The importance of objectives and also deadlines

In the last few weeks, I have been living in the adrenaline of launching a few new products into the market. The way my company is set up, we tend to do it twice in the year.
The last few weeks were tough, as it was the first meeting I was at since I've taken the new job and my team was responsible for launching quite a few products, most of them in fact. It was very stressful as a lot of things got complicated in the run up to the launch and required a lot of work and difficult conversations and also late nights.
The day of the meeting was good. I presented to a large group of people, about 220 which was good. Presenting is something I really really like, I get a real kick out of it, and of speaking to people before and after my presentations at these kind of meetings. I got very good feedback, people enjoyed it, I do thinkk that I actually do it quite well. I should try and incorporate more of it into my job, as it is definitely one of my strenghts. I did it better than the md, or the sales director, or the marketing director.

Today is the monday after the meeting and I am now struggling! The thing is I don't have that clear target that was the launch meeting to work for. That was a clear target that I was working towards to. Now I do have objectives but they are not that pressing or clear. I could feel and imagine or view the launch meeting.

It is critical to have clear objectives. To have something to work towards to. To have big objectives that then you can organise your working day around them. And these objectives need to have deadlines, otherwise you will progress quite slowly towards them and probably get demotivated half way through.

Action:
- think through what I really want to achieve in the next 3 months (until the end of the year)
- break them down into smaller actions
- Put clear deadlines in to each action and objective

Learnings at the top

Since the last 6 months, I have assumed a board role. In the past 10 years of my career, I have done a variety of jobs in different countries, most of them manager jobs but still functional, and with a functional boss that I report into.

As I find myself reporting to the MD and part of the board, there are huge differences. It is just a different ball game, and certainly less enjoyable, at least in the begining, until I don't get used to it and am still the rookie...

- you don't have a close boss to report into, that will guide you and cover you
- when there are problems, most board members worry about pushing them and quickly placing the blame on other board member
- most of my time and concerns are now to be spent on managing these relations and making sure my teams work is perfectly done by the books (even if this takes more time and makes the company less efficient and customer focused)... Now only in parts of the day am I finding some time to progress the work of my team!

I know that it is my first role like this and I shouldn't really generalise. I also know that in difficult times, like the current ones, with accute economic pressure and decresing sales, these situations become much more visible. I also know that I work in a multinational and smaller companies are for sure simpler and more straightforward.

But nevertheless, it is a different life.
For the time being, I will experience it and learn from it. Later I will decide if I want to cope with this and progress or look at my career in a different way, probably in a different place.

Stop and organize

The last few days have been stressful. As we near the begining of a sales quarter, and specially on a year that is difficult in terms of sales results, the pression mounts significantly!
With the ammount of tasks and pressure on my time, I am struggling to fund the time to stop and meditate or to organize and prioritize tasks. Unfortunately, this immediately begins to show in the quality of my work.
Definitely it is a better use of time to stop for 20 minutes or so and get organized, define priorites, define what you will do and what you won't. I'll recover these minutes over and over again.

Productivity Tip

In the last couple of weeks, I've been doing something that I've found really helpful in getting me to be more productive.
Usually I have a list of all my tasks, of all the to-dos, and then I break them down into A's, B's and C's, according to the importance/urgence.
What I've also started doing now is, 1st thing in the morning, before anything else, I set the 2 achievements for the day. The 2 things that no matter what, I really need to get done.
And usually I start by doing these 2 things, progressing them.

What usually happens is that I get them done and this gives me a good feeling of achievement and builds confidence. Gives me the strength and self confidence to then go on and tackle all the other activities on my list, and on top of it all, on a good mood, as I feel that I am being productive!!