Although it may sound like you are taking work home, project management is a way to use your soft skills to improve your personal and professional life. You will reap many benefits by applying project management techniques in your home life.
Improve your financial management
You will soon be able identify inefficiencies by creating a spreadsheet to track your incomings, and outgoings. Although this may not seem like a fun way of spending your time, it could help you save money next year by dedicating a rainy day to managing your finances more precisely.
Take control of your home improvement projects
Consider taking control of any home improvement or building project you are considering. It is a waste of money to hire a project manager. You will most likely be responsible for the construction. Although it may be something new for you, you have the soft skills needed – organisation, critical thinking and risk management.
Top tip: Build a strong relationship from the beginning with your builder/contractor.
Negotiation skills can be used to your personal advantage
You may recall the time you convinced a contractor to cut 15% off and saved your company PS20,000 per year! These negotiation skills can be applied to large purchases in your personal and professional life. Do your research to cut down on the cost of holidays, cars, and household items. Keep in mind the techniques you used to bargain at work. Always talk to your boss and ask if they can price match or offer upgrades.
Tidy up your Life admin
As a project manager, admin can be a major problem. You need to develop good habits for managing it. These same principles can be applied to your personal life and help you get your admin in order. This could be updating spreadsheets, paying bills on a specific date, a process for filing paperwork, keeping your inbox at 0 and putting emails in specific folders. These methods will help you stay organized at home and keep you on top of your life admin.
Effectively schedule appointments
You can also use the same scheduling techniques that you use at work to run your daily errands. To save time and avoid unnecessary trips to the city on weekends, schedule a dental checkup or a hair/beauty appointment during your lunch hour. To avoid having to make last-minute arrangements, book any commitments in advance. This area of your life can be simplified to save time and effort.
Arrange family events
Use your people management skills for family events. A well-organized family get-together will bring benefits to the whole family. They may even be grateful that you took charge! Even if they don’t, you’ll feel satisfied knowing that the plans were well-managed.
Streamline your communication
As you communicate at work, establish the best ways to communicate in your home. You could do this by creating group chats with family members or friends to save information and relay information. Technology is great for communicating with child care providers, especially if you have children. Many schools, childminders, and nurseries use apps to communicate information and avoid messages being lost, forgotten, or overlooked.
You can coach others around you
As a project manager, coaching others is a common part of your job. Although you may not realize it, coaching others is a vital part of your job. Your coaching skills can also be helpful in other areas of your life. Maybe it’s helping your spouse get a promotion or encouraging a friend on a date.
Keep a log of your achievements
The most successful managers keep track of the project results. This could include noting positive KPI results and flagging outstanding client feedback emails. It’s a great way to show your worth.