On Productivity in remote work, Meeting Invite Etiquette and ChatGPT — 3 key learnings Weekly
Ask ChatGPT — When in doubt
This week, I was brought on a new project that is currently about 75% complete to lead efforts to launch a new product for a company. Being that the project is in its final phases, a lot of the work involved is majorly around managing people and teams to produce desired outcomes on time and within scope.
Coming into an ongoing project as a Project Manager can go in many different ways depending on how you approach it.
I find that getting acquainted with the project documents and project team is a good place to start. In one of my calls with a project team member, we were brainstorming and coming up with some asks for the project sponsor which would be our next meeting and this team member did something amazing! They went ahead to ask ChatGPT for some tips on how to transition into a project that is in execution as a new project manager/team member and the results were so helpful (see snapshot below).
These insights in addition to our ideas helped us to be better prepared for our meeting with the project sponsor which ended up going excellently!! I learnt that AI is here to help me as a Project Manager so when the need arises I could work with AI for better outcomes
The key to increasing your productivity may be a change of layout within your current environment
As a remote worker, one of the things I make sure of is to constantly find ways to boost my productivity while I work from home. Recently, I had noticed that I wasn’t as focused when attending to tasks. I was getting tired quickly, needing more naps to function and very easily distracted. In addition to getting a health check up, this led me to examine what changes I could make to my current environment to help me out. I started by keeping my personal phone far away during work which helped to some extent and then I made sure to have my blinds open during the day for some direct sunlight which has been amazing! One key change that made the whole difference was changing the layout of my room such that I can’t see my bed while working. it has to be something psychological about that because it felt like my productivity blew up past 100% afterwards. Prior to this week I had my desk in a position where I could see my bed if I look to the side while sitting at my work desk. With my new layout, I have no view of my bed from my desk while still having access to sunlight and all my work tools. Safe to say that this has been my most productive week yet!
I take this as a lesson on change, to be open to it as it may just be the door to your most productive self
Use the optional category in Virtual Meeting invitations!
You know when you are sending out a meeting invitation on google calendar or outlook and you go ahead to add the guests or invitees and eventually send out the invite? It’s common to have the view that “I’ll just invite everyone, those that are available would accept the virtual meeting invitation and attend and the others could go over the meeting minutes”. While that may have its place,
for most work/project meetings it’s important that we take the extra step to highlight those who are required attendees vs those who are optional.
This gives the optional attendees the flexibility to decide the priority of this meeting in comparison to their other tasks and either attend or not. As for the required attendees, you as the meeting organizer can get a better view on whether meeting acceptance quorum has been reached and thereafter decide on the next best course of action which could be to follow up with those who rejected without a reason, reschedule the meeting or proceed as planned. In essence, categorizing your virtual meeting guests into required or optional would always look good on the sender as you are seen to be respectful of the time of your guests. I learnt this on a call with a mentor this week and found it worth sharing
That’s it on what I learnt this week!
I received some encouraging messages after posting my first article in this series last week and this is to say a heartfelt Thank You to everyone for the support. This series is helping me take a more reflective approach to my learning each week and it is the best thing so far
What did you learn this week? let’s hear it in the comments
See you on the next article, keep learning!
3 key learnings by Faith Achile
