Tag Archives: organization

25 tips for professionals under age 25

27 Apr 406295610_6ac305b653_z

As a big sister, I’ve had the privilege of mentoring my 10-years-younger little brother as he went through high school, college, several internships with my company, and eventually joined my company. He is now on a full-ride scholarship in grad school at Notre Dame. I couldn’t be prouder.

I’ve also worked with a number of younger professionals throughout my career, and I remember keenly being one of those young professionals—as a journalist, I was usually the youngest person in my newsroom (by far). There was so much I didn’t know, and wasn’t taught to me in college, about how to succeed in the business world.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the advice that I, at 35, would give to my 25-year-old self or other young professionals in their first few years of post-college employment. I don’t always follow this advice, but the results are infinitely better when I do. Here are 25 tips for success for young professionals under age 25:

  1. Take initiative. This is the most important thing you can do in any job, in any role—in life. Don’t wait for permission or a request, just see a need and propose a solution…better yet, start working on the solution!
  2. Dress for success. Senior professionals want to see you as an up-and-coming professional, not stuck in your college gear (and they’ll assume, your college mindset). Invest in a wardrobe that mirrors the executives (and by shopping sale racks and seconds stores like Nordstrom Rack and TJ Maxx, you can do this on your current salary). Don’t imagine “casual Friday” equals jeans and sneakers—choose better-than-casual shoes, slacks and a casual jacket to demonstrate your professionalism.
  3. Be polished. A dry cleaner and tailor will help—and don’t wear anything that is revealing, too tight/ill-fitting, or dirty/stained/torn. Iron your shirts, shine your shoes, file and polish your nails, get a good haircut. Carry a high-quality bag. Each small detail adds up. Look like the kind of person an executive would be proud to introduce to a client.
  4. Be polite. Manners count in business lunches, in thank-you notes and in small interactions. Read a book on modern manners—seriously! When flustered, keep your cool and be nicer than necessary.
  5. Polish your communications. Send emails that are properly capitalized, spelled and signed. (Don’t lower-case your name or the letter i—this reads a juvenile chat-room behavior.) Double-check documents and communications before sending—a small grammatical error or typo will make you look less smart than you really are, especially if you know better. Continue reading →

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Ten more work-from-home tips (what are you missing?)

2 Dec WFH coffee

I honestly couldn’t believe it when I sat down to blog for fifteen minutes on “work from home tips” how many would swiftly come to me. I ran out of time (the fifteen minutes per day I set aside for blogging) before I ran out of tips yesterday, so today, here are ten more:

  1. Buy a beautiful water pitcher, put cut lemons or cucumber in it, and put it in your line of vision to help you instill good habits (drinking lots of water).
  2. Make your walls work, too. On a wall near your workspace, install a magnetic white board, use it to write up key projects or things you’re thinking about. I also like long, magnetic strips that I can easily clip papers to. Don’t forget to hang professional certificates, plaques, etc., just like a “real” office. The more real you make it, the more it will serve your purpose: inspiring work.
  3. Avoid housework during the day, or just schedule yourself thirty minutes to do it. I sometimes tidy up the kitchen while waiting for my lunch to cook, but little else. I have a housekeeper come every other week so I can maintain my focus where it belongs.
  4. You probably won’t take a lunch break, so take a SOMETHING break. When my daughter was tiny, I scheduled a mommy-baby outing, like meeting other moms or taking the baby swimming once per week for two hours, instead of going out to lunch once per day for a whole lunch hour. (Here, I laugh, thinking of how infrequently I did that when I was in a corporate office.)
  5. Eliminate distractions. Don’t even consider trying to work with kids around. Your work will be sub-par because your focus just won’t be there. Don’t work with TV on in the background. I love reading blogs and playing on Facebook, but I focus that time in short, 15-minute spurts during a break.
  6. Shop for food carefully. You have the freedom to eat anything in your fridge, not have to pack lunch, and cook your lunch. Use it and shop accordingly and help your diet along, then you can splurge a bit extra when you go out.
  7. Have happy hour with friends often. It makes you stop work and gets you out. Also, be sure to schedule regular coffee dates, lunches, and attend networking events to stay connected to professionals in your area.
  8. Walk 10,000 steps per day. One of my best mentors is a strong advocate for this, but it’s easy to walk only 1,000 or 2,000 steps per day if you’re working from home, because even the walk from the parking garage to the office counts as exercise from those who don’t WFH. Get a pedometer to keep track, or find another physical challenge. You must make it a point to exercise and be active.
  9. Connect with your colleagues. Use every tool you can—email, IM, Skype, social networks like Yammer, webinars and desktop sharing to be as connected as possible to your work people by communicating proactively about projects. I am obsessive about being on time for meetings to ensure folks feel that I am here, present and without distractions.
  10. Put everything in the cloud, so when your laptop dies, you’re not toast. I love the integration of Dropbox with my iPad, iPhone and PC laptop.

