I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking about the kind of content and the value of the content I provide here on LearnThis.ca and actually, the rest of my life as well.  I strive to provide a wide range of topics with a personal touch based on my own learning and experiences so that I can accelerate the personal growth of others in a similar way to how I’ve had that opportunity because of others’ work.  This has always motivated me in my own efforts and I must say it continues to do so.  At the same time, I’m finding times of reflection where I look to explore the best value I can provide and its a great challenge to realize what is most worthwhile both to me and to others in my quest for life improvement.

There are three main areas that feed our patterns and behaviors and I’m taking a look at how these areas fit into thinking about personal development.  Obviously, I’ve experienced many of these stages and hope to share some perspective on what this journey of personal development can become!

Expansion Versus Focus

I have found there to be a cycle of growth where personal development can expand into so many topics and inspire someone to learn an immense amount of topics and devour huge masses of material.  This does exceptional things to a person by expanding their knowledge and building a confidence in learning that enables them to tackle new subject matter and absorb more and more into practice in their lives.  The power of this is hard to describe if you haven’t experienced it yourself because it seems like it creates an exponential period of growth.

While that period of growth can feel great it is actually enabled by a period of addiction, not in a negative sense but one that keeps driving you further and further. It provides an opportunity to meet several basic needs; significance, variety and certainty in ourselves and our abilities.  Addictions are reinforced by meeting these needs (in this case positive) and for some people, this period of addiction may even last years.  Eventually though, this period of expansion typically brings one to a period of assessment as the personal development stops driving those needs at the same level.  Perhaps the significance of it fades or the variety is gone from the content or even that the certainty turns into some feelings of doubt or wonderment.  This breaks that additive cycle and leaves room for change typically leading to new focus which brings back some significance and certainly in what is learned and experienced, not to mention variety by doing things differently.  This time of focus drives us deeper into a subject and we look to specialize in it even more.  This cycle of course is useful since we can learn from it and apply it in a way that is lasting and fulfilling to us and others.

Dialog and Language

This is one of the my most impactful areas I’m learned and changed during my journey of personal development and provides a huge opportunity for all who explore it.  The way that I think, my beliefs, my knowledge and everything I’ve learned has shaped the way I interact with people and the language I use in conversation and with myself and my thoughts.  I’ve learned to make the most of things, be open and even welcoming of change, positive and encouraging with my dialog and hopeful wherever possible.  The impact this has is immense and its life changing, to be honest.  These is also another side of that coin however, in that this vibrant positive core is easily disconnected in our society that advertises pain and problems.  While such dialog of encouraging words and stories can be inspiring to many, it also separates us from being connected to those dwelling on problems and presents a bigger challenge when it comes to relating to others and finding first impression commonalities.  This puts strain on relationships and unknowingly steers people away.

I truly belief the risk of disconnection is worth it however, as the opportunity is always there to inspire people and hopefully make some lasting change in others’ lives.  Dialog and language fortunately are one of the best ways to convey ourselves and our beliefs and so our influence with others come largely from this area. If we are honest and authentic when connecting with others, our dialog and language should not damage our relationships, but uplift them and strengthen them.

Emotions and Physiology

The third area I know is impacted by studying personal development is our emotions and physiology. Emotions are a result of our choices and are easily the single biggest factor in the quality of our life that is under our direct control.  Unfortunately, emotions are more often than not, uncontrolled and we let them take the better of us by responding in a negative manner to events in our lives.  Studying personal development brings emotional control to the forefront and one can learn through practice and decision to change what emotions control them and what emotions they control as individuals.

Our physiology is a broad area of course but ultimately its about understanding how our body’s and lives actually work.  The mind, our health and the way our body adapts to its environment and inputs is not only an astonishing thing to study, but also an important one to understand if we want to make ourselves the best we can be.  Our physiology is deeply connected with our emotions as our chemical processes in our minds are triggered by all areas of the body and so these areas must be looked at together in order to make sense of them and to steer them positively in our lives.

So while I continue to grow in my own personal development, I challenge you to stop and think about the long term effects of what studying personal development can or has already done for you?  What impact has it had on you directly?  What about on the people around you in your life?

Posted by Mike King under Learning | 14 Comments »

Cell phones and all other communication devices are becoming so natural in everyone’s lifestyles that they are really an extension of an individual.  While the device may be separate from you, your usage of it is still a direct demonstration of you as a person so it should be considered part of your voice.  How you use it and the etiquette you have with it is a direct indicator of your own manners.

