Your Brilliant Career
Module 6: The Right Habits
The key to making a significant change in your career is to form the right habits. We’ve talked a lot about making changes in yourself to enable you to stand out, be noticed and get prepared for a brilliant career.
There are also a lot of little things you can do to make yourself more effective and efficient at work. As your efficiency and effectiveness increases you will stand out as your results will stand out. Maximise your efficiency and effectiveness with high energy.
Many of these habits you can start straightaway and once you make them part of your daily routine without thought you will notice productivity, efficiency, effectiveness and enjoyment at work increase.
So lets go. Here are 30 top habits to get into your working day.
1. Have a prioritised to do list
Many people have to do lists but what you really need is one which prioritises all the tasks so that you focus on the right ones. Quite often with a to do list its easy to focus on the simple tasks so that you can tick something off and feel good. However, they are often the tasks which may not be important or may not move you forward.
A better strategy is to use the following grid:
| COMPLETE
Urgent, Important |
FOCUS
Not Urgent, Important |
| DELEGATE
Urgent, Not Important
|
BIN
Not Urgent, Not Important |
List all your tasks and then allocate them to a box based on the task’s urgency and importance. You should focus on the high importance, high urgency tasks followed by the high importance low urgency ones. Anything which is not urgent and not important should be binned and low importance but highly urgent tasks should be delegated.
By focussing on this grid to manage your tasks you will ensure you do the right things and also the scary ones – the ones which move you forward.
2. Set yourself a monthly challenge
Each month set yourself a challenge over and above what is expected from you by your manager. This is something extra that you have identified needs doing at work. It may be big or small but it is your own idea and something that will impress your manager and add value to your workplace. It may to sort out a nagging problem or to implement a new process. Whatever it is one per month will mean a very successful year.
3. Take an hour a day for yourself
It important to spend time thinking at work but its difficult to do as there is so much going on and everybody is so busy. In your diary block out a full hour per day where you can review your work, think about things and stand back from the detail of what you are doing. Use it to think about your priorities and really plan how you are going to tackle them instead of just rushing in.
4. Plan the next day at the end of each day.
Before you go home each day, plan what you are going to do the next day. Plan what you want to achieve the following day, how you are going to do it and what a good day would be like. This way you leave work in control and ready for the next day. If you don’t do this, when you come in each day you never get a chance to plan ahead- you’ll be busy as soon as you sit down and then you could spend the whole day out of control. Also planning the day ahead will mean you don’t go home with a hundred things on your mind about work – it brings closure to the day and lets you enjoy the evening.
5. Don’t let your day be controlled by emails and voicemails
Emails and voice mails are great but can also be a major distraction. Don’t check emails and voicemails as they arrive – otherwise you will be distracted from the task at hand. Have set times to go through emails and voicemails – maybe three to four times a day but only when you have completed the necessary tasks. This way you can stay focussed and not be sidetracked.
6. Initiate and take action
Act like a leader at work – this means initiate things. Arrange meetings. Call people to action. Don’t be reactive and wait for things to happen and for your manager to set tasks for you. A brilliant career requires you to take responsibility and this means taking the initiative.
7. Read – even if its newspaper
Keep learning. Be a reader. Read industry news – with the internet it is really easy to keep up to date. Read the quality newspapers such as the Financial Times where again you may learn about the world and current issues. A lot of industries and organisations have industry specific publications (my last company subscribed to Poultry World!). You should read these once per month as this will give you valuable information about your organisation. Turn yourself into an avid reader of items related to your work and career.
8. Relax time and have some downtime
Make sure you have downtime and relax. Your career is important but you need to ensure you can get away from it and do something else. This way you can stay refreshed. By relaxing I mean active relaxation. So get a hobby, play a sport –something where you have to use your mind and body but is less intense than work. It gives you a great release and you feel reenergised. Watching TV will not do this – get out and do something!
9. Walkabout at work
Make it a point at least once per day to just get up out of you chair and walk to another part of the office or building and just chat to people. It’s too easy to spend all day at your desk, immersed in your own to do list that you forget to network and build relationships. So take the opportunity to get up out of your chair and go and talk to another person in the office – you will actually learn a lot if you ask them about work or discuss the current business situation for example. By showing an interest in people you will build a great network.
10. Ideas, ideas, ideas!
Have a little book and populate it with all your ideas about work. You should aim to have new ideas all the time and you should store them all in one place to refer to and action when the time is right. If you can turn yourself into a person with great ideas and opinions who isn’t afraid of sharing them and implementing them then you will stand out as someone who cares about the organisation and who is also a self starter.
11. Read your goals each morning
You should write down your career goals and read them each morning. Make your goals specific with a date in mind and write them in the present tense. Visualise the outcome of the goal as you read it each morning. This will keep you focussed as you will be energised and excited by achievement of the goal.
12. Get a success buddy or coach
Find someone in your organisation or outside of it who is ambitious and driven like you and meet once per month to share ideas and experiences. You can motivate each other, help each other out as problems arise and keep each other on track as both of you work to have an amazing career. Don’t try to do things in isolation – two heads are better than one.
