CPD tips: How to improve self-management skills

Being able to self manage and improve your personal skills is about taking control of and being responsible for your own professional development. The following CPD article will outline why self-management is important and provide some helpful strategies and tips on how to enhance your self-management skills.

What is self-management and why is it important? 

Self-management skills are the ability to plan for and organise your work (and arguably your wider career too). This involves taking ownership of your actions, completing tasks reliably and achieving professional goals.

Having good self-management skills means that you're an independent and self-driven professional who can work with little to no supervision because you have the ability to prioritise tasks and set goals for yourself.  Displaying good self-management skills is also an attractive quality for job applicants as employers often value self-awareness, self-motivation and proactivity.

6 ways to improve your self-management skills

With that being said, here are some of our tips and strategies on how to improve your self-management skills in the workplace:

1. Play to your strengths

Self-awareness is a key attribute regarding self-management skills. Understanding where your strengths lie and how to best use them is essential to being as effective and self-motivated as possible. Research shows that identifying (and then playing to) our strengths can increase our mental tenacity and ability to accomplish our goals, reduce stress and anxiety, and improve our overall sense of satisfaction. 

If you’re unsure of what you’re strengths are, try to find commonalities in positive feedback and judge whether they align with your understanding of your own strengths. You can also directly ask colleagues you trust for feedback on what your strengths might be, too.

2. Work on your ability to prioritise

Improving your ability to prioritise your workload not only makes you more efficient in completing the most important tasks first, but it also helps reduce the risk of distraction, can reduce stress and mean you’re less likely to become overwhelmed. All of these factors are hugely beneficial when it comes to your ability to manage yourself.

Organise your to-do list into the order of importance and make sure to focus on one task at a time. Whilst some people regard multitasking as a useful skill it can lead to distraction and stop you from completing tasks fully and to a good standard.

3. Set yourself goals

Goal-setting is an effective way to track your ability to self-manage. Creating goals outlines a commitment to achieve something and ensures that you implement a framework and plan to achieve them. Looking for tips on how to set goals properly? See our previous CPD articles on how to set effective goals:

How to set smarter goals

A guide to goal-setting

4. Prioritise your well-being

Working diligently to achieve your professional goals and further your career is hugely worthwhile but the flip side to that is to overwork, and ultimately, burn yourself out.

Good self-management includes prioritising your personal health and well-being because your mental and physical health is absolutely vital to you performing at your best, achieving your goals, and making positive steps in your career. Try to factor in regular check-ins with yourself as well as breaks and time to do things outside of your professional life that fulfil you.

5. Be accountable

Accountability means that you are comfortable taking ownership of your thoughts and actions. With this skill, you're better equipped to evaluate your work and determine the best way to proceed. A good way to ensure you’re holding yourself to account is to set personal expectations and regularly reflect on whether you’re meeting those expectations.

Another good tactic is to ask for advice from trusted colleagues or senior team members. The likelihood is they will have strategies in place that they use to ensure they do what they need to. Implementing these proven strategies can be a great starting point as you develop your own ways to hold yourself to account.

6. Be adaptable

It’s great to have detailed plans, but it’s just as important to be able to be flexible and pragmatic when things inevitably change. One way to become better at adapting to change is to practise. Try to find ways you can leave your comfort zone and adapt to the new situation. The key is to find low-stakes situations to put yourself in and, rather than running away, lean into the challenge and see how you can go about managing it.

Over time you’ll begin to notice the ways in which you best respond to differing situations and will be able to take these learnings into the next time that a real curveball comes your way.

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We hope this article was helpful. Established in 1996, The CPD Certification Service is the world’s leading and largest CPD accreditation organisation working across all industry sectors. If you are looking to provide training courses, workshops, eLearning or virtual events that may be suitable for Continuing Professional Development, please contact our team to discuss in more detail.

Alternatively, if you are looking for a free online CPD record tool to help manage, track and log your ongoing learning, as well as store your professional training records and attendance certificates in one simple place, go to the myCPD Portal page.