organisation 📕
So yeah, I got the job.
deep end 🌊
After a full week managing I think I can safely say I will never think I know everything in a job role ever again. All internal (and external) panicking aside, I bought myself a Moleskine diary and a journal, in a thinly veiled attempt to look organised.
prioritising
I find now that if I don’t tackle more tasks than I have set, I’m going to feel like I had an unproductive day. Sometimes this will happen, however what I’ve tried to do is always make sure I have three tasks that I will focus on; it could be a specific objective or a broad task, but as long as I can say I tackled my three priorities I can say I’ve at least had a productive day.
day planning
I take around twenty minutes per day laying out how I would like my day to go. This is done by writing down every task I can think of in any order. I then mark important tasks with a *, tasks that need doing with a !, tasks that require research with a 🔎 and tasks that can be delegated with →. As the day progresses I can mark tasks started with a ⚫️ and tick off completed items.
meetings
Meetings are inevitable, but it’s a good idea to pen them in. Having something pop up in Outlook is also good, but for the times I’m not at my computer it’s good to just pop open the book and see what I have coming up.
workbasket
Something I added after having a chat with another manager is a “workbasket”, it’s a view of how I feel my time has been spent on any given day. I break the day down into its seven working hours, and give each block a code as to what I feel I was spending most of my time doing, be it meetings, management, coaching or feedback. There’s no perfect balance of activities and not every day will feature every task, but it gives me an idea of how I’m spending my time; plus it gives me a heads up as to why I might be getting behind on a task (for example, if my observations are behind, maybe I should be spending more time doing feedback or coaching).
For the diary I cut out one of the Author of the Weeks from the MSK/template website.
u do u
All this said and done, I think everyone will find their own magic super secret way to organise themselves. I think the biggest thing to focus on isn’t anything to do with organisation or making sure you act the part; it’s asking for help. Attaching to as many people who have been in your position to find what you need to do and how you can do it can be the difference between whether you succeed or fail, because at this stage tasks are rarely delegated from above.