Self management skills guide
Unlocking your potential: The benefits of self-management
Self-management skills can prove the difference between reaching your full potential and sabotaging your chances for success. You can effectively regulate and control your behaviors.
Furthermore, you can also control your emotions and actions. As a result, this control can lead to greater productivity. It can also improve your performance.
Moreover, it can lead to smoother interactions and increase the odds of fulfilling professional and personal goals.
Strong self-management skills allow people to navigate life with greater confidence. Awareness of one’s own needs, triggers, strengths, weaknesses, and values promotes self-regulation. This knowledge promotes better decision-making, focus, planning, and perseverance.
Employers value workers with practical self-management skills. In addition to monitoring their behavior, these individuals contribute to a positive work environment.
They see the big picture and embrace their role in organizational achievement. Leaders and colleagues appreciate their ability to stay on task, honor deadlines, and remain even-keeled in challenging situations.
Key self-management skills
Self-management encompasses many abilities. Let’s examine 11 of the most critical ones in detail.
1. Self-awareness
Before you can regulate yourself, you need to know yourself. Self-awareness involves pondering things such as:
- What you do well
- What you struggle with
- What makes you happy, sad, angry, fearful, etc.
- What triggers activate strong responses
- How you tend to react in different situations
- What you want from life
- What do you consider your core values
Strive to gain conscious access to your thoughts, desires, and emotions through regular reflection. Set aside time to think about each day’s events. Look at how you behaved and how you felt. You’ll likely start noticing patterns and keen insight into “who you are.”
2. Self-discipline and self-motivation
Achievement requires staying on course. Remaining focused and energized, though, often proves challenging.
Figure out what distractors or obstacles stand in your way. Recognizing your inclination to lose time while chatting with colleagues reminds you to avoid the water cooler on a day when a critical deadline looms.
Everyone prefers some tasks to others. Figure out the best way for you to tackle the less desirable ones. Perhaps the promise of an enjoyable break after completion stops your procrastination.
Or, gearing yourself up to rid them from your to-do list first thing in the morning brightens your mood for the rest of the day.
Do you find motivation generally problematic regularly? Consider whether the job or the field might be the root cause. Ask yourself if you like what you do and feel a sense of purpose. If not, a change might be in your best interest.
3. Time management and prioritizing
Great self-managers know that only so many hours exist in a day. They prioritize and schedule to maximize this prized commodity.
Urgency and importance influence which duties receive top billing. Cleaning one’s desk should take a back seat when a major report is due by the end of the day. In more grey areas, a worker may need to consult supervisors or colleagues for assistance on where to allocate time.
Your self-identified interests and values can help, too. For example, you may care intensely about the outcome of a particular project and decide to dedicate extra time to it.
Or, your commitment to arriving home on time to eat dinner with your family might influence your decision to turn down opportunities for overtime pay.
A smart time management skill is to create a central calendar and put all personal and professional obligations on it. This strategy allows you to keep track of everything jockeying for your attention. You can easily see conflicts in scheduling and where pockets of time exist to add activities.
4. Organizing
Effective self-management involves structuring more than just time. It includes devising strategies and routines that keep information, activities, and objects in order.
Such behavior allows you to perform more efficiently and enhances your reputation by showing others you have your act together.
A few common organizing tricks include:
- Color-coding folders to make what you need easier to find
- Putting office supplies back in their designated space so they will be ready for the next use
- Keeping an individual binder or computer file of information on each client that can be accessed before meetings
- Putting Post-it note reminders on your computer
- Packing a lunch the night before to make getting out the door in the morning quicker
People vary in their techniques and don’t deem specific organizational skills better than others. What matters most is knowing yourself and possessing the self-discipline to stay organized.
Some workers, for example, thrive on apps and other technology. They favor setting pop-up reminders or creating notifications on their phones.
Others prefer more “old-fashioned” means such as notebooks, pen and paper, and alarm clocks. The key is to discover what works for you.
5. Goal setting and planning
Goal setting involves determining what you want and how to achieve that outcome. It turns vague notions into solid plans.
People often create both short-term and long-term goals. For example, an individual might break down the goal of finishing a complex project on time into daily goals that keep work on track and motivation high.
Or, someone may have the ultimate goal of a promotion to a higher position. Setting smaller goals, such as obtaining a necessary degree or improving written communication skills, contributes to the bigger picture.
Just as leaders often use the SMART method to create a roadmap to fulfilling business objectives, individuals benefit from personalizing that outline.
Each letter in SMART stands for an important element of successful goal-setting:
- Specific
Getting specific about what you want to accomplish turns a rough idea into a tangible goal. It answers the “W” questions (who, what, where, when, and why).
- Measurable
Effective goals define where you are vs. where you want to be. Evidence of successful completion is in the metrics. Measurement methods may be quantitative (such as time saved) or qualitative (such as positive client feedback).
- Achievable
Evaluate your position on what you want to accomplish. Is the goal attainable based on your skills, knowledge, and experience? If not, break it down into smaller, more achievable goals. Reaching too high and failing leads to frustration, while staying reasonable builds confidence.
