Self-Management skills are necessary and very important in all facets of life. Many students get poor grades, not because they cannot assimilate the classes, but because they are overwhelmed by the imposed workload. Often, the employees who move up the company’s hierarchy are not the smartest or the most educated, but the most decisive, those who can cope with a heavy workload and get things done. And although we are not aware of it, the lack of personal organization can ruin our financial situation and interpersonal relationships.
What does Self-Management include?
Although people only relate self-management to time management, it is a much broader concept that has to do with the following:
- Know yourself. What are your values? What is your vision of life? What are your strengths and your weaknesses? Only starting from this can you seek a full life.
- Define objectives and goals at all levels so that your actions always obey important things and do not get carried away by the urgent crisis. There is no point in just being busy all the time.
- Develop your proactivity. Search, with a positive attitude, the path that leads you to the life you require to live.
- Learn to make decisions about all the things that concern you — even if the decision is to do nothing — to always be in control of your life.
- Improve your self-esteem and confidence. Appreciate yourself, be assertive, and learn to say no in certain circumstances.
- Develop yourself, grow, improve. Create the discipline needed to acquire more knowledge to improve your relationships with others. Take care of your mind and your body.
Learn to manage stress and conflict, to achieve the emotional stability necessary to function well in all areas of life.
Manage your time better, not only to do more things but to enjoy it more. There is no more time than there is, but it can be of higher quality.
Develop and maintain the motivation necessary to get things done and to defeat procrastination. As Steve Jobs also said (excuse me, but it’s on my mind these days), “perseverance is half of what separates success from failure.”
Assess yourself regularly and make any necessary adjustments: reality changes, and the assumptions you made some time ago maybe no longer very accurate.
Know how to stay focused on what you are doing.
The ultimate goal of self-management is to empower us to achieve the life we want. Or, put another way; greatly increase the chances of a happy life.
Three Ways To Learn To Manage Yourself
Incredible as it may sound, learning self-management, a competency so important to our success, is not included in our educational system. Nobody teaches us how to manage ourselves. We acquire more or less intuitively and that we are shaping based on mistakes and failures—a hard learning path.
Some recognize poor self-management symptoms when they reach a higher level of stress than they can bear. Only then do they worry about improving their skills. Unfortunately, many others are unable to detect the causes and blame all their problems on external factors. These do not usually set a course.
What to do to improve your self-management skills?
Read. Many books of proven success will help you understand each problem’s origin and teach you techniques to improve.
On the web, some blogs periodically publish interesting information and advice in this regard. Subscribe to the ones you like to get some weekly wake-up calls.
Attend specialized courses, conferences, and events that take place near your place of residence. It’s a good option if you don’t have a lot of time to read and want to speed up the process.
Hire a specialist or personal coach. It is expensive, but if you are in a critical situation, it is the best option.
In any case, you must put into practice the knowledge acquired and be constant. Establishing new habits is not an easy task, and success ultimately depends on you.
Self-Management, A Key Skill Of The 21st Century Worker
Peter F. Drucker (1909 ~ 2005), an Austrian-American author, is probably the most influential author in the 20th century’s business management.
It was Drucker who introduced the concept of the knowledge worker in the 1970s. Workers whose main contribution to the company is their knowledge. People who do not do merely routine tasks and, therefore, their contribution depends on their ability to think and their creativity. At the end of his career, Drucker focused more on the study of personal management than on business management. He realized that, given the increasingly long life expectancy of human beings and the increasingly insecure employment situation, self- management would be a fundamental skill for knowledge workers of the 21st century. According to Drucker, there are six key factors in the productive success of knowledge workers:
- The knowledge worker must be able to answer the question, “What is the task?”
- You must be responsible for your work. That means you have to be able to manage yourself.
- Continuous innovation is part of the job.
- Continuous learning is mainly part of the job, as is teaching.
- Productivity is not just a question of quantity of results. Quality is at least as important.
- The knowledge worker must want to work for a certain organization, and, for this, the organization considers that the worker is an asset, not a cost. Often, the employees who move up the hierarchy of a company are not the smartest or the most educated, but the most decisive, those who can cope with a heavy workload and get things done. However, self-management or self-management is a key skill necessary in all life facets, not just at work. Many students get poor grades, not because they cannot assimilate the classes, but because they are overwhelmed by the imposed workload. And although we are not aware of it, the lack of personal organization can ruin our financial situation and interpersonal relationships.
Although many people associate self-management with the so-called “time management,” in reality, it is a much broader concept that has to do with all these things: Knowing oneself. What are your values? What is your vision of life? What are your strengths and your weaknesses? We cannot perform well in what we are weak at; we must perform according to our strengths. Define objectives at all levels so that your actions always obey important things and do not get carried away by the urgent crisis. There is no point in always being busy, no matter why. Develop your proactivity. Being proactive means taking control of events rather than just staring at how things happen.
