photo credit: the_progressive
Over at WebWorkerDaily, there’s a great article called Teach an Old Dog New Tricks: How to Break Bad Work Habits. Karen Leland admits that impatience is her bad habit, and it affects her work:
In terms of how it’s affected my productivity at work, I’m embarrassed to say that my impatience has led to countless instances of emails sent in a hurry, which only needed to be retracted or clarified latter; decisions made on quick assumptions — that turned out to be wrong — and occasional crankiness with those around me who are not moving fast enough.
She goes on to list steps to break bad habits, including naming the habit and setting up alternate actions to get around the habitual behavior.
How have you overcome bad habits at work?
photo credit: Betsssssy
What? Play at work?
It sometimes seems like only the humorless are promoted to positions of power and they expect everyone else to be just as humorless. But play is linked to creativity, and without creativity, we would all be humorless drones.
So tackle your next task with imagination and wonder, and see what fun you can have even with mundane routines.
You might find a new way of doing the same old thing that saves time, produces better results, or saves money. Or all of the above.
(And by the way, if you get those kinds of results and they aren’t appreciated, maybe it’s time to find another job. One where you can work hard and be playful at the same time, get good results, and be appreciated.)
Don’t ever lose your spirit. Happy Monday!
photo credit: Lars Plougmann
It’s a common understanding of how to run a company that you must be market-driven, and be responsive to customer feedback. And as a customer advocate, I would certainly never be one to deny that customer input and market validation are important. But the other side of that coin is that you’re in business not only to make money, but to develop yourself, enjoy the rewards of a job well done, and hopefully leave this world having enjoyed yourself and given enjoyment to others.
To fully live that ideal might mean turning some work down. It might mean making tough decisions about when to leave your current job and start your own company. It might mean passing on certain investors who don’t share your views on how business should be conducted.
But in order to make those tough decisions, you have to really know yourself and your values. Not just personally, although that of course is important too, but as a company. What does your company stand for?
I recently ran across an article at Both Sides of the Table that dealt with this very idea on the way to becoming a more customer-centric organization:
So I started thinking about the ‘Inside Out’ organization. This is the company that lets outsiders have a glimpse of what is going on in the sausage factory. Being transparent about our workload, our struggles, our fund raising, whatever. Letting our customers and the market know that we were a real organization with real people rather than a pre-packaged, pre-processed marketing machine.
It may be scary, but there’s a lot to be said for letting your insides show. You may end up attracting more appropriate customers in the long run.
photo credit: Pylon757
Have you ever worked hard on a project only to find that parts of your work were thrown away, or the whole project was cut for lack of funding or any other reason? Of course you have – it’s an experience nearly as common as encountering an empty coffee pot in the break room.
I bet it’s tempting to feel irritated or even angry when your work is “wasted.”
But thinking about it further, when is our work ever really wasted? Don’t we become better at what we do with each effort we make, and more apt to do it better the next time? Doesn’t that knowledge make us better at estimating how much projects will cost, how long work will take, how well we can expect the results to come out, and so on? And isn’t there often a chance to reuse and recycle some of the core pieces of that work into something else down the road?
Keep striving for excellence, and keep seeking the good in every situation, and guess what? You will find both.
Happy Monday!