- Relevant
Why is the goal important? How does it fit in with your overall life plans? Goals with meaning inspire completion.
- Time-bound
Establishing a time frame for accomplishment creates a sense of urgency. Without specifics on what will be accomplished and when, the odds of procrastination or letting goals drag on increase.
6. Decision-making
We all face a variety of choices each day. A strong sense of one’s strengths, weaknesses, interests, and values aids decision-making.
Making sound judgments requires analyzing and filtering available information through one’s perspectives.
For instance, accepting a higher-paying job is a no-brainer. But, things become more complex if the job involves a good amount of travel and you dislike being away from your family.
You may also learn of some questionable practices at the company that conflict with your ethics. How might working for such an employer make you feel?
Self-management assists individuals in making intelligent decisions, meaning ones that consider their well-being.
Knowing your decision-making style helps, too. Understanding your tendency to make snap decisions that you later regret could inspire you to consciously take a step back and think a bit more before finalizing.
Or, you often weigh options too long and miss out on opportunities. Setting time limits on information gathering can be helpful.
7. Problem-solving
Employers value workers who take the initiative to handle their problems. While there to support, leaders prefer when employees use their critical thinking skills to generate possible solutions rather than expect others to fix things.
Problem-solving skills include identifying and addressing challenges, gathering and sifting through information, arriving at alternatives, and implementing a plan or solution. Creativity and empathy often aid in examining the problem from multiple angles.
Self-awareness assists in determining one’s problem-solving tendencies. Some people panic when problems arise or immediately make mountains out of molehills.
Others lack the perception to notice anything wrong until they are hit over the head. Many individuals try to ignore problems in the hope that they will go away alone.
At the same time, counterparts may invest a great deal of time and energy into developing a perfect solution.
Understanding your emotions and typical actions can make the problem-solving process smoother. Overreactors, for instance, can learn to pause before exploring options. Someone who ruminates excessively can self-impose a time limit for generating possible solutions.
8. Adaptability
How do you react to change? Some people embrace new ideas and situations, while others become fearful or belligerent.
Effective self-managers know that flexibility is necessary in our ever-changing world and must adapt. Regulating their response might involve actions such as:
- Boost self-confidence through positive self-talk, such as, “The company has changed procedures before, and I learned to master them. I can do that again.”
- Thinking about their adverse reaction to pinpoint what exactly is causing anxiety and then addressing that aspect
- Taking a breath before expressing concerns to cool off or not appearing flustered
- Seeking support, such as asking for written instructions to refer back to or getting paired with a mentor with more experience at a task
9. Emotional regulation
From staying calm under pressure to choosing words carefully when angry at fellow team members, professional conduct demands self-control.
What you express and how you do it influences how others perceive you. This reputation ultimately affects relationships, likeability, and even suitability for promotion.
Self-managing emotions does not mean denying what you feel. Instead, it involves a key element of emotional intelligence – mindfulness of what you are experiencing and acting accordingly.
Say you notice your blood boiling during a staff meeting. “Taking five” for deep breathing to regain composure shows maturity. Letting loose a tirade does not.
Or, a colleague may hurt you by taking too much credit for a joint project. Identifying your resentment and scheduling a private chat to resolve matters is preferable to pretending nothing is wrong or talking poorly about the person behind his back.
10. Stress management
High-stress levels challenge self-regulation. Burnout can impair self-control as well as affect physical and mental health.
People must develop healthy coping mechanisms to manage stress and maintain emotional balance. Examples of self-management actions to handle stress productively include:
- Practicing self-care: eating right, exercising, getting enough sleep, taking breaks
- Setting boundaries: learning to say “no,” not biting off more than you can chew
- Maintaining work-life balance: unplugging during non-work hours, scheduling time for relaxation, and being with family
- Using PTO: taking time off to recharge, recoup when sick, handle personal situations
- Seeking help: talking to your manager about workload, asking for assistance from colleagues or family members, seeing a professional if anxiety or depression happens frequently
11. Continuous learning
Lastly, self-management involves monitoring one’s professional and personal development. Seeking opportunities to expand horizons and develop new skills increases performance, engagement, and career prospects.
Employees can take the initiative to determine the competencies that will most benefit their careers. Discovery could involve reading about industry trends or talking to one’s manager about the company’s needs. With possibilities identified, workers can seek ways to obtain knowledge and skills, perhaps through seminars or classes.
Continuous learning also means a willingness to evaluate oneself regularly. Personal growth comes from consistent reflection. Evaluate strengths, weaknesses, preferences, interests, values, and behavior. These things often change over time.
Self-knowledge leads to better self-management, so seek ways to truly understand the most important player in your career and life – you!
More resources:
Management by exception: Its advantages and drawbacks
Digital age workplace: Why soft skills matter more than ever
Time management techniques to improve productivity and reduce burnout
Want more insights like these? Visit Beth Braccio-Hering’s author page to explore her other articles and expertise in business management.