Search, with a positive attitude, the path that leads you to the life you want to live. Learn to make decisions about all the things that concern you — even if the decision is to do nothing – to always be in control of your life. Improve your self-esteem and confidence. Appreciate yourself, be assertive, and learn to say no in certain circumstances. Develop yourself, grow, and improve. Create the necessary discipline to acquire more knowledge, improve your relationships with others, and take care of your mind and body. Learn to manage stress and conflicts, to achieve the emotional stability essential to function well in all areas of life. Better manage your attention, not only to do more things but to enjoy your time more. Your performance, and your productivity to a large extent, is determined by your ability to pay full attention to one single thing at a time. Develop and maintain the necessary motivation to get things done and defeat procrastination. Perseverance is the way to success. Evaluate you’re regularly and make the necessary adjustments: reality changes, and the assumptions you made some time ago maybe no longer very accurate. You must always be willing to question yourself. The ultimate goal of self-management is to empower us to achieve the life we want. Or, in other words, greatly increase the chances of having a full and happy life.
7 Types of Self-Management Skills
The types of self-management skills refer to an individual’s abilities to control their emotions and perform activities under their control. Self-management skills play a crucial role in the personal and professional life of any individual.
Self-management is about making the right decisions, be it emotional or professional, depending on the person’s scenario. If you can overcome self-management skills, you can easily be your boss. It helps you take responsibility for your actions by doing your job through thick and thin.
Types of self-management skills
Self-management skill types are a combination of all soft skill types. This is because personal ability gives you the power of yourself to cultivate all other necessary skills. Self-management skills are essential for all areas of life.
The best kinds of self-management skills you need to learn to drive yourself. Now, these are some of the best self-management skills you need to learn to manage.
1) Stress management
It doesn’t matter if you are a working professional or not; stress is something that everyone has dealt with at least once. But when you’re in the workforce, managing stress can be one of the hardest jobs out there. Therefore, it is necessary to learn the art of stress management.
It is one of those types of self-management skills that help you stay calm in chaos; it will help you be at peace with yourself, even if a lot happens in your workplace. Stress management is necessary because it will provide many health benefits.
In general, stress has detrimental effects on your health. It can lead to an increase or decrease in blood pressure, dark circles under the eyes, gray hair, and so on. It can even get in the way of balancing your logical thinking approach.
You cannot work effectively if you are experiencing any of these problems. And that is why stress management is essential.
2) Time management
It is rightly said that “time and tide wait for no one.” Therefore, time should not and should not be taken for granted. Time waits for no one, and you should too. As an individual, you must always respect the value of time, and this will happen when you acquire the art of time management skills.
It is one of the types of self-management skills that are necessary for people who come from all types of backgrounds, either they are working professionals or not. For more effective time management, one needs to know the amount of work that is required to perform. And divide it according to your priority and then a specific amount of time for each job and finally start working on it.
Here are some things to do when it comes to time management:
Set the priority for things that need to be done. Also, organize the task that your employees will be assigned and the one you will perform independently.
Eliminate all kinds of waste and redundancies from your work. For example, if you are in a workforce, and you are the manager of some organization, don’t waste your time organizing a useless ROI meeting over and over again. Instead, make the most of available resources and increase the day-to-day operation at work.
Reduces overall training time. This can be done immediately; you realize the optimal stakeholders are there for your projects.
3) Organizational skills
Now you need to make sure that the place where you are working is well organized. This will help you increase your productivity ten times more. It can be as simple as cleaning stacks of documents from the beginning of your time or cleaning your desk or desk.
This will make life look more organized, and you will feel less burdened. In this way, you will clear off all the clutter and enjoy a clean space. You can try to have organized folders for your hardcopy and paper documents.
Also, try to organize all your things in alphabetical order. This will always save you a lot of time when looking for a file from an old project of yours. This whole little thing is what organizing skills are made of.
4) Troubleshooting
This is another of the types of self-management skills, one that I can’t stress enough! Challenges are an inevitable part of our lives.
5) Decision-making skills
This is also an important time management threshold that has a hold, and only a few of us do. If you are good at making decisions, you will automatically notice the positive impact of this in your day today. By making clear and effective decisions, you can make a difference in your life.
Your productivity will increase tenfold, and you will also be successful in time management. If you are stuck within a situation where you want to know what task you want to accomplish next, consider asking yourself a few questions.
These can be related to what are the different types of resources that will be needed to complete the next task, and how many of these resources are already available or how much you will be able to complete the work within the specified time or not. Etc.
6) Self-confidence
Self-confidence is another type of self-management skills that are built into many, but many lack it for many reasons. But even if one lacks self-confidence, one can always develop. If you have confidence right in yourself, you will be able to see your life in a much more positive way.
This positivity in your life will also affect your workplace and your environment. If you have confidence in yourself, even your employees will be motivated. Self-confidence is just contagious. Bring positivity to everything.
