Jan 30 – Sanity Comes in Threes
Choice Management Is More Important than Time Management
Cheetah Certified Project Manager (CCPM) Tip of the Day
Jan 30 – When you get over-committed with more to do than you have hours in a day, identify your top three goals. From there, decide the goal you feel is most important , the one you feel is moderately important, and the one you feel is least important. Focus your time and attention on your singular most important goal.
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Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP, PMI-ACP
Ahhhhhh… let’s all do a deep exhale here. Yes, we lead very, very busy lives. Busyness, however, does not mean productivity. Nor does it necessarily mean you are doing what it is you need to do to achieve your goals. I got to learn this lesson after I had my second child I am a completion nut and I can get stuff done even in the most chaotic of situations – a LOT of stuff done. Yet, having two young children under age two pushed me over the edge. And THANK GOD for that.
I had to learn how to prioritize what was most important to me in the moment. The reality is, it was my children. What was most important to me was that I raised children to become happy, self-confident, and self-actualized adults. Me being uber-busy trying to conquer the world when the children were very young was not going to help me achieve what I saw as my singularly most important goal: taking care of them. This was a gut-wrenching choice, as there were professional pursuits that were deeply important to me. I had gotten a nine-month leave of absence on my PhD when my second daughter was born. My adviser, also the head of the department, had just had a baby and he knew how hard it was for me to take care of two babies and write my dissertation. So he supported my leave of absence from the program. While I was on my maternity leave, a new professor took over as the department chair. When I was ready to come back from maternity leave, this new professor did not like my dissertation topic. Even though I had gotten the first part of my research accepted in a peer-reviewed journal and had it published. No, he wanted me to go back and take three more classes and re-take my qualifying exam. You see, my research invalidated his research. I didn’t have it in me to fight. I had learned what I wanted to learn in my PhD program. PLUS, I was firmly grounded in my most important goal – that of being there for my children.
Not getting that PhD has helped me immensely. I went on to create an amazing business (partly based on what I learned in the pursuit of my PhD). The sanity lesson still comes in handy when I am super busy and can’t see my way to the light of day. I stop and take a huge exhale. And then figure out what the three most important goals in my life are. Do another deep exhale, and pick the most important one. Then, I focus my time and attention there. This has served me well.
Life presents us with an overwhelming selection of incredible things to pursue and experience. What I have discovered is that more important than time management is choice management. Learning how to make the choices that are right for you on a moment-by-moment basis creates clarity from the chaos. This is what you learn how to do by becoming a Cheetah Certified Project Manager (CCPM). Choose to check it out and see what amazing things you can do with your life. www.cheetahcertifiedpm.com
