“I know I need to delegate more often,” Sharon explained. “But, it just takes that little bit of extra time that I never seem to have. It’s just easier to do it myself.”
“How many hours do you put in each day?” I asked.
“Well, ever since I became a manager, probably ten or eleven. It seems the harder I work, the more work there is to get done.”
“Sharon, do you know the reward for long hours of hard work?” I could see she was going over the obvious answers, dismissing them one at a time. In the end, she had no answer.
“You’re right,” she said, “at this point in my career, I don’t need another plaque to put on the wall. I don’t need to be Employee of the Month, again.”
I smiled. “The just reward for long hours of hard work is more long hours of hard work.” I stopped. “Is that why you are working so hard?”
Sharon stared, first at me, then the wall behind me, then I think her stare began to burrow into her brain.
“Unless your intention is to work even harder and for longer hours, you have to begin to work differently.”
Exactly, the industry needs hardworker who is also smart worker. It was not long that I was in your shoes. 24 hours in a day were just too less for me, but what could I do. My team was growing big and spreading across the continent now. I was juggling between different time zones to covery everyone up. Listening to their tasks, problems and then responding took a big chunk of my time. It was then I realised I cannot work twenty hours a day, making myself uncomfortable to make other comfy in their time zone. We struggled with various time management software and then finalised http://www.timemerlin.com. I am glad because now I get their timecards, read and respond accoerding to my timezone and they get to read it according to their timezone. I guess now have learnt to be smart.