Category Archives: Uncategorized
June 10, 2015 How to DO LESS and Improve Your Career
By Margaret Smith
SPEAKER | CAREER COACH | CERTIFIED INSIGHTS® DISCOVERY PRACTITIONER
Contrary to what you may expect, promoting the talents of others can actually help to showcase your own skills and strengthen your brand. This magical habit is called delegation, and it’s an essential tool to propelling your own career, improving results, developing your personal brand, and keeping your workload under control.
Let’s all start by taking a moment to acknowledge the often-ignored fact: There is only a limited amount you can do, no matter how hard you work. Because we are not super-humans, it’s essential that we learn to let go sometimes.
This having been said, there is a way to get it all done, and done well: delegation. Often, delegation gets overlooked as a viable tool because it is a lot of work upfront. Instead of doing the task yourself, delegation requires you to share your insights, know-how, and expectations with others.
To Delegate, or Not to Delegate: That is the Question
When faced with a new task, don’t just jump into it right away. Instead, ask yourself, “Would this task be a worthy use of my time?” If you continue to accept projects that don’t align to, or properly utilize, your skills, you’re diluting your brand. Perhaps there is someone else who has the skills to do the task better, or who would be eager to develop skills that the task would involve?
Strategically delegating tasks to others allows you to focus on the tasks that reinforce your real skills—those you want to be known for as part of your personal brand. (If you haven’t yet considered what your personal brand is, now is the time to start!)
How to Handle the “Who?”
When considering who to delegate to, take into account the following questions:
- What are this person’s skills and knowledge?
- Does this person currently have space in their workload?
- What is this person’s preferred work style?
Once you have decided on the best candidate, don’t forget to document the process. When practicing delegation, it’s extremely important to keep track of your processes to save time in the future and develop best practices that promote clarity and efficiency. Just as you, say, develop practices that keep your house clean—washing dishes after meals, placing laundry in a hamper, etc.—creating processes for sharing tasks at work will cut down on confusion and clutter, not to mention saving time and preventing mistakes.
Your Challenge:
Next time you’re feeling overwhelmed by your workload, fight the urge to dive headfirst into your pile of tasks. Instead, assess these projects and consider whether or not some of them can be delegated to another member of your team instead.
Do you have any helpful tips about delegating effectively? Please share!
Interested in navigating the changes in your life, finding success in your job hunt, or making the most of your career? Contact UXL Today!
Tags: Delegation, Margaret Smith, more out of your career, thrive at work, UXL, Who to Delegate to
- Leave a comment
- Posted under Communication, Thrive at Work, Uncategorized
May 27, 2015 Are You Sitting Down?
You might want to be sitting down for this news…then again, that’s the point! You should NOT spend so much time sitting, according to several new studies that have been released over the past few years. In an article I read last month, Doctor J.A. Levine, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic, stated that, “prolonged sitting is associated with 34 chronic diseases and conditions, including obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, back pain, and depression.”
Wow, that’s a lot of maladies from something that seems harmless! But it all boils down to this: Humans aren’t meant to sit around all day. We aren’t designed to remain stationary for hours upon end. According to the same article I read, after just a few hours in a chair, “changes occur in your cells, slowing your metabolism, stiffening arteries, and increasing insulin resistance.”
And the worst part? Your hour-long workout at the end of the day won’t make up for all the sitting you’ve been doing prior to working out. It’s a cumulative effect and you can’t shake it off with a single bout of exercise.
This all seems like terrible news, right? Fortunately, there are some easy solutions to combat prolonged sitting. Here are a few tips I discovered when I looked into this topic:
- Take a stroll (This may seem obvious, but it’s easy to forget to move around if you’re busy with work. Make an effort to get up and about every 90 minutes or so)
- Sit on an exercise ball (This practice is good for your core and helps your muscles move and tense throughout the day, without you hardly noticing. It may take a little getting used to, though!)
- Drink lots of water (at least 8 glasses a day. This can prevent muscle fatigue and cramping)
- Take the stairs
- Use an activity monitor to help you track your motion throughout the day
- Walk down the hall to visit your co-workers instead of communicating with them via email
- Ask for a standing desk (many companies are now purchasing standing desks for their employees. Either they will move up and down electrically, so you can sit and stand as you please, OR they are stationary tall desks that come with a tall drafting chair in case you’re inclined to sit).
It is incredibly important to look out for your personal well-being at work. Human beings are breakable machines and we can only be pushed so far. The trick is to NOT get to that breaking point in the first place. With a little effort every day, you can avoid the problems associated with prolonged sitting. Invest in yourself! You’re worth it.
Tags: don't sit at work, health and work, healthy at work, no sitting, sitting at work, sitting down is bad for health, stand up at work
- Leave a comment
- Posted under Changing Your Life, Thrive at Work, Uncategorized
UXL Blog 