I am a big believer in honesty. In every facet of your life, it is incredibly important to do what you say AND to say what you do. It does not matter if it is in regards to your family, your friends, your co-workers or your bosses: honesty is the best policy.

When agreeing to help co-workers, to be home for dinner or to head a new project, it is vital to communicate openly your expectations, your limitations and your vision. Your significant other will be much happier to hear “Honey, I don’t think I can be home until 8:30 tonight” than to hear platitudes and then have wasted an evening cooking you a dinner that is ruined. In the same way, if you promise your client or boss that you can have these three deliverables by COB Friday, you better be able to deliver them by that time. It is acceptable (in most cases) to communicate to your boss or client if you absolutely cannot make your deadline, provided that you do it early on in the process (noon on Friday is NOT acceptable) and that you have a good reason for missing the deadline. Otherwise, you’re violating their trust and undermining their opinion of you. Next time your client is looking to book a job or your boss is looking to staff a new project, they will both hesitate to pick you again.

View all of your promises as “veggies”. Abiding by them will significantly increase your employment/home life health.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Time Management, Time Management Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.