These factors seem obvious to me and they are actually the reasons why I don’t have a cell phone.  I find most cell phone users to be completely unaware of how their usage of their phone portrays their own etiquette.  Sometimes it seems that phone users think they are in their own little world when they use their phone.  Surprise surprise, others can still hear you and your phone when you use it. Because of this, here are some tips to make better use of your phone.

Your Cell Phone Ring

It’s one thing to have a unique ring, but another to have an annoying one.  You really should pick a ring that is unique so you can easily identify your own phone’s ring, but you should never pick one that is annoying. Your ring is not only heard by you, but everyone around you, strangers, your friends, your colleagues and even potential employers.  You should keep it professional and tolerable.

The other thing with you phone’s ringer you should get in the habit of using is the silent mode or vibrate mode.  Spare those around you and put the phone on silent mode so you don’t interrupt them.  After all, no one else cares when your phone rings so why would force them to hear it?  There is nothing more annoying than people who have a cell phone that rings when they leave it on their desk and walk away from it.  If you don’t keep your phone on you all day, you should definitely keep it on silent.  And if you do keep it on you, then there is no reason not to use vibrate mode.

Your Cell Phone Volume

The volume you use on your cell phone isn’t much different than the volume of your own voice in a conversation.  Do you think it’s polite to be yelling in a conversation?  Of course not, nor is it polite to have a cell phone so loud others can hear your conversation.  The same goes for the ringer.  Keep the volume down!

Your Cell Phone Interruptions

This is what bothers me the most from cell phone users.  Taking a call no matter where or what you are doing with no regard to what or who you are interrupting.  When someone is in a conversation, is it polite to instantly interrupt them? Well no, so you shouldn’t let anyone do this in a conversation with your cell phone either.  Put attention and priority to who you are physically with and turn your cell phone off or at least don’t answer it when you are in a conversation.  Let it go to voice mail.  You show great respect to an individual if you let them be your prime focus when in a conversation instead of letting your phone interrupt you.  When you do put attention to your phone interruption, it sends the message to the party you were first talking to in person that your phone call (even before you know who it was) was more important to you and that you’d rather take the call.  Not really a polite thing to do.

Your Cell Phone Distractions

Not only do the call interruptions impact the people you interrupt, but calls also become major distractions to your own productivity and activities.  If you are busy working on something or focusing on a task, phone calls and ringing cell phones just distract you from that.  Most calls are truly not that important and there is always voice mail to answer the call for you so you can then check all your messages together at a later time.  This allows you to stay focused on your tasks at the right time and then batch process your messages on your cell phone when you are ready to.  Eliminating these distractions lets you accomplish more, be more productive and to be more professional in your relationships and manners with your cell phone.

Posted by Mike King under Relationships | 27 Comments »

This article is part of a series called, "Maximum Productivity " in which I’ll explore the topic of focus.

See the rest of the series here:
Intro: Maximum Productivity: Series Introduction
Part 1: Maximum Productivity: Perspective
Part 2: Maximum Productivity: Attitude
Part 3: Maximum Productivity: Focus
Part 4: Maximum Productivity: Persistence
Part 5: Maximum Productivity: Adventure
Part 6: Maximum Productivity: Connections

Productive focus is narrowing your actions and time in on the areas that produce results.  Using this to maximize your productivity has a number of benefits and is something that is especially hard to do in today’s society and workplaces and it is actually getting hard and harder as we use more technology.

Technology Distractions

Technology is really only useful if it does something for us to make our lives better or easier.  While we are constantly taking advantage of that with technology in our lives, I cannot say that it comes without a cost.  That cost is focus.  Technology is connecting and enabling anyone to have a wealth of information available at their fingertips, anywhere and at anytime.  That anytime is the dangerous part.  Most people allow phone calls, email and internet to be an integral part of every day and they let it distract them with a moment’s notice for low value activities.  We let popups, audible alerts, vibrating devices, flashing LEDs, and many other digital distractions consume our precious attention regardless of the priority of that digital tidbit.  Many people find that they just don’t know how to work without these tools, let alone get maximum productivity without them.  This is where technology needs to be eliminated in order for a person to learn and really experience the power of focus.  The ability to stay disconnected and attentive on a single set of tasks is critical to maximize your productivity.  If you can’t do this for a few hours at a time, you have more work to do to master the power of focus.  I challenge you to go a whole day without your cell phone, email, internet or handheld device.  Try working at one thing at a time and don’t let anyone or anything distract you from it.

