Peter Taylor: mail@thelazyprojectmanager.com

One month. That is a long time isn’t it? Well not if you have to deliver a 30,000 word manuscript it isn’t.

But, since I am generally an impatient sort of person, to have a deadline like that is really good, it gives me a focus, an edge, and it makes me feel alive. I definitely achieve more when I am busy.

With the website development I already had a good idea of the main chapters for the book and I had done some research so ... what was I worried about. Nothing obviously.

‘I am going to be a bit busy this week’ I told the family, in as casual a manner as possible.

‘Why?’

‘Just got to write the book by Sunday week...’

And so there I was at 7am on Monday morning – 29,000 words left to go (I had the chapter introductions already). My first task (after making a nice cup of tea) was to post up on the wall a schedule – chapters, word counts, targets day by day. Roughly two chapters a day were needed and 4,000 words per day. Simple.

Actually it went really well, no major writers blocks, no significant re-writes, it flowed strongly and I even added a couple of new chapters to provide some balance I felt was missing and some neat tricks within the book – such as the ability to officially cheat (well it was a book about being lazy after all).

The only real problem I had (apart from the occasional sarcastic comment from my family about my almost complete disappearance with the exception of meal times) was in stopping. The final chapter on Sunday just wouldn’t come out and I am sure that this was to do with my lack of desire to actually stop writing. But in the end it was done. Finished.

Any regrets? None, well none except the wish that I had been sponsored by ‘RedBull’ for the writing period as I must confess to having filled the bin a number of times with the empty cans.

So that was that – job done – manuscript delivered to my publishers and everyone happy.

What next?

Well next was the global launch of my speaking career.

And the location? London? Paris? New York?

No, Warrington.

Which was actually fine by me. I was invited by PMI (Project Management Institute) to speak at an evening event about my real work as a director of a project management office with Siemens, but of course I managed to slip in a quick mention about The Lazy Project Manager.

So the book was with the publishers and the world had heard me speak. Life was feeling pretty good.

London, Paris and New York would beckon soon enough.

The Lazy Project Manager - by Peter Taylor - www.thelazyprojectmanager.com

According to publicity for the new book, The Lazy Project Manager, authored by Peter Taylor and to be published in the UK by Infinite Ideas Limited UK in August, “lazy does not mean stupid or unsuccessful; lazy is the way forward. The lazy project manager illustrates how anyone can apply the simple techniques of lazy project management in their own activities in order to work more effectively and consequently improve work–life balance. This ‘productive laziness’ approach builds on the Pareto principle that states that for many phenomena, 80 per cent of consequences stem from 20 per cent of the causes. To put it simply, only 20 per cent of the things people do during their working days really matter.”

Inside this book readers can discover:

· The intelligence of laziness – why smart, lazy people have the edge over others;

· Why the Jungle Book’s ‘Bare Necessities’ should be the productive lazy theme tune;

· How to get the maximum output for a minimised input;

· Quick tips to productive lazy heaven.

 

In addition, the author provides some interesting (and entertaining) things about eating dinosaurs, wearing ermine cloaks, and how to spot a psychopathic woman at a funeral. Also find out why you should never go ballooning, how to deliver a good Oscar acceptance speech, and why it is important for your team that you read the newspaper each morning. And yes, you may also learn some, quick, simple but important things about project management.

In "The lazy Project Manager" Peter Taylor illustrates how to achieve more without expending more time and energy. Welcome to the home of 'productive laziness'. Here there is a more focused approach to project management and our efforts are exercised where it really matters - there's no rushing round involving ourselves in unimportant, non-critical activities that others can better address, or indeed that do not need addressing at all in some cases. It's all about working smarter and Peter Taylor, head of a PMO at Siemens, gives away his trade secrets. This is not a training manual. You won't turn into a project manager by reading this book. But Peter, acting as virtual coach, will help you to identify and focus on the key activities in your projects, do them well and enjoy the world of productive laziness.

 

Peter Taylor: mail@thelazyprojectmanager.com

The first test of my theory that the world did indeed want ‘The Lazy Project Manager’ came on the 2^nd day of 2009 when I sat in the office at work and pondered what next.

Now I have to admit that I had gone in to the office to escape the family, it had been a long Christmas break, a long holiday, and I needed to do something different. Anyway, I am in the office and I had taken along the Writers book and, as I sipped my coffee and munched on a left over Mince Pie, I decided what was needed now was … action!

Being a lazy (but productive) person I decided to contact both publishers and literary agents that I could email. Writing letters and posting just seemed too much hard work. So, looking through the relevant pages of the book of wisdom, in all things book like, I came up with a shortlist of 10 publishers and 5 literary agents. If you ever do this you have to confirm that a) they deal with the sort of book you are talking about, in my case a business book, b) that they are open to manuscript submissions and c) understand what they will accept as a submission. This last part varies – some want a brief overview, some a sample chapter, some a detailed synopsis. They are all different, which makes an authors job all that more fun.

