How to invest time towards a better career

Posted: 02/09/2007--25/11/2008 || Rate this Article: 3 || Views|| Sign In || Register ||Hello Guest

Everybody feels incredibly busy these days. What with work, commuting and other responsibilities, it may be hard to imagine where a person can find time to spend developing a better career. How can you go about finding enough time to improve your work situation? The first thing is to pay attention to how you actually use your time right now. After all, it is your time. It belongs to you and you are the one who chooses how to spend it. Consider keeping a time log. Write down what you actually do with your time at work, in the commute and at home. Some experts claim that many people waste as much as two hours every day! How much time do you spend watching TV? If its more than an hour or two a day, you may be able to improve your career simply by spending less time on the couch.

Career coaches suggest investing five percent of your time in improving your career. If you base this calculation on a forty-hour workweek, thats just 2 hours a week. Surely you can manage that! Do a little bit every day, and soon you will find that you are developing habits of thinking about what you need to do next. You may want to keep a new time log on your calendar or PDA. Instead of tracking everything you do with your time, track what you are actually doing to improve your career. This will help you notice patterns that may be helpful and allows you to give yourself credit for your work.

Remember that you are doing this for yourself. You are the only one who can change the way you work with your time, and by doing so, with the way you live your life. There are many excellent time management sites on the Internet, which explain how to develop better time management skills. No matter how much good advice you read, however, it wont do you any good unless you do the work. Dont worry that the time you are spending is small. As long as you are regular, it will add up. As you find yourself more inspired, you will want to do more.

An important part of the improvement process is learning to prioritize and set your goals. These goals can be both long and short-term, and you need to review them periodically. The way that you do this can fit your personality and style. Some people will want to develop elaborate plans and array them on a spreadsheet. Others will make a list on a legal pad and highlight it with colored markers for different tasks. There is no right way to do this, as long as you DO this. State your short-term goals in positive language. Make sure that these are small enough to help you recognize that you are making progress, and large enough that the progress gives you a feeling of accomplishment. Be realistic about the goals you set for yourself and avoid areas over which you have no control. Chose areas where you can affect the outcome.

Its important to develop habits of discipline. Its just as important to develop a habit of celebration when you have achieved a goal. Obviously this doesnt mean that you tie one on every time you meet a goal. Perhaps it simply means that you buy yourself a little treat or take a walk in the park. If you celebrate your accomplishments, you will find yourself ready to accomplish more.

For example, you decide that you need to take a class. Your short-term goal is to research cost and location for classes you need to take. Bear in mind that there are many ways to go to school these days. Many communities have adult school classes in the evenings. Colleges feature weekend curriculums, and all kinds of classes are offered online. Actually taking the classes will be your long-term goal. Realistically, if you are taking classes, you may spend more than two hours a week on career improvement, so once again you will need to set long and short-term goals to determine how and when you are going to attend class and do the homework. Perhaps you may celebrate by taking yourself to eat on class nights, buying a nice pen or studying in a pleasant environment such as a coffeehouse.

Another aspect of time management involves keeping abreast of schedules that affect advancement. If you work for a bureaucratic organization, you probably have a structured hierarchy of positions through which you must rise. There may be tests and interviews involved in this process. You will want to create a calendar for yourself so that you can track when opportunities for these tests and interviews open and close. There is nothing more frustrating than discovering you have missed a deadline for an advancement possibility by a day or two because you werent aware that it was scheduled.

Where ever you work, consider is what you do with your time while you are there. Are you taking full advantage of available training opportunities? You reap double benefit if you are able to improve your job skills as you do your job. Some employers may actually provide you with free training, but dont expect them to do so automatically. Remember that your employer expects you to make money for the company. Unless you are doing so, the company is not likely to spend money on you.

However, there is no reason you cant take every opportunity to learn all the skills available to you in your job. For example, if you use a specialized software program in a limited way, such as data entry, you may be able to use the tutorials or help functions built into the program to learn more about what the program is capable of so that you can use it more effectively. Once your employer realizes that you have intelligence and initiative, the company may see you as an asset worthy of investment.

Become familiar with your personal biological timetable. When is your mind sharpest? Is it first thing in the morning? Do the most difficult work at the time when your mind is working best. This is particularly important if you are taking a class and studying while you are working. You may find that its much easier to learn at one time of day than at another. If so, do your studying at that optimum time. Youll get more done in less time, and feel better about it. This keeps your mind fresh and open to learning. Break your work up into chunks that fit here and there in your day. Read a little at lunch, and review your goals and the material youve already studied in the evening before bed. Another trick many people find useful is to double up. If you use the Laundromat, take something to study with you. You may also be able to study while you are doing housework or driving by using tapes or CDs. This is a wonderful way to multitask and makes the best use of time.

Ultimately its up to you. If you use your creative and analytic skills to evaluate your situation and see what you need to do you can find ways to put time on your side. Good time management skills can help you set and accomplish goals and move toward the career you really want. Theres one more very important thing you need to make time for C remember to celebrate along the way!