This article I wrote should help give you more ideas about how you can focus while working on a computer.  Maximize Your Productivity on Your Computer

Stop Wasting Time

If all those technology distractions are not enough, media can easily consume any additional time you might have.  We all love our media, whether its books, TV, newspapers, movies or internet, and while they can provide a valuable time for relaxation and entertainment, they consume far more hours in our lives than useful.  And unfortunately, there is a staggering amount of bad media and full of poor or negative messages bombarding us in these various media channels.  Television is my least favorite and it is also the most time consuming to the general public.  Most people spend hours every day watching television and then griping about their life situations, finances, relational problems and negative attitudes.  It amazes me.  If I was ever to teach a psychiatrist school, I would give them one technique to use with their patients and it would work to fix most people’s problems in life.  That technique would be to eliminate television from your daily routine.  Oddly enough, people can stay focused on the television for hours on end, yet will immediately complain about not having time to start a business, or build relationships, or work a little harder in school or a job.  Getting rid of television is a great way to focus more time on productive things and to stop wasting it.  I personally watch only about 1 hour per week and I’ve developed a love and value of all the time I have outside of television.

Newspapers and the internet can easily be as bad at wasting time.  Set a completion time when you take on these activities and track your time carefully.  Pay attention to what you are reading or surfing and look to keep asking yourself if it is useful.  It’s so easy to get sidetracked by advertisements with these media we often find ourselves spending massive amounts of time reading things that we don’t even know how we got to it in the first place.

Do Productive Work First

For some people, eliminating the distractions and time wasters won’t be easy and even if you work at it, you may not be very successful at it for some time.  To change that I recommend to always do your productive work first.  Plan to spend just a few minutes a day when you first start work and again when you first get home or finish supper to do some productive tasks.  Those few minutes can often turn into hours where you will get a lot of productive work done or they might just be a few minutes, either way, it trains you to do that first and to continually make progress and practice maximizing your productivity.

Build Your Mind

Training your mind to focus and stay productive is what it really takes to maximize this.  To focus your mind, you need to do a lot of the similar things as I’ve outlined above about your physical activities.  You need to break the patterns in your mind that distract you, that feed limiting beliefs, that clutter your thoughts and prevent your ability to stay attentive and focused.  There are many ways to do this, but it requires that you develop new beliefs and patterns that encourage productive behavior. Take a look at this article on Beliefs: They’re Entirely Yours to Control .

Aside from working to eliminate specific things from your mind, you can also develop your mind by learning and practicing to be more positive, focused and productive.  The best way to practice focus in the mind is to do it without distractions.  No people, no music, no technology, nothing!  Find a place of solitude (preferable in nature) and stay there focusing on a specific topic.  Let your mind wander around that subject but pull your thoughts back to the same topic over and over each time it drifts.  Focus on visualizing and detailing everything you can about that topic you are focused on.  Imagine it and be creative in your mind.  Imagine being productive, staying productive in the present and future and even what maximum productivity looks like.  Focus those thoughts and images and repeat them.  Practice until you can instantly bring that image into your mind of you being at your maximum potential.  Lock those thoughts into your mind and remember how you felt and use those feelings or some action as an anchor point to return your mind to that state in the future.  If you master your state of mind , you can learn to switch your mind into that state immediately and focus on it.  This is a great skill to develop for building your mind to help you reach your maximum productivity.

What are the methods you use to focus?  Do you agree or disagree with these ideas?  I’d love to hear your comments and further the discussion on focusing for productivity.  Please add your comments below!

Posted by Mike King under Life | 17 Comments »

Nowadays, people spend a lot of time on computers, whether its for work or at home, its a regular part of life. When you are actually trying to accomplish something on your computer though, its VERY easy to get distracted from your task and find yourself completely off topic or doing something you didn’t even mean to start doing. The internet makes this extremely easy since most computers are now hooked up to the internet all the time and everything is just a few clicks away.

