Written by: Aalaa Aljar, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
In our previous Part, I article, we had concluded that you are the project manager for your life, and in Part II article, we will dive into understanding the project manager's role in life as a project.
A project manager is responsible for the day-to-day management of a project. Tasks involved but not limited to:
Planning what to do, when & who does what
Work done within standard
Risk management and Assessment
Motivating and communicating with people involved
Coordinating work done by different people
Deals with changes
Responsible for the outcomes
Therefore, as a project manager of your life, you are responsible for all the outcomes and you are already doing all the above every day. Let's experience together, and I would like to share an interview made by Ms. Stefanie Zeng from Miss Moneypenny Magazine to be a living example of a project manager of my tasks in my Executive Assistant role. As a background, I am currently an Executive Assistant, and my role is to support the CEO and all the executives. However, I am not restricted to my job description, and I go with the theme of " YOU SEE ME EVERYWHERE!". And seeing me everywhere has a cost, and I bear the cost by prioritizing and accomplishing my tasks through being a project manager. How? Through a system, I created where I combined my academic theoretical knowledge of project management with my Executive Assistant responsibilities. Referring to my Miss Moneypenny Magazine interview, Every day at work has a theme according to the project management concept. Therefore, Sunday's theme is Initiation, where I begin my week with meetings to determine the week's goal; I also pick up what was pending from last week and decide how I will move this week. Monday's theme is planning and prioritizing tasks according to their impact and urgency, and Tuesday's theme is execution, where I usually run around getting things done. Wednesday's theme is monitoring and controlling, where I audit if we are on track and deal with any changes required with all parties' approval where needed. Finally, Thursday's theme is closing and wrapping up with lessons learned, where I gather everything, document what is required, delegate tasks, and sometimes move pending tasks to the following week. Also, I reflect on the week of what went well and what didn't.
I admire this approach as it helped me to be flexible, agile, adaptive, and proactive. Additionally, it allows me to accept ad hoc tasks and new projects at any given time, especially when I can't say "NO," so this approach helps me prepare myself for everything with a big comfortable smile. Finally, this approach prepares me to contribute to any project /task success. The theme of my week extracted from the project management concept supported me to excel and be everywhere learning and experiencing new things around me.
Similarly, as I themed my week, you can theme your day/week/responsibilities by understanding the project management concept and practicing. So let's practice some here:
What is your daily routine?
With your routine, what do you want to do better?
What makes you think that you want to do better?
How will this better make you feel?
Then, referring to your answers from 1 to 4, how will you support yourself to be responsible?
Aalaa Aljar, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Aalaa Aljar is a certified Coach by International Coaching Federation (ICF), A certified professional in Project Management by Project Management Institute (PMI), a Master's Degree Holder, and a Lean Practitioner. Her invented Coaching philosophy is “Turtorse” to deliver a respectful value with an impact. The Approach is to provide an Impactful Transformation Results for corporates and individuals.
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