If you’ve ever read about the practice of Zen, you’ve probably thought about how it applies mostly to your home life rather than your work life. Joelle Steiniger, writing at medium.com, makes a really wonderful point:
Where’s the logic in having two sets of rules for how we live our lives vs. how we run our businesses?
Even if you’re not an entrepreneur (though I tend to think that Project Management, even if for an existing company, is a form of entrepreneurship), her post about how to use Zen at work is very useful.
Forget the Fantasy
Every industry has a fabricated image of what your company or career is supposed to look like if you’re a card-carrying member. Are you a startup? Are you automatically supposed to work 23 hours a day in a dark room with a case of RedBull. No!
Sometimes you do need to work long hours but that’s not an automatic regardless of what field you’re in. Get in, do your work and get out. It’s probably one of the biggest travesties of modern corporate America that most of us have forty hour work weeks. Do we really do forty hours of work? No! Most of us Project Managers do more, especially at the outset of a project when you’re doing the planning and strategy work. But the point is that you should organize your work as efficiently as possible.
Question Your Goals
Be deliberate and honest with yourself when you set goals — especially ones you intend on meeting.
Additionally, reflect on things you’ve achieved that weren’t explicit goals. Celebrate small accomplishments and acknowledge all that you have done, rather than focusing on what you haven’t. Do this regularly.
Coax Change
This doesn’t mean change your plan every 5 minutes for no reason. What it does mean is actively looking for ways to induce opportunities for change. Question if your previous goals are still the right target to be focusing on. Question if your workflow still makes as much sense as it used to.
Therein lies the essence of Integrated Change Control. As you move through your projects, you will continually need to question the relevance and attainability of your goals. As circumstances and requirements change and evolve, so too will your approach, your goals and the relevant methodologies evolve. Change can seem daunting, especially when you’re working on a strict budget or tight timelines. However, pushing through change via the proper channels and processes will ultimately serve your cause better than proceeding bullheaded through a project plan that is either inefficient or becomes outdated and ineffective.