13. Read the jobs pages
Even though you are not looking to change career you should now and again look at the jobs pages to see what kind of jobs are advertised. You should not be looking at the jobs that you can do now but the jobs you aspire to in 5 years. Read the job descriptions, look at the salary, review the skills and experience required. By doing this you are feeding your career aspiration and keeping it excited and alive. It’s also quite fun to do.
14. Know key facts
Know key facts about your business. It is quite impressive when someone can reel off a number of relevant facts about the business or the part of the business their job relates to. It may be performance figures for example. Whatever it is and whatever your role is know some key facts that senior people may be impressed that you are aware of.
15. Don’t get side-tracked
Quite simply stay focused. Focus on your goals at all times. You will have times when your motivation is low. This is when you need to stay focused and keep going. At these times it is good to call up your success buddy or coach.
16. Give advice
At work try and give advice, coach and teach others. Spending time with other people helping them out will raise your profile immensely and you will be seen as a great team player. It earns you respect when you take time out for other people. Offer yourself when you see people are struggling with work or don’t understand, you don’t need to wait to be asked.
17. Set a leaving time; don’t let the day drag on
Try and set a realistic leaving time each day so that you can get away and enjoy the evening and refresh yourself for the next day. Many people work late and a lot of times it’s not because of workload – it’s because they haven’t planned the day or their workload and didn’t start the day off with an idea of when they were going to go home. Knowing when you will finish is important as it allows you to prioritise around the tasks you have. Also you’ll avoid idle chit chat in the evening – many people’s reason for ending up late at work.
18. Write down your mistakes
Each time you make a mistake, write it down and next to it write down what you learnt and what you would do differently.
Remember mistakes are good – learn from them.
19. Do what you hate doing
Each year pick one thing you hate doing such as giving presentations and set yourself the goals to do it. Instead of avoiding the things you hate, tackle them straight on. This will give you confidence and self belief and after you’ve done a couple you’ll be able to conquer anything.
20. Follow up people
Make sure you follow people up when you have asked them to do something or asked for something. This way they know you are serious and mean what you say. You will be treated with more respect when you hassle people.
21. Monitor your chit chat
Be aware of how much idle chit chat you enter into at work. People don’t like gossip so don’t be part of it. Stay professional and focussed on your job. Chit chat will waste time and serves little purpose. It doesn’t build your network. So control it.
22. Don’t leave for the day until you’ve done what you set out to do
Try not to leave the day unfinished. Completing everything you set out to do will give you a great feeling of achievement. You will be in control of your job as everyday you can start fresh knowing yesterdays tasks have been completed.
23. Smile everyday
Yes remember to work with a smile. Remember this when the stress levels increase. Smiles are infectious and once you start so will everybody else. People want to be around happy people and as a manager I need to see smiles in my team to keep me motivated. It doesn’t take much but it will make you feel better.
24. Don’t be scared
You can achieve anything you want to so be fearless. Don’t be scared of failure and remember that the more you get out of your comfort zone the faster you will progress. So just go for it.
25. Your time is important – treat it like gold
Manage your time and don’t waste it. Be efficient at work, get things done and use your time well. Don’t let others waste it. Say no to things if you have to and if you require time to yourself just tell people not to disturb you politely.
26. Focus on the task at hand not size of to do list
During the day focus on each task you have to do and not on the to do list. It’s better to get the task at hand completed well. If you are always worrying about your to do list you will paralyse your mind and will rush tasks and actually achieve little as you will spend more time worrying and less time doing.
27. Know when you are most effective
Some people are morning people others work better later in the day. Make sure you do the important or difficult things at the best time of the day for you. Use this time to its maximum effect and adjust your day accordingly. The high urgency, high importance things should be completed at the best time of the day for you.
28. Have time with your manager
Each month demand at least an hour of dedicated time with your manager. You should talk about how you are getting on, share feedback and discuss important issues. Aim to learn from your manager and take away actions that will help you in the next month in both doing your job and getting you closer to your goal.
29. What’s my opinion? If this were my business I would…..
Ensure that you give your opinion. Always ask yourself, what’s my opinion on this and then share it. Say it confidently and with conviction. Think of the organisation as if it were yours and what you would do if it were your money being spent in the workplace. This is a great way to challenge and formulate an opinion on any topic at work.
30. Enjoy
I purposely left this till last. But I would say its one of the most important points. Enjoy your career. It is important and serious but make sure you enjoy. You spend too much time for you not to be stimulated, energised and challenged by your career. So surround yourself with great people, focus on your goals, take action and celebrate every success and improvement you make. Savour every moment and you will enjoy it.
Actions of the Week
Pick at least 10 of the above and do them at work for the next two weeks. Give yourself a reward when you complete the two weeks.
Then pick another 10 and do the full 20 for another two weeks.
Then do the final 10 with the first 20 for the next two weeks.
So in six weeks you will put in place all 30 habits and maybe some more that are suitable for you.
Keep adding to the list above and take the responsibility to put them into action.
Remember when you are efficient, focused, effective and are working with energy and enjoyment you have planted the seeds of a brilliant, rewarding and fulfilling career.
Content © 1999-2009 Fiona Harrold Consultancy. All Rights Reserved.