How to make every day a success
Follow these steps to boost
your performance at work
The
path to professional success is long and winding. It’s a combination of working
hard, pursuing your passions, and meeting the right people.
But
there are steps you can take immediately to get closer to your goals. Here are
a few quick strategies — supported by research and expert opinion — to be more
successful at work. Through these, you will learn how to impress your boss and
stay productive even when you’re feeling uninspired:
Plan
the following workday
Don’t
wait until the next day to figure out what you need to be working on. Workplace
experts believe that it’s crucial to get your most important objectives for the
next day down on paper. You may have two or three of them that are at the top
of your mind, but commit them to writing so you have a core foundation to work
on.
This
practice also helps you to stop fixating on work obligations — and actually
relax a little. A 2015 study, published in the Journal of Occupational
and Organizational Psychology, found that writing down how you plan to
complete any unfinished tasks the following day allowed many people to stop
thinking about those tasks.
Reflect
on your accomplishments
Towards
the end of the day, look back upon what you have completed. A 2014 working
paper from researchers at Harvard Business School and elsewhere found that 15
minutes of reflective writing is enough to make you more successful at work. In
one study, employees at an Indian outsourcing company spent the last 15 minutes
of the workday either going through further training or writing and reflecting
on what they’d learnt that day. Results showed that the second group performed
about 23 per cent better on a final assessment.
Speak
up in a meeting
Speaking
in a meeting may make you uncomfortable, but it fetches some brownie points.
CEOs are impressed by employees who speak up and share ideas. Be a part of the
conversation. Find your voice, and make sure to balance your input. Never be
afraid to pitch an idea because we all have our share of good and bad ones.
Ask
your team for feedback
Don’t
forget to solicit feedback from people who are junior to you as well. Kim
Scott, a former Google and Apple exec, and the author of Radical
Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity, recommends asking
your manager, “Is there anything I could do or stop doing that would make it
easier to work with me?” Then, wait silently for six seconds. Your employees
will have to come up with some piece of constructive criticism just to make
things less awkward.
Take
a lunch break with co-workers
One
survey found that 80 per cent of workers eat lunch at their desks. And yet
stepping outside, even for 15 to 30 minutes during your lunch break, can be
beneficial. Meanwhile, a 2015 study found that eating lunch with coworkers can
boost team performance. Specifically, firefighters who prepared and ate meals
together displayed more cooperative behaviour.
Schedule
a power hour
Time-management
expert and author Laura Vanderkam recommends dedicating the first hour of your
workday to an important project. Ideally, you will be uninterrupted by emails,
phone calls, or knocks on your door. She calls it a ‘power hour’. You have to
consciously choose to spend less time on email and carve out time for the
important work that matters to you throughout the day.
businessinsider.in
ETP21NOV17
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