The article is devoted to the acute problem of studying operativeness of personal professional development. The article shows that the founder of the theory of operativeness is D.A. Oshanin, who investigated the figurative forms of manifestation of operativeness. The next stage in the development of the theory of operativeness is associated with the name of V.D. Shadrikov. By means of theoretical and empirical analysis, he showed that not only the operational image, but also the subsystem of professionally important personality traits is developed in accordance with the principles of operativeness. This article attempts to empirically prove that the formation and realization of the system of self-regulation of professional activity is also subordinate to the principles of operativeness. For this purpose, the authors carried out a theoretical analysis of the concept of operativeness and defined it. The approach to understanding self-regulation of activity, which is implemented in the study, is outlined. A comparative empirical analysis of the self-regulation systems of the activities of general practitioners and surgeons, as well as elementary and high school teachers, is carried out. On the quantitative, qualitative, and structural levels, the specifics of the development of self-regulation systems for various types of professional activity are determined. Statistically significant correlations between the level of development of the components of the self-regulation system and the efficiency of activity are revealed. It was shown that the more activities differ from each other, the more the self-regulation systems differ from each other as well, primarily at the qualitative and structural levels. The results were used to prove the operativeness of development of the self-regulation system of activities.