For A Project to Succeed You May Need a Tap On the Shoulder or a Nudge From a Phone App.

April 18th, 2019 | Julia Becerra

For the past few months, I have been invested in a project with tight deadlines.  In my determination to meet them, I decided that I will focus on nothing else. Well, nothing else besides the other 5 projects I work on, but that is beside the point.

When I reached the first big milestone on my focus project, I was glad, but still would not quantify what I had achieved.  During the “breathing” time that immediately followed, I revised my project plan once again, and I realized, I could finally spare some time to do some pleasure reading. Although my job requires me to read a lot, the reading is not done with the pleasure of falling into words and sentences and recreating in my mind the stories as they unfold.  Stories told by others and absorbed through my curious eyes. I had forgotten the joy this sensation brings.  I browsed through my newly acquired and untouched books looking to choose the one that would allow me the honor of opening it and getting myself into their distinct world.

What a treat! I thought also when looking out of the window and rediscovering in a moment the spring morning that unraveled in my patio.  The birds enjoying the seeds I daily put out for them and making little chirping noises.  The squirrels quietly getting their breakfast.  The scene was probably not different from any other morning but for me it was. I was able to watch it. To take everything in and appreciate it.

It had been there all along but my eyes and my whole self were indifferent to it.  During that “intermission” time in between milestones it came to me: Like so many other things in life it had been there. Available to be loved and appreciated but my eyes blinded or tainted with other emotions, personal situations, moods, work concerns, etc, couldn’t see it, wouldn’t experience it.

Is it always like this with every project? Somewhat yes, but, not as bad at least, but this is a life project, one I have invested not only my time, and money, but one I devoted my whole self to make it happen.

Is there a magic formula to care a lot without going to an extreme? Not, I don’t think so, not for me.  There are tools, there are methods but no magic.  It helps to have the awareness this moment brought, but I am unhappily sure a brief moment from now, during the next time segment, I may not see it at all, while immersed in reaching the next project milestone.

It seems my “habit” Is in-line with high performers behavior, according to a study conducted by MIT professor Tauhid Zaman, in which he measured performance when stakes were low and when stakes were high, with the surprising result indicating that” people who took both tasks seriously would not rattle when the chips were down”. In other words, those who took seriously even the small tasks were able to handle the situation when big projects were at stake.

But when is it too much?  The study did not determine that.  And I hear it is one of the subjects of conversation that management and specifically life coaches and management mentors bring to the table with their mentees.  There are even AI software applications (Butterfly, Qstream, LEADx, etc) recently developed to help not particularly with that event but in general with how to spend the time wisely, how to “supervise” yourself (and others) while staying kind, how to change employee behaviors and how to close the loop between employees and Managers.

While these applications are tools to remind us of the importance of cultivating good management, supervisory and delegation skills, we may tend to find a way to ignore them, the same way we ignore texts or put the notifications off for particular subjects/groups.  Perhaps an alternative approach is to stick to the basics of human interaction and remind ourselves and let other remind us of the values needed to cultivate, to stay in track with our projects and still have room to enjoy a good chat with a friend, a walk, or anything that bring us that thankful moment of appreciation for life.

So, when you see someone including me once again buried in bringing a project to life, and perhaps ignoring an invitation to a time off from it all, feel free to send  a reminder, to tap on his/her shoulder, to kindly remind him/her  we are all invested in his/her project success and taking a short break is another task to make it happen.

 Meanwhile, I will continue to focus on my current milestone as I am getting closer to making the big announcement of my project completion.

Stay tuned.

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