So, with the shortlist I began the task. It took a couple of hours to complete the mailings (yes, it was very quiet in the office that day) and when the task was done I headed off for lunch.

When I returned there was an email from a literary agent already. Wow!

Now my expectations weren’t high, I had heard all the stories about rejection and being ignored etc, this was a tough old business I was trying to break in to. And sure enough the first response was a ‘no’.
 

In fact it was a ‘sorry, no interest at all’. Ouch!

I took this calmly and resigned myself to the fact that I would, if I was lucky, get 14 more emails like this – in not so lucky then no-one else would even reply.

In fact I did get replies and many were helpful and supportive. Of the 15 I sent out only 1 has never replied (so far). I say ‘so far’ because I had an email only two weeks ago from one publisher saying sorry for the delay but they weren’t interested. So 14 replies out of 15 is a pretty good statistic I feel. Of these I had the book seriously considered, that is taken to an initial editorial meeting, with two publishers but the real result came through a literary agent.

Again I had heard dark things about these mythical beasts ‘the literary agents’ and my expectations were pretty low. So I was extremely pleased when one not only replied but put me in contact with a publishing company in Oxford. They did not want to take me on but they made a personal recommendation and I was contacted shortly by Richard Burton from Infinite Ideas Ltd.

We met in February to discuss my outline ideas and decide if we could work on ‘The Lazy Project Manager’ and make it a success.

I liked their in-house style, and the fact that wanted to move in to business books, if you visit their website you will see what I mean:

Infinite Ideas is a little more than 5 years old and in that short time we have published more than 150 titles that have helped tens of thousands of readers become inspired to change their lives. And we’ve done that through publishing with such a passion for what we do that in some cultures it might be perceived as bordering on the obscene or illegal.

So what have we got planned this year? Well, feast your eyes on our new imprint The Feel Good Factory, a range of books so beautifully written, so gorgeously designed, so sumptuously crafted that they will make you weep with joy. Literally. Weep with joy.

You want books to help beat the recession? Well you’ve come to the right place. How about the first UK book on the Twitter phenomenon? What about more books in the bestselling Infinite Success series? Look no further.

Frankly if we were to pleasure you further we may face arrest. We’ve got books we love and books we know our readers and partners around the world will love too. So feast your eyes, gird your loins and feel the passion.

So I had found myself a publisher. http://www.infideas.com/

Next all I had to do was right the book.

Oh and I had a month to do it in!

Peter Taylor: mail@thelazyprojectmanager.com

It was Christmas Eve, on the very cusp of the season of peace and goodwill, and so what better time to tell the family that I was embarking on some mad personal hobby that would involve even more work and some very uncertain rewards.

I claim now that my family drove me not to drink but to public speaking and authorship. Then I just hoped that they wouldn’t fall about laughing.

So we gathered around my computer in my study and they all stared at me with suspicion. Mainly due to the fact that I spend most of the time persuading them to get out of my room and let me get on with work. ‘Persuade’ you understand ranges from politely asking them to leave through to physically removing a small child from my laptop who demands to finish his online game of’ Adventure Quest’.

Anyway, they gathered, they looked at me with weird suspicious eyes and with a flurry I produced a bottle of champagne, some glasses and displayed the City Speakers website with my name on it.

‘I am going to write a book as well’ I declared.

Two children asked if they could go now, one stared at the screen confused and my wife just asked if she could start the champagne. I regained some credibility by showing that Jeremy Clarkson was with the same agency as their father (this worked with the boys), and by pouring some champagne (this covered the remaining non-believer).

It wasn’t quite the moment of excitement I had hoped for but I had gone public and they hadn’t actually laughed so I took that as positive support. Now for the book thing.

I purchased online the Writers & Artists Yearbook (2009) and went off to start celebrating Christmas. The book arrived in the post before New Year and I happily skimmed through all the sections, this was a new an exciting world opening up for me.


The Writers & Artists Yearbook, in its own words ‘contains information on a huge range of topics including copyright, finance, submitting a manuscript, e-publishing, prizes and awards’.

Within its pages were the names and addresses of publishers and literary agents and much much more. Surely it would be easy to find just the right one to take on my piece of conceptual work. The world must be ready for ‘The Lazy Project Manager’.

Surely.

The wait, after I sent that email exposing my private ideas to the public, was not so long I have to admit and, it also has to be said, was painless. The responses back were positive and supportive. Now, as I mentioned last time, I did carefully select the audience but even so the dream could have been over very quickly.

So, an idea and a website existed, now what should I do. I went back to that discussion about what I wanted to do with my life and noted that I had said two things, one of which was presenting or speaking.

My wife will tell you that she had some concerns many years ago when we got married about my speech at our wedding. She knew full well that I enjoyed presenting to groups, to delivering training courses that lasted for days; to making sales pitches in boardrooms and that I was more than capable of talking for much longer than was deemed necessary, appropriate or polite on such an occasion. I don’t think I did too badly, the audience laughed in all the right places, I am unaware of upsetting anybody (including my new mother-in-law) and the speech was not very long at all.

