Being a Project Manager at Work and Home
I’m sitting at my desk, okay, dining room table, looking out the window at the tall trees with their remaining amber and burgundy leaves shimmering in the breeze. With a brilliant blue sky backdrop, it’s hard to keep my focus on work. My mind is wandering to three completely unrelated things: what the heck I’m cooking for Thanksgiving for my brother who is vegetarian, where I put the tree stand, and what movie to pick for our next college-wide movie night – Elf or Fred Claus?
Staying focused when there are multiple projects and deadlines is hard. As we all know, being the project manager of both our work and personal lives requires organizational skills, good communication with others, and attention to detail to ensure follow through. As our life goals shift with each season, changing work and personal demands, and our own self-care priorities, we need to be flexible and proactive.
In many work settings, managers are often promoted from roles of clinician, artisan, tradesperson, or educator, to name a few. I was one such employee who found herself in a manager role without formal training to prepare for the project manager role. Some key strategies to keep in mind as you juggle multiple projects:
- Be a Smart Planner: use project management tools such as software to streamline your work and ensure you have good SMART goals (written down!) to measure your effectiveness. Anticipate and plan for challenges and potential roadblocks.
- Be an Active Learner: Be open to exploring new systems, methods, and, for work tasks, stay abreast of industry changes and trends. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. This will help ensure you have the skills and competencies for the task.
- Foster and Maintain Communication: How you interact with your key partners plays a crucial role. The quality and quantity of informal and formal communication includes providing clear instructions, continuous communication of any project changes, and active listening as you seek input.
- Take Responsibility: Hold yourself accountable for your actions. When you are leading, others are watching. Hold yourself to the same standards you expect from others. If you’ve helped create a supportive work culture, it’s okay for everyone to make mistakes and use trial and error learning, but at the end of the day, you are responsible for a positive outcome.
- Celebrate Your Successes: When proactively planning, collaborating, learning, and being accountable lead to goal achievement, it’s time to celebrate! Reward yourself. We all love a good incentive to keep us moving forward.
In case you’re wondering: butternut squash lasagna, under the basement stairs, Fred Claus.
For more information on project manager skills, including a scale developed by researchers, check out:
Đajić, M. J., Ciric Lalic, D., Vujičić, M. D., Stankov, U., Petrovic, M., & Đurić, Ž. (2024). Development and validation of the project manager skills scale (PMSS): An empirical approach. Heliyon, 10(3), e25055.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e25055
and this recipe from Epicurious: