Over the holidays I was once again thinking about what direction I want my life to take (or to take in my life. I wonder if that’s something to dig into, me being dragged around by life or me taking action in where I drag myself? This train got off track real quick). My first book of the year is Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles, but to my disappointment, I did not close the book enlightened and with a clear purpose (what a stupid assumption to go with in the first place, but who wouldn’t love an easy solution?).
What the book did do was prompt me to think of all the useful advice I have gotten in my life. To start this year’s blog series, I’d like to share them with you. Some of them will be simple, perhaps to a point of redundancy, but it’s often the simple things that fix big problems (something I took away from Ikigai); others are more abstract.
Organize your work in folders
The advice: ‘Organize your work in folders on your laptop.’ I have clear folders on my personal and professional clouds. It makes organizing documents much easier, and most importantly, finding them easier.
The story behind it (click to expand)
I’ll start with the most tangible and simple of advice I recall. During my first year of university, I felt overwhelmed with the course work, and in particular the required readings (no one bothered to tell me that the ‘Required’ readings were not required, so I spent seven days a week ploughing through the endless pages, and I was still hardwired to believe in the absolute authority of any authority figure. But I digress). I felt like I couldn’t keep track of what I was doing or supposed to be learning.
I sought out my academic tutor who didn’t realize the depths in which I was twirling, but he did offer me something to hold on to: a filing system. ‘Organize your course work in folders on your laptop,’ he suggested. I remember feeling depleted at this advice at the time, but it did help. I’ve used the method since: I have clear folders on my personal and professional clouds. It makes organizing documents much easier, and most importantly, finding them easier.
Keep a diary
The advice: ‘Your memory can trick you. Write down a little every now and then to rely on yourself.’
The story behind it (click to expand)
This advice comes from multiple sources, even from myself. It’s well known that our memory can play tricks on us, and misremembering can be an embarrassing, sad, or even destabilizing experience. I try to write down a bit about my feelings at regular intervals, at both happy and sad times. It’s easier to rely on recorded thoughts than your memories, especially if they are put to question.
Take note of what feels odd at the beginning
The advice: ‘Six months in, you will no longer remember what felt strange at the beginning. Write down these things now, at the beginning, so you’ll see how much you’ve learned, and you’ll be a better colleague for someone new in the future, when they struggle with ‘the strange.’
The story behind it (click to expand)
This is advice I didn’t take at the time, mostly because it was early on in my professional life and I had little visibility into the real quirks and horrors of the working world. The longer I’ve been employed (or really just alive), the more I see the value of this recommendation. Organizations suck you in swiftly, every time. What feels tricky and incomprehensible on Day 1 becomes second nature in weeks and months. I believe this is one reason why change gets more difficult when staying in one place for a long time: you get accustomed to the specific quirks of the place, numb to the inefficiencies. ‘This is how we’ve always done it’ is one of the most crushing and idiotic ‘explanations’ you can give to justify a custom, and it certainly serves to demoralize any newcomer. Do yourself a favour: don’t forget that you, too, once felt it could be done better.
Focus on one thing at a time
The advice: …as stated above. Really no explanation needed!
The story behind it (click to expand; there is one, even for such a simple, well-known advice)
This one I also got early on in my career. I made a tiny mistake which bore absolutely no significance nor consequence, but my supervisor saw it fit to bring it to my attention. ‘You’re clearly not focused,’ they said. ‘I recommend you focus on one thing at a time.’
This is great advice. It has been widely researched, too: task switching is demanding for our poor brains and makes us more inefficient (due to a change in context). Not only have jobs become more complex in that they contain a variety of (simple) tasks instead of focusing on single-task repetition, our communications tools and ways are burdening us, too. As you read, how many tabs do you have open on your browser? How many desktop icons are highlighted with unread messages and documents awaiting for review?
The advice was great, even though it didn’t come to me for the right reason nor in the right tone. I find that the biggest reason for why I find it hard to focus on one task at a time is the presumption that I am to be reachable at all times. Another reason is that many tasks are contingent to tasks other people are handling, and the checking and aligning actions are, you guessed it, akin to task switching.
In my time in internal communication roles, I have noticed many people feel they don’t have the right to switch off their communications tools to do focused work. I think any organization should define clear expectations for internal communications (often customer-facing communication has such rules), and this is my recommendation: make it clear that everyone is allowed and encouraged to set aside time for focus work during which they are not expected to respond to ad hoc messages.
Work at a level above your current one if you want to progress
The advice: ‘You’ll need to perform at the next level to get there. You’re more likely to get promoted having already shown you can and want to do it.’
