Manage Wisely

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Manage Wisely
George Pitagorsky   (August 9, 2007)





Zen elicits an image of peacefulness: a beautiful rock garden, a full moon in a still pond. Project management often brings forth very different images — drive, controlled chaos, tight schedules, restrictive budgets, anxiety, conflict, expectations and outcomes. Can these two worlds really be reconciled, much less infused to manage projects?

Are you awake? “What a question.” You might be thinking. “Of course I’m awake. I’m reading and thinking, am I not?” But what does it mean to be awake in the way that a Buddha is awake?
 
“Buddha” literally means awakened one, and this book is about what it means to be awake in this way. Of course, it is also about project management and how to do it as well as it can be done. But from the point of view of Zen, managing projects is both a quest in and of itself and a vehicle for awakening. Essentially, we are going to reveal how project management can be used as a Zen art. In Zen there is a tradition of taking apparently mundane daily activities and elevating them into art forms that create paths to spiritual awakening. What makes an activity like project management an art or "Way" is to practice it both for the immediate result and with a view to purifying, calming, and focusing the psycho-physical apparatus — the body-mind complex. The Zen approach will not only benefit your project work tremendously, but it will allow you to extract more personal value from it.
 
The Zen activity becomes a focal point for concentration as well as a vehicle for addressing all the personal and relationship issues that arise when we are actively trying to accomplish something with a high degree of excellence under challenging circumstances.



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