When you have confidence within yourself, you tend to believe in your abilities, and you like and respect yourself. Here are some tips to follow, which you can also have confidence in yourself.
Always try to stay positive, be optimistic, and try to see the bright side of things, but that doesn’t mean you will have to neglect your problems and fake positivity. It means that if you have any problem, try to solve it instead of worrying about it. This is the way to be positive, and it will automatically increase your self-confidence.
Try to avoid all those things that bring negativity into your life. They can be people like your relative or your friends or your employees at work. Or it could be some situation that brings you negativity. Try to avoid it so that you can stay positive.
Find happiness in the little things in life. Happiness is not only associated with the destination; enjoy the journey.
Remember to remind yourself of this from time to time that you are smart, smart, and can do anything in your life.
Surround yourself with people who exchange positive vibes, those who speak positively, and bring out the best in you.
7) Self-protection
Self-protection also comes under self-management skills, and not many people are aware of this fact. It doesn’t matter that you should take care of yourself. At times work life can be so hectic that people forget there is a life beyond it. And this is where most people do go wrong.
Always make sure to take care of yourself. Exercise every day, even for 10 minutes, eat healthy foods and don’t rely on fast food too much, and most importantly, get enough sleep. Generally, 7 to 8 hours of sleep will do the job to get the required amount of sleep.
This will ensure that you stay healthy and have more energy while you work.
Self-Management, A Competence For Learning
The concept of self-management in education is generally related to the instance where teachers deliver concepts and tools to their students to govern themselves, get to know each other, explore their skills and abilities to generate a personal reflection on their life and scope her. However, when speaking of “Self-Management for Learning,” it is sought through reflection and self-knowledge that the student learns the process of “how” he acquires knowledge according to his needs and abilities.
Self-management for learning seeks to develop competencies that allow the student to create new learning experiences in different environments and situations. In this type of instance, he develops skills that seek to understand the process and apply the knowledge acquired to real-life situations, managing to learn the responsibility that the learning process implies and learning to value, criticize and reflect on knowledge acquisition. For the competence to develop, the student must understand that this process is replicated each time he begins to acquire new knowledge; in a certain way, the student develops a route plan to appropriate new knowledge.
But how can we recognize if students are in the process of developing this capacity for self-management?
Skills that must be present in the process:
1. The student must acquire the ability to plan well their learning process so that it is easy to apply to other instances. Carrying out a constant process of improvement generated by the student.
2. After planning the step-by-step of the learning process, the execution of it must be carried out. The way the student organizes this process and makes constant improvements according to how situations are presented. Generating flexible strategies and doing a constant search for this process.
3. On the other hand, the student must have a decisive capacity. This is because the learning self-management process is constantly improving; however, the student must be able to decide when the process is finished, completing the pre-established objective.
4. The student must have an active role in the knowledge acquisition process, accept responsibility, and generate their knowledge.
5. Finally, the student must understand the need to learn from their peers in a cooperative way and strategies for the learning process.
Also, for teachers to guide their students, they must take into account the following:
1. The student must receive motivational-behavioral support, which allows him to feel the guidance and assistance from the teacher in this project of self-management of his learning.
2. It is important for the student to feel that he has an instance of trust and support from the teacher. Confidence that will allow you to lead the process of self-management of learning.
3. To motivate the student to the curiosity of the search, study, commitment, and accept the challenge of self-management of knowledge; I understand that the management, work, and effort that gives to the process will pay tribute to his own knowledge.
4. Motivate and guide the student in the development of search skills and critical analysis of information.
5. Support in the management of both material and human resources. Prioritizing their decisions and tasks in accordance with the strategic plan developed.
For this, attractive situations must be developed that appeal to the student’s curiosity as a problem-based learning strategy. In these strategies, the teacher has the role of facilitator of learning.
This strategy suggests a change in the traditional classroom setting, where the student has a passive receiver role, where he receives information and guidelines that the teacher gives him. The student is recognized as a different individual depending on the context and the individual variables that compose it, which allows them to develop their own learning style. The development of these competencies seeks to deliver the tools for the change in the way teaching is known, especially with the technological world in which students are inserted.
According to the above, the development of self-management for learning is no longer a simple skill; it is an essential competence for the new student’s profile. Those who live with a mass of information, overexposed to large amounts of it, so acquiring a competence where they learn to distinguish and separate information from that which is useful for each knowledge formation process is a priority. This competence will allow you to function with a view to the future, in the challenges you face in higher education and later in the world of work. It is undeniable to declare that this competence will follow and guide each student’s life, since acquiring new knowledge, skills, and attitudes are learning that will apply throughout life.
Conclusions
Therefore, by practicing all the types of self-management skills mentioned above in your everyday life, you will be able to easily overcome self-management skills. This, in turn, will help you improve not only in your professional life but also in your personal life.
Also read Life Skills for career success
