My friend Bonnie told me about AMA, the American Management Association site. Here you can find Webcasts with lectures on several management topics. The Webcasts are free to watch and listen to if you register.

Thinking I needed a change from the usual TV shows I watch while stitching, this morning I decided to listen to one while stitching on my current project. I selected Beyond Time Management, by Donald E. Wetmore. As a project manager I am always interested in ways to work more efficiently, even while on maternity leave!

As usual with such lectures, a lot of the items mentioned where common sense or I had heard about before. That can’t be helped if you’ve been managing projects professionally in one form or another for well over a dozen years. Nonetheless, I always get a little something from such lectures… and in my book if I learn something new or am reminded of something, then it was time well spent.

So here is what I got out of this one:

1. “Vital Areas” (slides 8 to 16). I do have my own list of areas I focus on. I’ll be reviewing my list to see if I need to add or remove something. I might also prioritise the areas based on where I feel the most work is need at the moment.
2. In slide 18, Donald talks about “Daily Planning” and provides a list of things to review and do each evening to plan the next day. I do this in an informal way, perhaps a bit more structure would help.
3. The 7×7 Technique from slide 19 is the real gem I am taking from this lecture for myself… basically do a little something every day in each Vital area. Over a year it all adds up to a lot!
4. There were also some tips for overcoming procrastination, including a funny mention of the 2002 movie Adaptation. I am not a big fan of Nicolas Cage or Meryl Streep, but it did sound like a funny movie. I’ve added it to my list of movies to watch – perhaps next time I am procrastinating about something.
5. While listening to the procrastination part, I remembered that what I really need to be doing is to find the documents needed to file our tax return.

There was a lot more content in this Webcast, the items above are just the ones I took for myself. And now that I’ve procrastinated some more by writing this post, I feel that I am ready to go find those tax documents.

By the way, keeping up with my filling system is something I also procrastinate about…

Stitching is a very good procrastination task! Sadly that means no more stitching for me until I’ve found those documents. How’s that for motivation?