Well, this article will give you some ideas to make sure you make the most of the your computer time by eliminating some of those common computer distractions. I recommend doing most of these things all the time on your computer so your time spent is always easier to keep on task and productive, but you may want to start by only picking one or two of these suggestions or perhaps by only doing them all when you are REALLY choosing to be productive. My question to you then though, is why wouldn’t you always want to be more productive?

So, I’m sure there are many more distractions but I believe these cover most of the common ones. I use windows but most of these apply to MAC users as well, some things will obviously have different names though. Here’s what you can do to eliminate those distractions and maximize your productivity:

Shutdown Tray Applications

Not only will this eliminate some of the distractions, flashing icons, and color eye-candy, but it will also save system resources so your computer responds faster which helps you get more done. There are many applications that put an agent or service into the tray icon and many of them allow you to either hide the icon or simply choose NOT to launch it at startup. Anything that really does need to run and has a tray icon can be hidden using the option to hide inactive tray icons.

Hide the Task bar

The whole task bar in windows can be very distracting. It shows the tray, flashes when a window has been updated but not yet viewed and it constantly reminds you of other applications open (if you have any). Hiding the task bar can really help you to stay focused since you won’t see these distractions as easily.

Use Full screen Mode

Personally, I prefer this method over hiding the task bar. Most applications will allow you to run them in full screen mode (F11 usually, try it now!) which eliminates all window borders, covers the full screen so you can’t see any other applications, task bars, etc. This is a great way to stay focused on what you are doing in one application. This is available for all common applications, try it out sometime I think you will find you get a lot more done when you use this feature!

Don’t Use Instant Messengers

Instant messengers are sure convenient. A convenient way for others to interrupt you that is. If you are wanting to be productive, simply turn them off. Putting your status as off line or busy is an option but many instant messengers play a sound or show a message even when it detects your contacts coming on and off line. You don’t need to see this, so turn all those options off. Its even better to just completely shut off your instant messaging applications.

Loose All Email Notifiers

I’ve written previously about tips to use email more effectively , and the main point to use for this is to shut off your email, kill all the email notifiers and simply don’t use your email. Whatever you are working on, as long as it isn’t email itself, you don’t need any incoming messages or spam to distract you. Just shut it off!

Get Rid of Desk bars, Gadgets, Side Trays and Docks

All of these features and tools are helpful to get some information to help organize or launch your applications but they aren’t really useful to getting done the things you want to do on your computer. Load your application you want, and then focus on that application. You don’t need all these extra tools to be pushing information in your face and getting in your way. Turn them off, uninstall them, replace them with a simple launch tool or menu that doesn’t constantly get in the way. Most docks and gadgets are built to simply look nice, but they are more distracting than useful. Auto hide them or simply quit them once you are setup to do some productive work.

Disconnect the Internet

OK, take a breath. Its OK, you’ll be OK if you are not online for just a little while. The internet is the biggest distraction of all on a computer and that web browser can be just as evil as your email when you are really trying to accomplish something. Just unplug your ethernet connection, or kill power to your modem/dsl, or disable the network connection in your control panel. All of these things work and will definitely deter you from using the internet and getting distracted by it. Whenever I do this I’m always surprised that after a little bit of work I’ll catch myself seeing an error message after loading a web browser completely unaware. Seeing an error that the internet connection is unavailable and realizing why, reminds my to stay focused, and its easy to then close the web browser and get right back on task. If the internet was active, I’d find myself wasting 1/2 an hour before even realizing I loaded the browser. Its kind of scary that this is required, but it definitely works, give it a try yourself.

Radio Music

OK, nearly everyone has a music collection on their computers now and while this is VERY convenient and nice to use, its still distracting and hard to keep yourself from looking through your song list, building play lists, rating songs and listening to online music. Well, my solution is to listen to the radio. You don’t get to choose the music, you can’t spend any time organizing or rating the songs, you simply listen. No wasting time on the music itself. So, if you can’t start your music collection playing and just leave it going all day without EVER switching to your music application, then the radio is a great alternative.

Clean Your Computer Area

Distractions don’t only come from your computer itself. Often your work area is just as distractive with toys, garbage, food, gadgets, people and other things around. Cleaning up your work area can make it far easier to focus with no distractions and just a little tidiness can go a long way.

Dim the Lighting

Lighting can be distracting at a computer, especially flickering or bright reflections on your monitor. If you can dim the lights and work in a comfortable room where your monitor is easy on your eyes and lit with ambient lighting and not too bright, its much easier to work for extended periods of time.

