tips for project managers
Hello! Irina Sanarova is in touch, I am Head of PMO at Creonit.
It is very important to me that I and my team are in a positive emotional state. This helps you work more productively, achieve results faster and enjoy your work.
Every day we are faced with millions of factors that require from us, as managers, enormous emotional and physical commitment: negotiations with clients, building processes in a team, resolving conflicts and controversial issues. To continue to work in a positive way, you need to understand how to maintain your state in balance and what to do when the limit is about to come. Therefore, I pay special attention to the state of the internal resource – the team and my own.
A person has different types of resources with which he satisfies his needs. Resources affect the quality of life: health, energy, motivation to achieve goals, the ability to cope with stress and make informed decisions.
What are the internal resources?
Emotional. The ability to manage your experiences and use them to achieve goals. Self-control, stress resistance, the ability to cope with negative experiences and maintain a positive attitude help to keep emotional resources in balance.
Physical. Health, strength, endurance, energy, reaction speed, coordination of movements and more. To develop a physical resource, you need to play sports, eat right, follow a daily routine, avoid bad habits and follow other recommendations from posters in the corridor of the district clinic.
Cognitive. Mental abilities, knowledge, skills and life experience. The development of cognitive resources includes self-education, reading books, solving puzzles and other tasks that require using the intellect.
Maintaining a balance of internal resources is the basis necessary for good health and joy in life. The problem is that when working in a busy flow of tasks, we forget to set aside time for recovery.
This leads to sad consequences:
Decreased attention.
Constant fatigue.
Decrease in productivity.
Irritability, breakdowns, negative mood due to any difficulties.
In severe cases – exacerbation of chronic diseases, frequent colds, insomnia, anxiety and increased sensitivity to ordinary events. For example, the screams of children playing on the street outside the window.
The final stage of chronic fatigue is emotional burnout. A person loses meaning in work and begins to have a negative attitude towards it. He is late, fails to complete tasks, and constantly feels guilty.
What factors lead to resource loss
1. Lack of planning
You do everything at once. Everything seems important and urgent. Due to the flow of tasks and the inability to prioritize, you often find yourself distracted and redirected. This takes up a lot of cognitive resource, and you get tired faster. Therefore, there will be no result without planning.
2. Multitasking
Answer there, call that one, decide here, there’s a fire on the right. A daily stream of chaotic requests is a constant companion for a project manager. It is important to be able to filter them and not be afraid to say: “Today is already planned, I will solve this problem by the N date.”
3. No checkpoints
If you don't set milestones on projects and agreements, then you won't have order in your work life. You will always be in a rush with no idea when it will end. So you will fall into the trap where “you just need to strain a little more and everything will work as it should.” But this moment never comes unless you change your approach to work.
4. Inability to predict the result of your actions
For example, you don’t know whether a new application feature will work, or how long approvals will take between 10 different departments. At the same time, not only your own fate, but also the salaries of your colleagues and the company’s turnover depend on your decisions.
5. Daily communication with different people
We invest emotional resources in communication. Somewhere you need to support the team, somewhere you need to competently build communication with a difficult customer, in another case you need to come to an agreement with the manager. Having to consider other people's interests and ensure that both parties win is draining at times.
6. Inability to delegate
You feel so strongly responsible for people and processes that you are afraid to even go on vacation or take time off.
7. Lack of rest
This may be due to both high workload and a simple inability to rest. This happens when a person has not learned to act according to the principle “tired – rest.” When this mechanism breaks down, we cease to feel the limits of our capabilities.
8. Toxic work environment
You are afraid to take action because you are afraid of facing more judgment, resistance, or rude comments.
9. You devote all your time to your career
And you neglect other areas of life: family, friends, romantic relationships, personal development, entertainment.
How to replenish your internal resource
1. Plan your time
Not only work, but also personal. A person has 8 areas of life, each needs to be given attention.
The entire routine of your week should be distributed in such a way as to allocate time in advance for meeting with friends, physical activity, cooking, rest, and good sleep. If you don’t schedule this in advance, you will think: “No, no, now I’d rather work, but next week I’ll start resting!”
2. Find a hobby
And set aside several days a week for it.
3. Play sports
Regular physical activity stimulates the production of endorphins – happiness hormones. They lift your mood and reduce stress levels. Blood flow to the brain increases its performance and provides the organ with oxygen – this helps to think better. Sports also improve self-esteem because achieving personal goals—losing weight or gaining muscle—gives you a sense of accomplishment.
4. Practice affirmations
These are short affirmative phrases for a positive psychological attitude. For example: “I’ll close this project – everything will work out.” We practice self-hypnosis every day without realizing it. Only most often we repeat phrases that set us up not for positivity and self-confidence, but for negativity.
5. Praise yourself
Raise your self-esteem. Directly in person. Directly facing the mirror. Find reasons to do it every day. You can make a whole exercise out of this, where at the end of the day you will sum up positive results. Remember that signing a contract with NASA is, of course, great, but sorting through a backlog of tasks that no one gets around to for a month is also an achievement.
6. Eat right and on time
Treat yourself to something tasty and loved. Fish and meat are the best sources of amino acids that are involved in the synthesis of serotonin and dopamine. Without protein in your diet, it is impossible to feel good and be productive.
7. Pay attention to proper sleep, get enough sleep
Healthy sleep is a 100% source of energy and proper brain function.
8. Change your beliefs about work
Stop tormenting yourself with principles like “I’ll rest in the next world” and “everything will fall apart without me.” Learn to identify your fatigue and work with it, rather than ignore it or give it a negative assessment.
9. Talk to someone senior or a colleague
Believe me, the problems you encountered were 100% overcome by other, more senior comrades. They can encourage you and give you direction on how to solve a particular situation. And the banal support of those who are in the same boat with you is very energizing.
10. Spend time with animals
This advice, like all others, is individual. But our smaller brothers share love and support free of charge. A simple walk will give you great benefits.
Most importantly, remember: NO problems are unsolvable. There are situations when you simply don’t see a way out, but there is one anyway.
Total
Be attentive to yourself and make it a habit to monitor your level of fatigue. Remember that it will not happen at the snap of your fingers; this process must be monitored in a timely manner. Learn to relax and develop a healthy relationship with work. Remember about 8 areas of life – each of them must be satisfied for a person to feel good.
Tell us in the comments, how do you restore your vital resources?)
