EM Habits

Life as a Manager is not easy. Over time, I have developed some habits that let me stay organised and get work done better and faster. I like to stay disciplined and not take anything for granted.

• Block calendar. Calendar ettiquette is very important to me and I am a big fan to protect my time on calendar so that others can book my time easily.
• Attend meetings on time, be prompt if I am going to be late even by 1-2 mins. Also, timekeeping during meetings to respect others time and make sure to have a summary end of meetings so that meetings can be ended on time and followed up accordingly.
• Todos spread all over. Still trying to find an optimal way to manage todos. Some of my favorite ways to manage todos:
  • Take notes on paper. I get immense joy while I strike off a finished task and toss the paper in the dustbin.
  • Over time, this doesn't get manageable, especially while travelling, where I need to carry all my paper notes.
  • Digital notes is preferred in this case.
  • For digital notes, I use Slack where I message myself and the slack's thread format helps me to write todos on a daily basis.
  • The slack's thread format grows pretty long too quickly if the todos span for a long time or if I don't find time to strike them off in a timely manner.
  • I also use Mac's Note taking app and write todos there
  • As long as I keep refreshing my memory with the list of todos, they remain in my head and I can always follow up on long pending tasks too.
• Maintain a slack thread where I copy-paste any kudos I get or if any major learning happened on a particular day and I want to reflect on that later. This helps me a lot when I need to assess myself or write self-reviews. The kudos themselves is a nice way to cheer up on dull days.
• Yak shaving on Friday so that on Monday's I can afford to start a little later than usual and still get work done because everything is taken care on the previous Friday.
• Be authentic and no sugar coating
• More to follow.... This is still a draft post.