Improve your Work Area

The same goes for having a comfortable desk and chair that are comfortable that properly fit your posture and room. You may even want to consider getting a better work station and computer desk. Here is a sweet example of what looks to be one productive computer desk. This computer desk is available from The Vision One .

Habits Require Practice

Being really productive is not just a one time thing. If you take some of these items and practice them at home and at your workplace (if you use a computer) then you can certainly make the most of your computer time. Developing a habit of these and practicing them on a continual basis will train you to stay much more focused at your computer and be far more productive.

Do you have any tips to add that help you be more productive at your computer?

Posted by Mike King under Life | 7 Comments »

Passion is one of those things that can be explored from so many angles. You may be interested in one of my previous articles about finding your passions and expressing your passions if you did not see them. This article looks specifically at how passion enhances productivity. This could be in the workplace or in home/personal life, but there are definitely impacts on productivity when a passion is what drives a person in that area. Here are some of the ways that I’ve learned how passion enhances productivity.

Passion Increases Enthusiasm and Energy

A person with a passion always demonstrates higher enthusiasm and energy toward activities in that area than someone without such a passion. It’s something that makes a person happy and excited and it automatically brings a person to a more alert, active and enthusiastic level. This is a powerful productivity step and is very contagious. This drives productivity by having better feelings and positive energy for the subject and influences others to see what is important and exciting to a person. Enthusiasm is very attractive to others so demonstrating this with a passion keeps you motivated and much more likely to have the support of others. Have a look at Henrik Edberg’s article, “4 Powerful Reasons to Up Your Enthusiasm, and How to Do It “, its a great article!

Passion Keeps You Highly Focused

People always spend their time on things they love when given a choice, so knowing and living your passions increases your productivity by keeping you highly focused. Its easy to concentrate on something you love to do since distractions are less important. It still takes additional effort to learn to avoid distractions, I just know that being in an activity that I’m highly passionate about is a lot easier to avoid distractions than if its an activity I don’t enjoy as much. Takes chores or housework as an example. I am definitely NOT passionately about keeping a prestinely clean house so when I’m tidying up or doing dishes nearly ANYTHING can distract me from that. On the other hand, if I’m reading a good book, something I’m much MORE passionate about, hours can go by where I completely ignore other normal distractions (even phone calls and people at the door).

Staying focused longer term is important as well. Passionate activities are easier to plan for, revisit on a regular basis and have a desire to be involved with. This ensures you have a long term focus on that passion. Whatever the activity is, you’ll be more productive if it is practiced on a regular basis. This could be sports, relationships or other skills and hobbies. The more time and focus you put to it, the more productive you can be with those activities.

Passion Drives Change

photo credit: Greg Melia

Change is something many people fear. I’ve learned by studying passions though that people have many less fears about change related to something they are passionate for than other areas. Ask yourself a few questions about your own passionate activities and then the same for regular things you don’t really care for.

• Do you look for new ways to get involved with that activity?
• Can you spend more time on that area?
• Do you research or learn more about that topic?
• How likely are you to try new things related to your passion?
• Do you want to be more productive in this area?

I think you will find that you are much MORE willing to change when it comes to your passions. All the factors related to passions and those in this article relate to changing the way you do things. This leads to improving yourself and enhancing your productivity.

Less Stress with Passions

Stress is a massive productivity killer. Stress kills focus, it worries people, distracts them, and generally doesn’t result in much useful activities. The good thing about passions is that they are a LOT harder to be stressed about when you are doing things with passion. Passions drives people to enjoy what they do, which results in LESS stress. Even activities and jobs that are thought to be VERY stressful, can easily be enjoyed by people who love doing that. This is just another reason why doing what you love and being passionate about it can help with both handling your stress and by enhancing your productivity since you can more easily deal with the stress and not have it overtake you.

Continuous Thought

Being productive at whatever you want to do requires thinking time. If you are thinking about that more and more, you generally have more ideas, methods and ways to approach a problem so that you can get better at that task or activity. This kind of thinking happens when you are truly passionate about something. You will live and breath that topic and constantly be thinking about it. At work, outside of work, when you wake up, when you go to sleep, when you’re involved in that activity and when you’re not. All this continuous time spent thinking helps you to be clearer, focused, more creative and ultimately more productive when it comes to actually doing that thing you love to do! This is very valuable in the workplace and its easy to see with the people who truly love their jobs, as they are not simply working 8 hours a day, but constantly thinking about their work (they don’t have to actually be working for this) and it pays off in their time at work. The same applies in reverse for things you love to do outside of work. Continuous thought caused by strong passions will definitely improve your overall productivity.

