This post originally appeared on The Levo League where I often write on the topics of job search and career advice (check out my other articles here). Most of the time I focus on giving advice to others based on what I’ve learned in my recruiting & HR career, but this post was more advice to myself… Now it’s almost February and it’s a nice reminder to read this post. While I’ve definitely improved and followed my “career resolution” is some areas, I still have tons of room to be better!
My New Year’s resolutions are generally personal — lose 5 pounds, wake up earlier, shop less, etc. Now that I’m working on my own business, work is personal and the two have become very intertwined.
This year’s career resolution for me is to work smarter, not harder. I absolutely know by committing to this I’ll have more free time to more fully commit to the rest of life.
The first step for me is really identifying the cause of the productivity problem (and I know you all can relate to these).
My Top Productivity Killers
Gchat. As much as I love the ability to be in one long, ongoing conversation with everyone I know (I really do love it) it can be the most distracting thing. No matter what I’m doing, when I hear that little “bloop!” and see someone’s name flashing in the next tab over, it’s hard to resist taking a pause from whatever I’m doing.
Social Media. Even though there are generally no things popping up telling me I must look at my social media, I am inextricably drawn to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram during the day. Part of it is work-related updating for The Prepary, but then it slowly moves into personal-land and I’m being looped in on what someone ate for lunch.
Email. On one hand, email is a part of work and it is part of my job to answer emails in a timely manner. However, sometimes email can take hold of the entire day if I let it. I also have a bad habit of looking at an email but then letting it sit before I respond to it. This pretty much means I have to read it all over again when I’m ready to respond which is not efficient!
My phone. Not that people are calling or texting me all day, but the amount of push notifications I get about random things can get a bit unwieldy.
Read on to hear about how I am trying to work on these “productivity killers” on The Levo League.