Finally, here’s one bonus note: Working from home is an enormous privilege, and one I don’t take lightly. I started doing it because I couldn’t physically move to Seattle to accept a job promotion, so it was a compromise to stay with my company.

Therefore, when I do travel for work, I do my best to never complain. Sure, I have my share of drama en route when I travel to our global headquarters office in Seattle on a regular basis, and I hate spending nights away from my family. However, I will gladly take these hassles on a monthly or twice-monthly basis as a great trade-off for the hassles of commuting on a daily basis.

If you’ve worked from home, I’m sure you have more tips and ideas. Share them in the comments! I’d love to hear from you.

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Busting the myth of “PJs, soaps and bon-bons” for work-from-home

1 Dec WFH laptop

Hi! I’m here with another fifteen minutes about work, purpose and time.

I’ve been thinking a lot about productivity, especially since I work from home and am always trying to make a greater impact with the hours I have. Ultimately, I am not judged by how long my rear is parked in my chair, but by the quality and quantity of my final deliverables.

Perception vs. reality - this might be how some people imagine working from home, but the reality (at least for me), is and must be intensely focused.

Often, when I tell people I work from home, they say, “Oh, that must be nice. Working in your PJs, setting your own schedule.” The implication is that it’s easier than working from an office.

But after five years of doing this, I conclude that’s it’s just the opposite. Although WFH creates tremendous freedom, it comes with a price: tremendous accountability.

That means if you beat your head against a brick wall for forty hours trying to produce something that really should have only taken eight, that’s what you get credit for. Eight hours. And no matter how hard you worked on that forty-hour project, everyone will assume you spent eight hours working and the other thirty-two watching soaps and eating bonbons.

It’s often a can’t-win situation. So, if you work from home sometimes or all the time, here are a few tips I’ve developed to help me make the most of my time.

  1. Establish a work schedule. Since I generally need to end my workday by 5:30 or 6:00 because that’s when daycare closes, I often do extra work in the evenings after the kids are in bed.
  2. Set limits. I am willing to answer my office and mobile phones outside of work hours, but I don’t answer during dinner, don’t obsessively check email while away, and I rarely work weekends to maintain balance.  
  3. Jealously guard your workspace. Make it the prettiest, tidiest, most user-friendly area in your house. I painted my office terra cotta orange, bought a custom desk, got dimmer lights and more.
  4. Keep up appearances. My home office is in a very large bedroom—so large it accommodates a 13-foot L-shaped desk, two monitors, two printers, four filing cabinets, two book shelves, a white board and two cork boards. It looks like a real office. The problem is, the room is so large that we put an extra bed on the opposite side (we have a separate guest bedroom). Since my webcam is set up on my computer monitors, it points away from my great desk and office space, and directly toward the bed. It looks like I’m attending a meeting from a bedroom (so tacky!). So, I hung a small curtain rod in the middle of my ceiling and bought two beautiful silk drapes. Now, on videoconferences, I look like I’m in a studio.

    Do NOT work from the couch. It will kill your back.

  5. Invest in your space. Buy a space heater, foot stool, cozy blanket, coffee warmer or whatever to keep yourself comfy and at your desk. Don’t work from your couch, it will kill your back and arms.
  6. Establish a hygiene routine. For me, it works to get up, immediately review and reply to e-mail, check my daily calendar, then go get ready, shower, change and eat breakfast.
  7. Think differently about wardrobe. Instead of a workweek/weekend division in your clothes, your closet will morph into ultra-casual (think yoga pants) for WFH, cute casual (jeans and jackets) for any reason to leave your home, and dress-up (for office visits/going out). Keep your PJs as PJs (that is, always dress for work, even if it’s just yoga pants), and always dress well when leaving the house or having people over.
  8. Dress nicer than necessary when visiting an office. They’ll think of you that way even when you’re at home in yoga pants.
  9. Open your windows, be sure you get a lot of sun and connect to the outside. Otherwise, you might start to feel like a mole underground. My desk overlooks my whole backyard and some seriously busy squirrels.
  10. Light a candle while you work. Let it be a centering reminder of what’s important. I also use a handwritten task list to keep me focused.

I’m out of time, but not out of tips. (Again, working from home demands I’m strict with myself about time management.) Tomorrow, I’ll be back with ten more ways you can improve your work-from-home experience and productivity.

What is your work from home experience? What tips do you have to share? Comment below!

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The building blocks of accomplishment (not just work)

28 Nov Office blocks

Hi there. I’ve got fifteen minutes to write, and I thank you for taking a few minutes to read. This is fun, isn’t it?