The story behind it (click to expand)
I was discussing my career aspirations with my mentor. I don’t remember exactly what the context was (perhaps me worrying that I seem too keen to do more and thus appearing not to know my place), but she noted that if you want a promotion within your current organization, it pays off to perform above the expected level.
I suppose this isn’t surprising, really: if you only ever meet expectations but never exceed them, there isn’t evidence that you would perform as well with more demanding responsibilities. On the other hand, I personally think that a solid performer, hitting every goal if not exceeding it, is just as worthy of consideration as the over-achiever. Maybe even more so: perhaps the solid performer has a healthier approach to work/life balance.
Recently I’ve seen some advice, mostly from the US, where people advice others to not do extra work without an explicit compensation. The reasoning is that the employer will simply award the hard-working, well performing employee with added work and responsibilities with no extra pay nor perks. The topic is made humorous by the ‘girl boss’ trend: ‘I girl bossed too hard and now I actually have to do stuff.’ I find this both funny and accurate, but I naturally think that if someone is capable of more than what they are currently being paid for and their capabilities want to be put to use, then they should be paid more and/or offered other meaningful benefits.
I find it difficult to think in terms of cool hard cash when it comes to doing more. I don’t work only for my current salary, I work for the future ones, too. If putting in an extra effort at this level will get me to the next with a better salary, and I grow as a professional and learn new skills while at it, I am keen to do it.
Explore the new, even if you don’t like it
The advice: ‘[The new thing] won’t replace you. But they people who master it will.’
The story behind it (click to expand)
There are two instances from which I derive this advice. The more recent one from 2023 when Chat-GPT made headlines everywhere and I swore off yet another fad. ‘AI won’t replace my brain!’ I bellowed. ‘No, but the people who master it will,’ said my level-headed partner. And I suppose he is right in at least some contexts: where AI can perform a task quicker and better than the average (or even above-average) human, I will be easily replaced by those who know how to increase their efficiency by deploying AI.
The other one, which really changed the way I look at new phenomena (and adjust to it better, even if with the knee-jerk reaction), was joining TikTok in 2021. I had started a YouTube channel where I interviewed professionals of different backgrounds and career paths, with the idea of showcasing to young people that your road to ‘success’ can look different to others’, and that you are also allowed to define your own success. I spent the first six months advertising on LinkedIn and Facebook, targeting my network (grown ups) and teacher and career advisers (grown ups), before admitting to myself that my true target audience (teenagers and young adults) were on Instagram and TikTok.
IG I had used before but never really gotten into, while TikTok seemed like the final frontier to madness. I hated the idea of going there, having to show my face and pitch my case. But I admitted to myself that it had to be done. I’ll discuss this journey more in a later post, but I had some success on TikTok and in fact got to liking it so much that I now have the sticker on my phone case shown here. Ironically, of course…
Just do it
The advice: from Nike, of course! And the phrase popularized by a bizarre yet memorable clip featuring Shia LaBoeuf.
The story behind it (click to expand)
You can read the story of how Nike came to the slogan in this Creative Review article; how I have come to it is also related to my YouTube channel (see Explore the new).
I came up with the idea in February 2021 and could not stop thinking about it. Over the subsequent weeks it got so bad that I couldn’t sleep, and I gave myself an ultimatum: ‘you either do it now, or you’ll never think of it again.’
Why not do it? My biggest hurdle was that no one had asked me to do it. I was very conditioned to follow orders and execute to perfection, which, admittedly, I was great at. But I was also beginning to understand that I felt stifled by a lack of creativity in my own doing and thinking. Worse still, I was the one stifling myself. I realized that I had never done anything ‘public’ that I wasn’t asked to do (I had many hobbies that I enjoyed for myself), and I felt bashful to think that I could have something to offer the world that no one else had already done. Surely, if this was worth doing, someone would have already done it? (Turns out, after starting my channel, that videos showcasing career paths indeed exist (doi), but I hadn’t come across them nor were they exactly what I was thinking of.)
The worst that could happen, I realized, was that I’d be ridiculed. And if someone felt that making an effort to help others and to learn was worth ridiculing, it would not be me who needed to feel ashamed.
Long story short, just do it. An extra piece of advice that helps me: ask yourself, what’s the worst that can happen? If you can tolerate it, just do it.
Follow your own path
The final advice comes from my mother and is the one closest to my heart, if not always to my head. Whenever I felt different or weird, my mother would say, ‘Follow your own path.’ I’ve sometimes found it difficult to do, not really knowing what my path is (who does?), but when negatively comparing myself to others and especially to where they ‘are’ in life, I am reminded of this.
I wish you a happy, healthy, and ‘you’ year 2024!
Sidetracked 