New Year = New Professional Opportunities
Do you feel stuck or stagnant in your professional life? Sometimes, stimulating your brain with a new activity is all that is needed to get you moving in the right direction.
Of course, there are always professional development classes and seminars. Learning a new skill is a great resume-builder. However, if finances are a concern, here are some creative ideas for professional growth without spending a dime.
Find a mentor. Is there someone that you respect and admire professionally? Ask that person if he or she will meet for lunch every other week. Use him/her as a resource for career issues. If you have a goal in mind, ask that person to keep you accountable in working toward your goal.
Go to free networking events. Most cities have Chamber of Commerce or social marketing events. Start attending an event that is within your niche. Before you enter the room or conference center, think about more than just finding new clients. Think about possible alliances and partnerships that may be good for business.
Join a Linked-In group. Just about any profession has a professional group on Linked-In. Joining the group will provide you with a forum for questions as well as relevant information about your field.
Best wishes for a very successful and fullfilling New Year!
New Year = Less Procrastinating
Ahhhh… the “P” word. I don’t think that anyone is unfamiliar with procrastinating. It is simply human nature, and quite possibly a law of nature. Procrastinating is so easy to do; especially with unpleasant tasks or those that seem too large to tackle.
A new year means new hope in tackling procrastination. The next time you are tempted to procrastinate, use Newton’s 1st law of motion: “A body at rest tends to stay at rest and a body in motion tends to stay in motion.”
Follow these steps to test if Newton’s law applies to procrastinating:
- Break the project into the smallest pieces you think you can handle.
- Set a time in the next 24 hours to work on the first “piece.”
- Make sure you complete the piece assigned, but allow yourself to work longer if the work is going smoothly.
Remember, a body in motion has a tendency to stay in motion. If you can get started, you may not be able to stop. Before you know it, you could end up being Positively Productive.
Ready, Set, Go…Get organized for 2012!
With the New Year about three weeks away, get yourself set up for 2012.
- What do you need to do to close out the year? Make a checklist and as you finish each task, cross it off.
- Review year-end reports and gather the data you need as of now. Is anything missing? Track it down.
- How do you want to develop staff next year? Are there training programs and workshops you want to send people to in first quarter? Take action to make that happen.
- Do you need to replenish supplies or replace obsolete forms with new ones for 2012?
- Take time to set up 2011 archive files, folders and storage to make getting organized in 2012 faster and easier.
Staying positively productive in 2012 starts now!
Lessons Learned
Making mistakes is all a part of learning and growing, both professionally and personally. Use past mistakes for all they are worth by recognizing them, evaluating their significance and most importantly, committing to not repeat them. Let’s commit to learning our lessons and moving forward into 2012!
- Multi-tasking is ineffective. We have all done it and many of us are tempted to multi-task every day. Instead of trying to squeeze every second out of the day by multi-tasking, schedule time with yourself to focus on important tasks. It will reduce your frustration level and will end up saving you time in the long run.
- Social networking and marketing is here to stay. You don’t need to be a marketing expert to see the explosive growth in online marketing, social networking and the continually changing landscape of how business is done. If your website, Facebook page, LinkedIn network and other online tools are not up to par, make a resolution to get it done in 2012.
- Spending time to organize now will give you more time later. How long will you wait to get your workspace organized or clean out that junk closet at home? If your days are packed with work, errands and to-do lists, you can’t afford not to be organized. Spend some time daily gaining control over your surroundings instead of the other way around.
Take the above lessons with you into 2012 to become Positively Productive!
What An Experience
Wow, I just returned from an incredible trip to Arizona!
The trip started in Tempe where I competed in Ironman Arizona. What an amazing journey! I started packing a week before leaving and had all my lists ready to go. Between the swim gear, bike gear, run gear and all the special needs items, I needed one suitcase just for race day. I am so thankful that I am extremely organized because it took a lot of the stress out of what is normally a very stressful event. With all the items checked and bags packed, we were ready to go!
The swim was cold, dark and choppy (2.4 miles), the bike was hilly and windy (112 miles) and the run was perfect (26.2 miles). My family was at varous points throughout the day and it was fun trying to find them. Their support and enthusiasm always came at the perfect time. 13 hours and 10 minutes later, I crossed the finish line!
The following day, we headed to Sedona where we spent a week that was full of hiking, off road jeep riding, shopping and eating. Probably the most peacful place I have ever visited.
