We are not the same. And usually, people specialize in what they like the most out of all their tasks and experiences. Therefore, some people will become faster at a few tasks, while others will excel in others.

But when you start working with people, you assume they will finish every task as fast as you would.

• So if you don’t know your timings, you will fail at organizing the work because you will have no clue about what you are doing .
• But if you know your timings , you will fail again because you will organize the work considering only your working speed .

You can deal with different speeds in two ways:

• ask people how much it would take them to finish a specific task,
• or improve your forecasting skills by measuring their timings yourself.

In the first case, they might specify a time slot that is too large.

But in the second case, you will already know how much it will take them to finish. So you can act preemptively by scheduling the work differently.

I need very few things to start working on a task. At worst, I will adjust part of the work to make it better.

Yet, some of my colleagues need more assurances . And before starting to work, they must be sure the task they are working on is completely free of doubts.

Sometimes, their approach is better because they never have to deal with failure or work more to fix any variations the client requests. But sometimes you can’t be sure about everything . And taking action as soon as possible is better than doing nothing.

I always wanted to be cordial and fun with everyone. And my boss knew about this tendency of mine. So when he gave me the position, he warned me I would have to be strict sometimes.

So I schedule a daily meeting in the morning where everyone updates me on their tasks. And I am using this meeting as a training room to be more authoritative . So I force myself to be strict. And I tell people they are finishing their time if I see them procrastinating. 

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