Anyone responsible for overseeing a project or goal is a manager. You decide how you want to get to the goal, and then take action. “What’s the next action?” is a necessary question in your toolkit.

You can delegate to other people, allowing you to handle more or larger projects.
You can delegate the work, but not the responsibility. You must make sure things are moving forward. Maintaining a list of what you delegated is essential. You may want to meet to advise and check on the progress.
Being a manager isn’t just about the project – its also about the people. In addition to improving productivity skills, you will want to improve your people skills.

When you choose projects, that makes you a leader. Great leaders are those who have vision. Reactive projects are only responding to the past, and not looking to the future.

Leaders determine what to do, managers are responsible for making it happen.

You are a leader. What are you deciding to do?

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1. You can be positive that life isn’t all work. Work is only a part of your life, you have play scheduled! If you only have work scheduled, then life can seem like all spinach and no dessert. Even I like dessert.
2. Play recharges your batteries. When you get back to work, you can approach it with more energy. When you know that you have play interrupting the work week, its much easier to stay energetic and excited!
3. You form a positive feedback loop. It may seem like a paradox, but the better you play, the better you can work. When you finish your work and get to your play, you will be able to enjoy it because you put in time working. When you get back to work, you can approach it with more energy, which leads to enjoying your play even more – a very positive feedback loop! Scheduling your play FIRST, and make sure you stick to it. Yeah, I am asking you to stick to a schedule of play!
4. You get subconscious problem solving. When you get your mind off a topic and relax, your subconscious gets to work on whatever was bothering you. Your best ideas for work may come up while playing!

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Each channel of communication has its own methods for limiting the interruptions:

Email: Close outlook or whatever you use to check your mail. Email is NOT instant messenger – you aren’t expected to respond instantly! Just to make sure everyone else knows, set up an auto-responder that says “In an effort to help you better, I check my email twice a day at 12pm and 4pm. If something is urgent (and please make sure it really is!), please call my cell phone at …”.
If you are thinking “oh no, my boss won’t go for that” – just TRY it. I have heard from people who thought their boss would yell at them, but instead the boss forwarded the message to everyone in the company and said “I wish you all would do this – that’s proper time management!’

Phone: treat your phone the same as email. Let it go straight to voicemail with a message like: “In an effort to help you better, I check my voicemail twice a day at 12pm and 4pm. Please leave your email address so I can respond to you faster. If something is urgent (and please make sure it really is!), please call my cell phone at …”.
If you have a secretary, or are willing to pay for PhoneTag, have all your voicemails transcribed and emailed/put into your inbox like everything else. This gives you one less box to check and saves you the time and effort of listening and taking notes. The simpler, the better.

Open cubicle / office: If you have your own office, close your door  – with a do not disturb sign – when you are busy.
If someone comes to your office or cubicle, stand up right away. In an office, this stops them from sitting down and getting comfortable. It also gives the (correct) impression that you aren’t going to sit around and chit-chat. You can even walk them out.
If a visitor comes over – especially if they ask if you are busy or if you have a minute – answer them properly! “Sorry, I am in the middle of something right now. How can I help you?” If they can’t seem to get the words out, tell them to send you an email. Don’t let them chit chat, get them to tell you what they want. The phrase “Sorry, I have to get back to work” can do wonders.
If you are working in a cubicle, wearing ear plugs or headphones will help send the message that you are busy.

Instant messenger: If you can, close it. If you need it open, set yourself to “away” or “do not disturb”. Treat it like someone coming to your cubicle/office – get the interaction over with as quickly as possible.

Cell phone: This should only be receiving emergency calls. If calls come in that aren’t, you can politely ask them to only call you on your cell for emergencies. Again, treat it like a visitor.

Lastly, handle everything that comes up AFTER you finish the work in front of you! Write it down so you don’t have to worry about forgetting it.
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If you want to help people more…

• Learn about organizing, managing, creative thinking, negotiating, and presenting.
• Learn how to manage yourself better, so that you can spend more time directly on things that help others.
• Learn more about your field – follow the great new techniques and tools
• Ask: what should I know to help more?
• Share your knowledge! Start a blog, send out a newsletter, or write a book.
• Gather information they want to know. Someone that designs wedding invitations can gather things their clients should know before hiring a wedding planner/booking a hall/sending invitations by asking past clients "What 3 things would you tell someone about to start what you did?” and summarizing it as crisply as possible.
• Spend more time understanding what your client needs. "Seek first to understand…" Listen. What do they need, what is bothering them? Help them with their problems.
• Put yourself in their shoes. Is there any hassle they have to go through that you can reduce?
• Keep asking yourself – what can I do to help more?

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