Everyone is a project manager. Even if your job title or job description doesn't contain 'project management', you still manage projects in your professional and personal lives all the time.

Think about it: planning your next trip or your wedding is very much a project so is the launch of a new product or a service or simply the process of planning and executing the next meeting you have to run. 

So what is a project? 

A project is a certain outcome or a task that is timebound and has an end game to it - something you're aiming to achieve. 

I've been running projects my entire life - moving to Germany, UK and then Ireland were all projects so were my dissertations about PR and social media for sustainability as well as all beauty blogger campaigns I run when I was working in my previous PR agency and now so are the multiple things that I do in my current Program Management job that by definition is all about managing multiple global projects at the same time. 

It took me a while to figure out how to excel as a program manager without formal project management education. If you've never run a project at work, it's helpful to start with an understanding of what project management is in the first place and what are the key methodologies that will help you make a decision on how to run your project.

Almost every day at work, I find myself in a situation where I need to persuade someone to do something and most of the times, this someone wouldn't even report to me. 

As you can imagine, this is extremely difficult to do because others have their own jobs and priorities and trying to impose yours on them isn't as simple. 

I've found that to make someone to agree to a proposal (a pitch for an executive yes or a request to someone to do pieces of work) you need to rely on one particular weapon - influence. 

Becoming influential, though, is a lengthy process that in my opinion revolves around building relationships with people and growing your own reputation. 

But sometimes, even if you are the most influential person in the company, you'll inevitably get pushback. 

Ideally, you should be prepared for such an outcome in advance. A helpful strategy I've used in such tricky situations is analysing and planning with Cialdini's six principles of persuasion. 

Do you know what prewiring is? 

By the time you finish reading this blog post, you will. 

I recently read the McKinsey Mind which is a great, quick book that offers a simple problem-solving framework and quite a few consulting techniques, proven and tested by McKinsey and its people. 

We all know McKinsey so I think we can trust their expertise which is why I wanted to share with you my learnings from the book.

Some of them are simple but we don't implement them enough, others are very clever tips that can help us not just in consulting but also with stakeholder management and buy-in or teamwork. 

Before I get to the tips, here's the model that McKinsey uses for problem-solving with clients: 

As companies grow, scale and expand in international markets, the need for cross-cultural sensitivity and communication ability increases.

In fact, communication is what underpins both stakeholder management and change management - two areas without which a company cannot function or grow.

However, when we add cultural differences to how people make decisions and follow orders, organisations face a tremendous challenge to getting things done.

Two Areas for Consideration

There are two key areas that companies should be strategically looking into when operating in a cross-cultural setting:

Over the last few years, various people who wouldn't know each other have called me "the machine" on certain occasions.

I suppose I should take it as a compliment as it refers to my ability to complete a ton of work quickly and also to manage a very active personal lifestyle at the same time.

I'm not going to lie, I've learned how to get a lot of stuff done, systematically and well. And to be honest, it's all about time management. That's the secret.

Which is why today I'd like to share with you how I manage my time. Hopefully, these time management tips will allow you to boost your productivity and peace of mind too.

5 Secrets to Better Time Management for More Productivity