This is a guest post by Australia-based career coach and consultant Caroline De Kimpe. Enjoy. - Genevieve
Simplifying your job increases productivity, effectiveness and achievements.
And guess what? Simplifying is exactly what will help you land that promotion or get a salary increase.
When I first came to Australia I had one suitcase full of cloths and toiletry. Since I arrived (in 2006) I moved 5 times and like most people, each time I took the opportunity to throw away “stuff” I wasn’t using any more, to declutter and prepare for a fresh home.
Still, each time I had more boxes to move.
It’s similar in our career. Our first job is very straight forward and (most of the time) we don’t have high expectations and stress. As we climb the ranks, we have bigger teams, projects, more responsibilities and are faced with more politics. This goes often hand in hand with longer working hours and more stress.
Each time we gain a new role and we increase our responsibilities, we automatically increase the expectations we have of others and ourselves.
When it becomes too much and we feel overwhelmed our performance will start to decline, our health will go backwards and, more often than not, we'll be in a bad mood all the time.
All of which will create more stress and unhappiness.
Getting Rid of What Doesn't Serve You
Just like when you move house, once in a while, you need to declutter and throw away what doesn’t serve you anymore in your career. You have gained more roles, and with that greater responsibilities and expectations and to manage them as effective and efficient as possible you need to re-balance.
I believe a simple and effective way to start balancing your life again is to simplify as much as you can.
These are my top 8 tips to simplify your job or career:
- Open calendar (and closed door) policy. To make sure you don’t get distracted all the time you need to make yourself less accessible to everyone. Ask your team members to book a time with you to discuss their problems and challenges instead of disturbing you every 5 seconds.
- Set boundaries – decide how much time and energy you spend on specific task.
- Clean – have a clean work space.
- Make time for yourself. Take does lunch breaks! You need to simplify from the inside out: your thinking, your decisions and your actions. Making time for yourself will give you clarity to do so.
- One task, one focus - try to avoid too much multitasking; it often creates “starts with no finishes”.
- Create an efficient system or routine.
- Have a “one pager:" a business plan, sales plan, life plan, goal plan etc. Make it one page (or a one page summary) – much easier to follow and to keep with you.
- Don’t complicate if it’s not necessary; choose the easiest way when possible and appropriate.
Caroline De Kimpe is a career transformation coach for men and women who have a corporate job and want to break out of their rut and transform their ordinary job into their dream career. Visit her website here.