Creativity and Innovation REQUIRE Passion

Productivity to me and in my job definitely links directly to creativity and innovation. I have experienced that those who are more passionate about their work and truly love it, always are more creative and innovation. This leads them to produce new ideas, be willing to change and take new risks to improve things and it also helps steer and lead others where they may otherwise fall into a path of complacency. All of this happens more naturally when there is a passion driving individuals to do this steps. It is VERY rare to find innovators and lots of creative ideas where there are no passionate people working in that area. It can be found but it generally doesn’t last or at the very least, it doesn’t produce the same level of innovation that a passion based group would deliver. This demonstrates that continuous and high levels of innovation REQUIRE passion, and since those are important factors to me that bring about enhanced productivity, I believe that passion really is required to achieve this.

Do you know of other ways that passion enhance productivity? Please add a comment about it if you do. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

If you enjoyed this article, why not subscribe today by email or by RSS feed !

Posted by Mike King under Purpose/Passion | 7 Comments »

I recently published a guest article on DamnGoodManager.com about doing performance reviews as a manager for your direct reports. I suspect I have a lot more readers here who are not managers but do need to prepare for their own performance reviews often. This post is about some tips on how to do that and also useful since its from a manager’s perspective (yours truly). I encourage you to read through both posts since you will see some points from the manager’s perspective that are looked for and can also then better prepare for your next performance review.

So, this article is about the things I highly recommend you do in your job to ensure you get great performance reviews, year after year! Unfortunately there is no quick answer or magic potion to brew up that will guarantee you a great review as every workplace is difference and some things simply depend on your manager. Even still, there are some specific things that if consistently practiced, will make a big difference to improve your reviews every year. Here they are:

Focus on your Main Objectives

Confirm these with your boss. Ask to meet and discuss them, so you can understand your job description and ask all the questions required so you will clearly understand what your priorities should be according to YOUR boss. If they are going to be evaluating you, you better know what they are expecting from you! If you have regular meetings or one-on-ones with your boss, that is the best time to ask and help understand these. If you don’t have one-on-ones or regular meetings with your boss, ask for some time to review this and ALSO ask to start meeting on a regular basis with your boss so you have a chance to discuss your performance and priorities and to get more regular feedback from them. Take the responsibility to make this happen if it is not already. You simply can’t afford NOT to and if you are not meeting with your boss, you cannot possible know exactly what they are expecting from you.

Make Commitments and Tell Your Boss

The only way to impress your boss and get a great review is to not only do what is expected, but to do AT LEAST what is expected. If you can make a commitment to go above and beyond that and then deliver on that, you will be highly regarded. Decide on some area that you are willing to work to excel at and tell your boss exactly what you intend to do. Delivering on something that YOU set out to do will impress. This is far more valuable than over-delivering on something asked of you. That initiative you show and desire to excel will be extremely helpful towards earning a great review.

Know Your Boss’ Job

If you know your boss’ job and can see areas that you are able to help with, you should do so. Any responsibilities you can take on that specifically free up time for your boss, is going to be the most valuable time you can spend at work, especially in their eyes. Offer to help every chance you get and ALWAYS be willing to take on new work asked of you. This may mean juggling other priorities, delegating your own tasks or simply eliminating low priority work. The things that fall through the cracks are often completely overlooked anyway.

Be Reliable and Consistent

Work consistent hours at your workplace as much as possible. Even if you have flex time, changing your hours often and having gaps in your availability even if its the same amount of hours, never looks as good to a boss so consistency is very useful. I recommend starting earlier than most as early rising statistically get more done and are more likely to complete their goals and achievements. Assume your boss knows this statistic as well, so starting early is a good thing. A side note when it comes to consistency; don’t EVER complain about or use traffic as an excuse for being late and try not to drastically changing your work schedule from day to day or week to week. Even if you change how you get to work from day to day, do what you can do on your own time, to adjust things so you arrive at the same time consistently. Don’t give the impression that you sacrifice your work time when you arrive later than usual because of personal travel arrangements.

