So how do we deal with this? Ms. Reynolds defined what a personal mission statement is. It articulates what you are ultimately trying to accomplish in your work/personal life. It's based on your values, which indicate what matters most deeply to you, give meaning to your work, and shape your decisions and behaviors. It helps determine your priorities. When we review our activities in light of our mission statements we begin to see what absorbs our time but does not produce results. We can identify what keeps us from getting our work done so that we begin to make changes. As a concrete example of this, Ms. Reynolds described a situation in her office where e-mail was getting out of hand. People would e-mail her with questions that required a response. Ms. Reynolds found that it took more time to compose an e-mail response than it did to leave her office, find the person and answer the question in person. In the process she discovered that personal interaction was restoring/building relationships and made her a better leader. By making the simple change of answering certain types of e-mails in person Ms. Reynolds realized a double benefit: time savings and increased interpersonal contact.

One final illustration of this concept of reorienting ourselves took the form of a demonstration with the program's moderator, Mary Jane Kelsey. Ms. Reynolds poured a large container of small pebbles into a large bowl. The pebbles represented the many small details of Ms. Kelsey's job. Ms. Kelsey was then asked to insert some large rocks into the bowl, without causing the pebbles to spill over. The rocks represented big-picture things such as "planning", "leadership", "management", and "vacation". Well, it was impossible to fit all of those rocks into the bowl with the pebbles. But when the rocks were placed into another bowl first, the pebbles easily fit in and around the rocks without spilling over. The point was that if we focus on the truly important and not the details, everything will fit.

There were several suggestions that came out of this program. Two that were particularly meaningful to me were:

1. Organize weekly. Rather than sitting down with a list of daily tasks, I should make an effort to see what projects and programs I can make headway on in a given week. I should identify my goals and take concrete steps to achieve them.
2. Interruptions happen. Some are critical, but some are not. I need to give myself permission to ignore or postpone the interruptions that are not critical.

To conclude the program, Ms. Reynolds was able to briefly mention a professional development tool The Professional Mentor. It is a software tool that allows users to assess and upgrade their interpersonal and leadership skills. Users can work at their own pace from their desktops. It certainly sounds interesting and may be something that some of us want to look into further.

But first I'll be working on my mission statement...

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