Page 54 - Twenty Four Lessons for Mastering Your New Role

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Procrastinate

Beat the clock

There’s no mystery to managing your time. It takes discipline, con-
centration, and commitment.
New managers may attend time-management seminars and pur-
chase elaborate “efficiency systems” (which usually consist of blank
diaries, log books, and daily calendars) under the mistaken impres-
sion that they need to load up on fancy tools to succeed.
In fact, all you need is a strong dose of will.
Managing your time requires that you identify your sloppy work
habits and fix them. By isolating the wasteful ways in which you plan
and perform your job, you can find solutions that enable you to
accomplish more in less time.
Rookie managers often struggle with time-management prob-
lems relating to procrastination. The new job overwhelms them, and
they wind up juggling dozens of priorities at once. They start plenty
of projects, but rarely finish them.
To combat procrastination, investigate why you don’t want to
complete what you start. What’s stopping you? Usually, the answer
reveals your lack of confidence in the result, your uncertainty over
what to do next, or your dislike of the nature of the work itself. To
take a common example, new managers who are riddled with self-
doubt may fear that by completing a task promptly and turning it in,
they’ll be vulnerable to criticism and thus prove they’re ill-equipped
to manage effectively. As a result, they play it safe and stall.
It’s normal to worry that you’ll be perceived as an impostor pos-
ing as a manager. Wave off the anxiety, bear down and deliver the

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