Being consistent and reliably on time will build confidence in you as a loyal, dependable worker. This is important. Being consistent also means leaving at a consistent time. A lot of people feel that working late hours looks good but it doesn’t! Delivering results looks good, not how many hours it takes to do that. If you can leave consistently and still deliver, you show character and balance with your home life. Its great to be willing to work late when asked or when needed to get a deliverable completed, but a consistent worker who gets there job done well and on time is always better than someone who is having to put in extra time to deliver the same thing. Often people who work very extended hours are seen as people who waste much time during the day and so have to work late to catch up each day. This is not a good impression to give. A consistent schedule and work ethic shows dedication and trust in your ability.

When At Work, Work!

Keep all your personal activities away from your work. Don’t surf personal sites, personal email, social networking sites or any other “home” activity at the office / workplace. Oh, and turn your personal cell phone off or at least to silent mode. Personally, I recommend this even for breaks and at lunch as much as possible. Do some reading, online research (work related) or socializing and relationship building during down time at work, not personal stuff. This looks FAR more productive to your boss and peers and builds the confidence in your work ethic and productivity. Oh, and if you don’t think your boss notices the time you spend on facebook or checking the latest sports stats, you’re wrong! They do notice and it affects their impression of you.

You do Have to Talk to Your Boss

Talk to your boss regularly. Daily if at all possible. Keep him / her informed of any concerns (and indicate your reasons why), significant progress, and even setbacks or delays. If you are sharing news about a problem or setback, always provide some kind of plan to help resolve the problem and get things back on track.

You boss is looking for results, so keep this in mind when you share anything with them. Always offer some solution or suggestion for any problem and NEVER just dump the problem on them. Ask them to help YOU resolve it and make sure you offer to resolve it yourself with their suggestions or advice on how to proceed. This VERY often opens new opportunities that seem tough like new responsibilities but it is exactly these things that will impress your boss. Being willing to deliver bad news to a customer, dealing with a personal conflict with another person, or even approaching a peer about poor performance, will definitely impress your boss. NEVER expect them to deal with a problem you bring to their attention unless they say it is theirs to handle and don’t want you involved. Still offer, even if they first offer to take it on themselves.

These types of examples are great things to learn if you are not yet doing them and all helpful for you to deal with and not dump on your boss. The more chances you give your boss to see that you can handle things that they have to normally do themselves, the more impressed they will be.

Review Your Own Performance

Review your own performance regularly, work on your goals weekly and inform your boss in writing with a monthly status report. Don’t ask if you can send it to them or it they want it, just do it no matter what. They will read it and they will find it informative and helpful even if its just a summary of what they already know. That is unlikely, its much more likely a monthly status report is the best window into your job that your boss has and they will really appreciate it and the initiative you take by sending it to them every single month. Start them off by explaining to your boss that you do them as part of your weekly and monthly planning to ensure you are on track with your priorities and goals and that you also want to make sure that they (your boss) are well informed on your progress, what you are working on and what to expect of you.

You really should be evaluating your own performance in your career anyway since you are the only one responsible for it, not your boss or anyone else. I recently wrote another article specifically about taking control and manage your own career . So, schedule yourself time each week to work on your yearly goals and the activities from any previous performance reviews you want to reinforce and improve on. Put those details and others in a monthly status report. Other elements to include are:

• Project updates you are involved on or leading
• Completed deliverables this month
• Summary of new things that you have learned or studied that month (doesn’t have to be strictly work related)
• Progress and actions taken toward any goals set
• Review of any existing responsibilities with your job
• Any major hurdles in progress or that your surpassed
• Next Month Forecast: Your main one or two activities planned for the next month, what would you like to accomplish

All of this should fit on a single page of paper or so. It should be kept brief and to the point. Send it on the same day every month (by email is fine), keep the subject line consistent each month and include the date. You need to do this because your boss WILL come back to these when they prepare your performance review and it will make their job much easier if its all easy to find. That is yet another great reason to do this monthly. Other things it provides you is a plan for the month of what to focus on and to focus on results as well as a clear indication of what you are working on so that your boss has a chance to correct or change any priorities LONG before your next review. This ensures you work on the right stuff and your boss knows it every single month.

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Posted by Mike King under Business | 2 Comments »