I’ve been thinking about the way I organize my days lately, and how I set up my schedule to accomplish the most possible in the time I have. I’m sure you’ve had days when it seems like there are a constant string of interruptions, emails, instant messages and alerts.

When I have those days, it feels like nothing gets done. Instead of getting just one big thing accomplished, I tend to myriad little things, and at the end of the day (or even just the end of the hour) I look back and can’t really point to anything that I’ve accomplished that’s significant.

That bugs the heck out of me.

So, how can I make an impact?

One blogger and novelist suggested that the way she writes is called “time blocking.” She outlines the key things she wants to get accomplished, and estimates how long each will take. Then her blocks of time are stacked, rearranged or pushed forward based on her own whims.

This makes a ton of sense to me. Following her structure, my day might look something like this:

  • Meet with boss – 1 hour
  • Work on RFP content –  2 hours
  • Update marketing class – 90 minutes
  • Revise video graphics – 90 minutes

And so on. (You think those are the only things on my plate? HA!)

The point is that I have a sense of my key projects and the time I need to devote just to get them done. Interruptions slow me down. Answering questions from email drains precious minutes from those time blocks.

So my goal is to change the way I work. Instead of bouncing in and out of email, I’m ignoring it (gasp!) for an hour and just getting a single project done. Without those interruptions, I complete the time block faster and with greater depth of thought.

And, as my friend Nancy Morris reminds us, it’s not about time. It’s about priorities. Even though it looks like I’m just arranging my schedule and time, what’s really happening is that I choose to place a priority on accomplishment, that I let myself go deep deep deep into what really matters at the exclusion of all else, at least for that hour or two.

How do you manage your time and priorities? Do you toggle back and forth between screens on your computer when email messages pop up? Consider how depth of focus in these time blocks might make you more productive, or at least take a little frenetic energy out of your day.

GO.

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The first fifteen minutes

2 Nov What do I do in my first 15 minutes? Get quiet, get focused, and figure out how to create accomplishment. Photo by Photo by John Althouse Cohen

What do you do during the first fifteen minutes of your day?

Check Facebook? Twitter? Read blogs or news feeds? Read and respond to e-mails?

Yep, I do that too. But not in the first fifteen. The first fifteen are mine, all mine. They’re a chance to take a breath and figure out how to really put points on the board.

I imagine that sometime my boss might call and ask, “So, Heidi, what have you been doing all day?” And you’d better believe I’m going to have a good answer. I work from home, so there’s no way for him to tell whether I’ve been hard at work in front of my computer or watching soaps and eating bon-bons. Or doing laundry, or napping, or cleaning the kitchen, or any number of things that doesn’t involve putting my butt in the chair and getting to work.

To quote my favorite editor from my news reporting days, “Heidi: Shut up and type.”

In five years of working from home, I’ve been forced to develop enormous self-discipline. It’s easy to be distracted by the call of the DVR or a phone call from Mom or the treadmill that really would like me to spend some more quality time with it. (If we were dating, you’d call it an on-again, off-again relationship.)

Regardless of whether I work 40 hours per week, or 30 or 50 or 80, I am accountable to producing results. It’s the yardstick by which I am measured, and so when I find myself spinning my wheels on projects and not really moving the ball forward, I get antsy. Sooner or later, I’m going to have to deliver.

What do I do in my first 15 minutes? Get quiet, get focused, and figure out how to create accomplishment. Photo by Photo by John Althouse Cohen

So the first fifteen minutes are a little strategy session, a big-picture assessment of what matters and where I need to go for the day. I keep a handwritten list to the left of my keyboard (I’m left-handed), mouse on the right, and it keeps me focused far better than a micromanager ever could.

Sometimes I divide my list between “what’s important” and “what’s urgent.” Sometimes, it’s a list of “what I want to do” and “what I have to do.” Sometimes I separate out the deep-dive projects from those little things, like sending five emails, that just gotta get done.

In the same amount of time I use to write this blog, I plan. I consider where my energy is, whether I’m ready to focus on just one thing, or if simply crossing a dozen small things off the page will be most satisfying.

Some studies have found that most people have at least 80 hours’ worth of work on their desks at any one point. You get to the end of a 40- or 50-hour workweek, and guess what? New requests have rolled in. There’s more to do. The 80 hours of demands on your time are still there.

That can easily get overwhelming, so I change my perspective. If there’s no way I can get it all done—if I simply make the choice that it won’t get all done—then I am also free to choose which things will get done.

And there is such power in priorities.

With the freedom to choose, I can let my priorities—my mission, my values, my purpose at work—be my guide, rather than feeling the tyranny of an endless to-do list. I can feel like I’m accomplishing what matters, rather than spinning my wheels and wishing I’d traded and hour of time-wasting email exchanges for one glorious nap.

Today, I won’t choose just to do things, just to tick off a list. Today, I’ll choose accomplishment.

What will you choose?  GO.

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