in efficiency is the ability to tell other people no. All people have a stigma, an identifying characteristic about them.  My stigma is not really a negative, but I have been told I am a great coordinator and I get things done. The problem is I get tapped often to do work that is not mine, and usually it is because of a time deadline. What I have learned to do is actually reverse it back to the person who needs help and take the time to teach them how to do the task. That is very hard to do because internally it is easy to just do it, but it does not teach the other person to take the reins to be responsibility and accountable. One approach I started several years ago and continue to use is when I learn something new about a task, I take the opportunity to teach anyone who may have to do this specific task in the future.

Although I am strong at being organized and strongly aligned, I have to continuously work on being efficient, which ebbs and flows depending on the assignment.  I think as a leader you have to continuously prove that you are efficient as your approach to being efficient defines your character as a person. As a leader, I truly believe that we must lead by example and our core values. The humor side of being efficient is watching my own children use my own mom isms back at me. This would include talking with their hands when they are describing something.

Effectively also defined by the online Webster dictionary as “a manner to achieve a desired result is achieved”. This was a bit harder to review myself as this I have more weakness than strength, and I think it stimulates from lack of confidence at times. As a leader, I have to continuously reevaluate daily what my results are for that day, week, or month. To have expected results completed I have to interface with 30+ employees to status schedule, analyze information, and provide a contractual report to our customer.  My locus of control is not strong here due to the amount of information that is required from outside my sphere of control which is the scheduling organization. My locus of control in my personal professional development is very well and have effectively completed those goals.

When evaluating how my skills, I would contribute that being proactive and organized as the main asset to improve on my locus of control to meet deadlines effectively. However the three areas of improvement that can continue to improve on is not automatically take the accountability of other people’s tasks, provide more training, and finally learned to say no. To add an action plan to what I am already doing would be better served by improving the one I currently have in place. For example, do I really need to re-review my daily planner three times a day to ensure efficiency? Probably not and I could reduce the amount of time this take by decreasing the cycle. The second improvement I could indulge is learning to trust others to be self-accountable and reliable. The third improvement I could add to the plan is learning to not control everything, and things do not necessarily have to be done like I think they should be, let innovation avail. These three improvements would improve my time management and reduce stress.

After this internal review of myself on time management, my overall action plan that I can integrate is: saying no, trusting others, letting go of control. I have taken these three areas and put them on a 3 x 5 index card inserted into my agenda and my cube wall, so I can always see them when I am planning. I feel this assignment made me stop in my tracks to do another self-evaluation. As a person I believe we know if we are good or bad at time management, but the structure of the assignment allowed me to realize that I need to work on my weaknesses.

Cited: 

Websters Online Dictionary: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/efficiency