Your Best Development Tool is Free

One of the greatest development tools you have is free, easy, and you already have all you need.

The tool is Reflection.

All the great managers I know take time each day to reflect on what they did and how they did it. What did they do well and how can they do better next time. Some of them will journal, which I highly recommend. But it can be time to just sit and think, think about what happened today, what could happen tomorrow and how do you feel about things.

Tom Peters, the great business author, talks about how the great leaders read. He also recommends that they have unscheduled time in your day to just think. 

Bill Gates famously takes a week every year where he goes off in solitude and just reads - books, proposals, etc. 

You may not be able to have 50% of your time unscheduled or take a week away from the office to just read, but you can find time to reflect and journal. Just take 15 minutes before bed each day and make notes about what happened, what you are happy about, what you are struggling with, what you want to get done and how you want to feel tomorrow.

Over time, I am fully confident that the things you learn in these little reflection sessions will end up being the difference between you being a great manager and simply a good one. 

PS - the higher you go in the organization, the more important the reflection time is. If your CEO isn’t spending time reflecting and developing, your company is at risk of failing.