Summary: Play Now: This episode is sponsored by The Agile PrepCast for The PMI-ACP Exam: This interview with Sarita Maybin was recorded at the Southland Technology Conference 2013 in Long Beach. Sarita Maybin (http://www.saritamaybin.com/) gave us a high energy presentation at this year's SoTeC Conference. We discovered how to get done the things that matter most and set limits with people who make unreasonable demands, including three ways to say “no” nicely. We recorded this interview right after she finished her presentation and discuss: How to determine which tasks are urgent, important…or neither; Three strategies for identifying priorities; How to spend more time on the tasks that relate to your goals; How to identify and eliminate your most common time wasters; How and when you procrastinate; Top five techniques for overcoming procrastination; How guilt, perfectionism and other personal traits stress you out and waste your time; Clues that you are on stress overload…and what to do about it; And some real life stress strategies. Below are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete transcript is available to Premium subscribers only. Podcast Introduction Cornelius Fichtner: I am still at the Southland Technology Conference 2013 here at the Hilton Hotel in Long Beach and with me is a fabulous speaker. We have just come out of Sarita Maybin's presentation. Podcast Interview Cornelius Fichtner: Hello Sarita! Sarita Maybin: Hello Cornelius! How are you? Cornelius Fichtner: I am very well! I'm excited. I'm energized. That was probably the fastest one-hour presentation that I've ever been into and by fast, I mean it was so entertaining and exciting that it went by like [snap] that. Sarita Maybin: And I must say the group was quite enthusiastic and that energy really just made the time fly by. Cornelius Fichtner: Right! Now, the title of your presentation was: "How to get more done with less stress". This is something everyone needs, right? Sarita Maybin: True, true. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah! You started out the presentation by looking at 5 habits that gave us stress. What we decided to do is because we're talking to project managers here, one of these 5 habits is really important for them and we want to help them to overcome it. But we do want to take a look at the other 4 just on a very high level as well. So let's start out with the first one: Perfectionism. What's it with this? Why does it cause us stress? Sarita Maybin: Well you know as I mentioned in the workshop, those of us who are perfectionists, myself included, tend to act as though we have it all handled so people don’t help us. So the biggest challenge for us is to ask for help without looking weak. As you might recall from the workshop, I talked about the importance of focusing on the other person: "You know you're really good at fund raising. We'd love your input in this particular committee." "You know you're really good with people. We'll love it if you could help us with the social event." So focusing on how the other person might contribute rather than:"Oh, I'm so weak. I need your help, help, help" which does not sit well with the perfectionist. So that's the reason that's on the list of stressors. Cornelius Fichtner: Right and then there's something that every project manager pretty much has to do and has to be in and that is trying to fix and control others. How does that cause us stress? Sarita Maybin: Yes, well as we well know, people sometimes don’t want to be fixed or changed. And of course that presents a challenge. I am always reminded of the story I shared with the group which is when my daughter was arriving trying to prepare myself for her arrival by subscribing to the parenting magazine. And in the magazine they said people are pretty much formed by 4 years old. So how does that, in other words, how can possibly expect to change someone who has been that way since they were 4 years old? And for me, that was a wakeup call. The fact that peop
