Start every morning with intention
For five minutes before you turn on your computer or phone, determine what “winning” looks like today. Don’t compile your long list of todo’s; compile the 3 most important items, the 3 things which, if done well, will constitute a win. Knowing your priorities before other people get to choose them for you is the biggest advantage you will gain in your profession. Reactives spend their days dealing with other peoples urgencies. Intentives spend their days focused on their own tasks.
Block off one hour for “deep work”
Shallow tasks such as email, calls, and immediate responses always fill the time which you allow them. The work which truly move your career forward – any of the problem solving, creation, and thinking which can’t be done by another-requires prolonged periods of unfocused time. Dedicate a minimum of one hour each day to “deep work” where your phone is off, your door is shut, and you focus deeply on your one, most important task. An hour per day accumulates to over 300 hours of career building output, which others will never accumulate.
Learn something new every day
The world is moving too fast for yesterday’s knowledge. Successful professionals don’t think of learning as optional but rather something that will be fit in once things are less busy. Read an industry article. Spend 15 minutes listening to a podcast on your commute. Watch a quick tutorial. Ask someone more knowledgeable than you how they navigated a challenge. Each of these can be done fairly quickly but compounded over time they contribute to a vast advantage, the difference between someone knowing little to no more than they did last month, and having a career full of accumulating learning.
Touchbase with one person on your network
When most people hear the word network they immediately envision conferences or searching for new employment. This perspective is quite different for the most successful and connected individuals who see networking as a day to day practice of a genuine human connection. Send a quick message today to an individual to congratulating them on a recent promotion. Say: I want to share this article with you as I read it, it reminded me of you and wanted to pass it along. Comment on a previous employee’s LinkedIn post. The result of repeated small acts like these is a network that will stand by you without even asking because you have stood by them time and time again.
Think about your work in a truthful way
If only you got into the habit of pausing for a few minutes at the end of each workday and posing yourself two questions-what went well?and what could I have done differently? That little practice of self-reflection, when done day after day, produces a feedback loop that few people ever establish. Without it, you tend to repeat the same errors and end up making the same misjudgments and behaviour patterns. With this habit, you are constantly making passive improvements-conceptually gaining Lessons from your own experience instead of simply expecting them to come, say, from a boss, colleague or friend. The most talented people in your career (however you define it) are not those that grow the fastest-they’re those who think most carefully about their experiences.
Getting over it – do the thing you’re afraid of.
All professionals have one thing in their queue that they just keep circling back and never actually landing. The tough talk. The big idea up to which they don’t quite have the courage. The project that’s way too important to start. Make it a daily practice to identify that worst for you and resolve to do some mutated version of it first. Procrastination is not laziness. It is, more often than not, a fear in a work suit. If you confront it imperfectly but nonetheless, it builds a sort of professional depth. It is one of the rarest and most prized virtues in the workplace.
Communicate early and often
Bad communication trumps bad skills to bring more careers to a halt. Make a conscious effort to over-communicate your progress, an effort to raise alarms early when things are still manageable, and a drive to respond to people faster than they expect. The trick of being someone people can rely on to keep them in the loop isn’t just professional courtesy-it’s career enhancing recognition. Clear doesn’t just sound good-clear means simpler. When you truly understand something-truly master it-you’re able to express it simply and succinctly. Clarity inspires confidence in a way that fuss and terminology never can.
Get your body moving
In many people’s books, this one is a bit of a wellness cliché, but the scientific truth is compelling enough: a bit of daily activity improves concentration, helps combat fatigue and anxiety, and provides long term energy for a successful career. You need not to spend hours on your bike or on the treadmill. A quick 20-minute walk a few hours after breakfast, taking some meetings on your feet or infusing standing up planning into your day will all improve brainpower for the rest of that day. Your health truly is the foundation of your job performance. Don’t neglect it or your work-product will suffer.
Ask for unsolicited feedback
Most people wait for their annual review to learn how they are doing. By that time, all of those opportunities for course-correction have long since gone away. Make it second nature to actually solicit feedback during small and relatively inconsequential times during your workweek. When you give a presentation, approach a trusted co-worker and solicit feedback. When you end your project, ask your boss what you could have done differently. To anyone who wants to learn about his or her own blind-spots-but not also defensive about his or her reputation-this is a startling and honest position. People talk frankly to people who can take it.
Close out with a fresh ending-The Final Snap.
The highest achieving, most productive people aren’t working fewer hours-they’re working smarter. Design your own closing ritual-Review your schedule for the following day, clear away your to-do list of tasks that can wait, and then actually leave. Most people never put this intentional boundary in place, and therefore they are never able to be completely present at work or completely absent from work. Rest is not the antithesis of productivity. It’s the ground from which genuine productivity can emerge. The daily practice of stopping well, quietly, is how you show up every morning, ready to start again.
Summary
Every morning decide on and write down your three biggest goals for the day just to ensure that your day is driven by what matters most to you and not by what others want you to do. Set aside, without a doubt, one working hour for the uninterrupted and thoughtful work that really grows your career. Constantly learn new stuff, if you don’t, you’ll be left behind and the gap between you and your colleagues who don’t learn might be bigger than you think.
Keep in touch with your network by sending out one genuine message each day, and not only when you want something. When you finish your day, do a quick review to see what went well and what didn’t, this is the feedback loop that most people never create. The first thing you should do is get rid of the thing you are avoiding; gradually this will help you develop professional courage.
Communicate from the very beginning and very clearly it is said that more people are fired from their jobs because of miscommunication than because of lack of skill. Be sure to exercise, as your brain’s production largely depends on this. Ask for feedback in very small quantities and not only during annual reviews. Also end your day on a high notepeople with long-lasting careers also know when to stop as well as when to start.
The one thing all ten have in common: none of them are really huge changes, but with regular practice each one becomes a very subtle change agent.
Writeic.com is a creative platform dedicated to writers, interview, storytellers, and digital creators who want to inspire the world through words. The authors at Writeic share insights on writing, creativity, storytelling, motivation, success story, and content creation to help readers grow their voice and unlock their creative potential.
