One of the best email/advice I ever got which has been helping my life at work
It was a life-changing advice. I asked for an advice and guidance from one of my colleague before 3 years. and it has been helping every day of my work life. I just thought of sharing that email as I have been reading it few times once a few months and it’s for sure useful to others as well.
He is a structured guy and that is why he separated the email into 3 parts. Am bringing the 3rd part into first because it is an EXCELLENT PIECE!
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“ Hi JK,
Let me try to categorize it in Structure / System / Person:
3. Person:
Be confident and learn: You are doing the right thing by asking openly how you can improve your working style. It doesn´t mean that my structure/system is “the best” one but at least it works for me: use it and make it better suited for your needs.
Get out of your comfort zone and learn to handle difficult/overwhelming etc. situations, learn from other people and see how they are working/structuring their day. See how you can improve their current (working/managing)styles. Always work together with people where you think they are better/faster/stronger than you. Surround yourself with the best people you can connect with. (>This might sound theoretical but it will (a) help you a lot in terms of working/connections and (b) gives you more and more confidence as you will understand that everyone is cooking with water — you only have to know “how” they cook it).
Work hard — but get some rest: Every athlete will tell you the same story: Weeks/Months of hard preparation but with constant relaxing sessions (e.g. 5 days hard training — 2 days of recovery…) and once every 2–4 months a (longer) break. See it as a marathon rather than a 100m sprint. Try to improve your structure/work on a day-to-day basis but get some time for recharging and to reflect.
…I will stop here otherwise I will write a novel about “Person” — but this is a constant cycle and I think it will never end. As a final remark: Always handle everyone with respect — especially if you have a “black-belt” in something you shouldn´t be cocky. It´s better to help someone with a white-belt to get to a black-belt as this person will help you in other areas.
Now, try to use the above information and let me know how you would solve your below-mentioned points. Take some time to think about it
1. Structure:
I usually set my
- 3 most important projects per week (on Sunday evening latest Monday morning)
- 3 most important tasks per day (every morning)
before I start working. This helps me to focus on the important tasks.
Try to learn the difference between important and urgent. In our business everything is urgent.
However, we have to work on the important stuff and get this done. Thus, I am structuring my week/days as described above (3 most important projects per week / 3 most important tasks per day).
There is also a difference between being “effective” and “efficient”. You should focus on the tasks which are effective. If you work on an unimportant (=not effective) task efficiently, it means that you are working “efficient” on tasks which are not important. Focus on effective (=value adding/high impact) work.
2. System:
The system is half your life!
Calendar:
I currently use the following system for my daily work:
My attached example:
- Book (offline): I use this for meetings/idea generations/conferences and write down notes. In case I have ToDo´s I´ll put them in my…
- ToDo Leaflet (offline/online): Here I put my toDo´s. This is usually smaller/tactical work which I have “toDo”. Sometimes I also digitalize it and put these toDo´s in trello or podio (our internal system @ ####).
- Digital List: This is either project-based (e.g. how I do it with ###/###) or in my calendar
- Plan your day and focus on important / effective work
- Put the DDL of your most important task as “all-day event” (see screenshot)
- Reserve enough time (depending on your role (for me it´s 2–6 hours per day)) for meetings/updates/calls/lunch sessions
- Use a monthly overview and use a clear system so you can see in a snapshot what you are doing/focusing on
- Time: Method — Person or Project
- e.g. 06PM: Call w/ JK or 06PM: Call ######
(for confidentiality reasons I can only show you an example day — not a month)
- WWOC: This is one of my 3 important projects which have to be finished on this particular day
- 09.30AM / 08.30PM: These are regular update meetings/calls and I need time to pre/post-pare them
- 01PM: Lunch meeting: I try to meet bus/strategic partners either for lunch or dinner > it´s easier and better to connect and build a (private) connection
- Call #########: This is an invitation sent to a partner who is not based in Asia. Thus, there is no time set in the beginning as you will always screw up with different timezones ;)
I hope this helps for now.
Now, try to use the above information and let me know how you would solve your below-mentioned points. Take some time to think about it
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It is a great personality for someone to take time and explain step by step on solving someone problem. I wish i help someone like how he did to me!