As you reflect back on 2011, embrace your accomplishments, learn from your failures and plan for a successful 2012!
Thank You!
I want to send a heartfelt “Thank You” to all of my readers, colleagues and clients for your contributions to my business success! Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
Take It Easy!
Holiday time can be stressful, especially if you are expecting house guests . The key to being a successful host or hostess is preparation.
- Get Ready. Prepare guest accommodations at least a week before your visitors are due to arrive.
- Set Priorities. Let your guests know about any work-related deadlines or priorities that will occupy your time while they are visiting.
- Keep Things Simple. Plan easy-to-fix meals that don’t require a lot of preparation since your visitors will want you to spend time with them, not in the kitchen.
- Don’t Over Plan. Allow your guests free time to come and go as they please and pursue their own interests. Don’t plan every minute of their visit.
- Don’t Do Everything Yourself! Accept offers of help! Your guests will feel more relaxed if they know they have contributed to the smooth running of the household.
Say “Thank You” and Stand Out from the Crowd
Thanksgiving is the perfect time to thank people for their contributions. Most people send holiday cards in December; fewer people send Thanksgiving cards to colleagues, vendors or customers. This is a time for you to stand out by sending thank-you cards with handwritten notes. To really stand out, don’t use an e-card. Use snail mail. This is a small, yet gracious, gesture that will be welcomed and well remembered!
Decision Points to Eliminate Piles of Paper
Do you have piles of paper at home or at work that are waiting for a moment when you have more time? If so, you’re not alone. With the fast pace of our lives, paperwork often gets left to be handled later.
Start first by reducing the volume of unnecessary paper you receive. See my recent blog, Eliminate Spam and Junk Mail for ideas.
When a piece of paper comes in, immediately decide if you should discard, delegate, take immediate action, file for reference, or file it for follow up. Do not put the paper down somewhere to be handled a second time, make one of the above decisions.
If the paper requires action, ask yourself if it is time sensitive? If so, then use a tickler system that works for you. Remember to keep it simple!
Items that are not date sensitive but still require action should be dealt with weekly at a specified time. Put the time in your calendar as if it were an appointment.
Use these simple guidelines to cut down on the paper in your life and become positively productive!
Capturing Good and Bad Ideas
If I only knew then what I know now! How many of you have ever said or thought that? It’s a fairly common thought among humans, and it is a powerful thought.
If humans could somehow know things in advance that they ultimately learn from the school of hard knocks, they could avoid bad marriages, bad bosses, bad hires, bad customers, bad investments, bad movies and bad sushi. On the other hand, they could also take advantage of an endless supply of opportunities for success.
But the fact is, you cannot know then what you know now. That’s not the way the world works. However, you can do the next best thing: You can know now what others knew then and others can know now what you knew then. Let’s put this idea into a step-by-step format so you can consider implementing it.
Step 1 – Create a form to help capture ideas. Use this form to capture good and bad ideas. Give the form a name and write it on the top. For example, you can call it an Idea Sharing Form. Add a blank space to the top of the form labeled Category. In this blank space, you might categorize ideas into sales, production, customer service, retention and so forth and so on. Think in terms of how someone might search for an idea later. Include an area with a few lines to record a highly summarized version of the idea. Label this section Headline of Idea. Under that, create an eight- or 10-line space and label it Comments and Explanation. If you’d like, at the bottom of the page, create a couple of blanks labeled Author and Date. Having said all of this, use a pencil to draft your form and make any changes to my ideas on the design of the form that make sense to you.
Step 2 – Have someone create an electronic version of the form to make it easy to distribute to your employees. Even better, create a document that allows others to fill it out on their computer rather than handwriting it.
Step 3 – Fill out at least one of these forms each week and encourage all employees to fill out a minimum of one form per week. Write up an idea that worked great or one that bombed; it doesn’t matter since people can ultimately benefit from both. Have someone transfer the ideas to a searchable database that all employees can access. Keep it simple.
Think about it, if you have 10 employees and everyone (including you) completes at least one form per week, you will have a database of around 550 ideas after 12 months – a database of ideas that specifically relate to successfully, or unsuccessfully, running your specific business.
This database can serve as a non-intimidating source of knowledge for you and your employees. Any employee who chooses to use this database can frequently say, “I know now what you knew then.” And that is a good thing!
Written by Chris Crouch, developer of the GO System.