Just in case you are wondering I based the speech on the lottery (it had just started then) buying tickets for the entire top table with the numbers 1, 7, 15, 21, 30 and 40. And those numbers meant something of course: 1 for the first day of our married life together (aaaaah – that is a soft cooing lovey dovey aaaaah by the way, not a scream for help!), 7 since we married in July, the seventh month, and 15 because we married on the 15^th of July, 21 representing the 2 bridesmaids and the 1 pageboy, 30 representing the 30 years I had known the best man, my best friend, and 40 acknowledging that both sets of parents were about to celebrate 40 years of married life. Even so, I think my wife thought that I might just pull out a screen from somewhere and fire up PowerPoint, as if …

Right then, speaking it was to be but it was all very well volunteering for presentations in the work environment, would anybody actually pay to listen to me. The opposite might be more likely, pay me to shut up and go away.

I then embarked in a manner that I have maintained since then – just giving it a go. You know there are so many times when, if you think about something too much, you will always find reasons to not even bother. I looked up on the internet five speaking agencies in London and then emailed, where I could email, and wrote, where I couldn’t email, to them. I laid out my experience and supplied a short profile and waited.

I only received one response back, so I can’t have impressed four out of the five, but even so I did hear back from one and they signed me up.

http://www.cityspeakersinternational.co.uk/

I was actually in Starbucks at Copenhagen airport when the call came through from a guy named Jonathan Lel. We chatted and after a ten minute phone call we agreed to talk again and exchange some more information and within two weeks I had signed a contract.

Scarily easy.

But it did reinforce my plan to ‘just do it’ as a well known sportswear company likes to put it.

There is no doubt that times are hard to be entering the public speaking arena, there is a whole lot less work going around these days, but it was the next step, the next rung on the ladder, the next move in my plan for global domination ha ha ha! Sorry, getting ahead of myself there. Anyway, I am available so do feel free to make the call and book me up.

OK recap – idea – website – speaking agency – tick. Going great so far, but then I realised that my next hurdle was to actually tell a small yet powerful group of people who could crush my plans with one casual comment or destroy my dream with one sarcastic look.

Yes you have guessed it; I had to tell my family!

September 6th 2007 was a momentous day for me.

It was my 50th birthday, a major milestone in anyone's life I would guess.

And it was on that date that all this 'life changing stuff' started, not that I had any idea of what would be happening in 2009 of course, but turning 50 certainly was the catalyst for the events I am experiencing right now.

Anyway, I should introduce the main players in this blog right away; it is only polite after all.

My name is Peter Taylor and I am 'The Lazy Project Manager' - but more of that later.

Alongside me is my wife, Lisa, who is a midday supervisor at Binley Woods Primary School, as well as Mum and Housewife of course.

And we have three boys living off us (with us) and they are Adam, aged 13 who attends Harris School, Sam, who is 10 and who attends Binley Woods School, along with Scott, who is 6.

There are other characters in this story but we will meet them as and when appropriate.

The boys all love computers, Xbox games, Sky kids programmes - nothing unusual there - as well as playing football in the park opposite our house.

Here we are, Adam, Lisa, Scott, me and Sam.

We live in Binley Woods and have done for the last 5 years in a nice house in the village centre overlooking a play area.

Neighbours are great, the village friendly, the local shops (including Chinese takeaway) good and it is a 5 minute walk to the primary school.

So back to September 6th 2007 and me; it was a good weekend with celebrations running Friday to Sunday and with all the family and friends involved.

But you know, for me, for a man, you can kid yourself at 40 that you are pretty much 'half way' through this life thing but at 50 you just know that 'half way' is pretty surely behind you and that is a sobering moment.

Well it was for me, not depressing but it does get you to thinking about your responsibilities and your general mortality and, more to the point of this story, to thinking about what you are doing in life, what you have achieved and how you will be remembered.

The end result of all this thinking was that there were things I wanted to do, changes I wanted to make, and some undefined 'stuff' that I should get around to.

Getting rid of the mortgage would a good start, travelling more, and investing more of my time in the things I wanted to do rather that the things I had to do to make money.

Now for about 6 months or so I just had these thoughts and did nothing at all.

Then I decided to leap in to action and, being the lazy person that I am, I decided that I could solve all of my challenges and fund my desired life changes by winning some money. Brilliant!

So I bought a lottery ticket online for 10 weeks, bought some scratch cards and placed a bet on the horses.

Net result, investment £50, winnings £2, overall result depression and the realisation that I actually needed to work at this properly.

Six more months went by and still my post-50 life changes were not out of the starting blocks and then in September 2008 there was a moment of inspiration.

I was travelling back from Italy on a flight with my boss, I will explain what I do for a living later on, and we discussed 'what next' in our lives and I said that I really enjoyed writing and presenting/speaking.

I have now worked for my boss four times over the years so we have a really good working relationship and often share ideas; his reply to my comment was typical 'You'd be really good at that but you are probably too lazy'.

On the drive home from Heathrow Airport the idea generated in my mind and 'The Lazy Project Manager' was born.