Challenge Set Up

Continuing the first part of Actions of the Day, I decided to do a follow-up that combines actions with questions related to careers. I posted these on FB and Twitter as Actions of the Day (AotD) and encourage others to complete the action as well.

Why This Challenge?

I started a new “career adventure” (which is what the cool kids are calling jobs these days) and I wanted to take the opportunity to reinvent myself and make a good impression. I think I did this at my previous workplace, but it was hard to maintain for 6 years.

AotD #52: Write a list of your job responsibilities – are you doing what you were hired for?
AotD #53: Learn your organization’s business strategy. How does the company make money and hope to adjust to evolving technology?
AotD #54: What unique value in terms of strength, experience, perspective, and expertise do you bring to your company/group?
AotD #55: Write down your list of Mentors and goto contacts. Goto contacts are professional connections that know a particular space very well and act as your goto for Q&A. What do you offer?
AotD #56: Set up catch up time with your manager. How can he/she help you reach your goals?
AotD #57: Review your existing organization system. What can you improve to make things more easily accessible?
AotD #58: Review your digital storage organization. How are your folders structured on your work and personal laptop? Is everything easy to find?
AotD #59: Review your digital collaboration tools. How are you sharing your content and incorporating feedback?
AotD #60: Review your digital distractions. What apps can you uninstall to form better productive habits?
AotD #61: Listen to your team. What do they need from you?
AotD #62: If you work with tech/computers, learn the underlying architecture and data connectivity. What does the application take for input, add as value, and output?
AotD #63: Learn about a different part of the company. How does it contribute to the bigger strategy?
AotD #64: Align your short term goals with your group. What does success look like?
AotD #65: Celebrate a team member’s accomplishment. What can you celebrate today?
AotD #66: Write a thank you email to a client to follow-up. What did you learn from the quick catch up?
AotD #67: Have coffee with someone on your team and talk about something not related to work. What do you have in common with this person?
AotD #68: Lead by example. What is leadership to you?
AotD #69: Create your comfort zone and healthy productive work environment. What makes you work hard and block all distractions out?
AotD #70: Reflect on your professional accomplishments. What is your biggest achievement and what did you learn from it?
AotD #71: List your top 5 people you’d ask advice about for your career that is not your immediate family. What are these people up to lately, and how can you help them?
AotD #72: Reflect on your personal accomplishments. What skills can you bring from these successes into your professional world?
AotD #73: Focus an hour on your hobby. What is the next milestone or deliverable?
AotD #74: Map your hobbies into a matrix labeling the high/medium/low contributions to social, wellness, creativity, career-related, and cost of adoption. Are there hobbies you can remove or add?
AotD #75: Dive deeper into your company’s sector and consider emerging technologiesthat can disrupt or assist. What’s the world going to look like in 3 years?
AotD #76: Identify the risks in your project. How do you mitigate these risks?
AotD #77: Identify the opportunities for improvement. What can you capitalize on?
AotD #78: This morning, start emails on all the tasks you need to get done by the end of the day. Be sure to send all these emails and their corresponding results before you leave work.
AotD #79: Practice the pitch for “What do you do?” Think of how you would explain it to different people with different backgrounds in your field.
AotD #80: Practice your elevator summary of your recent accomplishments to your manager or your manager’s manager. What have you contributed?
AotD #81: Set realistic goals for your work. Pace the intermediate milestones.
AotD #82: Make a mission to learn everyone’s name and one sentence about them. How many people know you and identify you with the qualities you want to be known for?
AotD #83: Identify a bad habit you’d like to change. What change, in the ordering of tasks or mindful control, can be added to stop these habits?
AotD #84: Imagine you had a meeting with your company’s C-suite (e.g. CEO, COO, CTO). What would you present about?
AotD #85: From yesterday’s action, bring that idea to your management and get feedback. How can you refine your talk to be relevant for long term strategy.
AotD #86: Semi-relevant to career. Draw something on a napkin. What did you draw? Is it related to your career?
AotD #87: Add some entropy to your daily routine by taking a different route to work. What did you see that was inspiring?
AotD #88: Put yourself in your coworkers shoes. How are you performing?
AotD #89: Post something on LinkedIn that is related to your industry. What is your subject matter expertise?
AotD #90: Review your peers. If they are “more successful,” think about what they’re doing differently. Is it their network, expertise, or specific opportunities?
AotD #91: Identify your special sauce. What can you do that only you can do?
AotD #92: Keep a section just for ideas. You should bake these out before they are shared with your team. Is this idea worth prioritizing?
AotD #93: Consider reporting and summaries. How can you represent your small data and draw conclusions from it?
AotD #94: Say “no” today. Stop taking on new work. Are you spread too thin?
AotD #95: Find your inner bitch. Nice people don’t finish last in love, war, and business. Who is competing?
AotD #96: Recommend an article in your industry. What was the article about?
AotD #97: Take a step back and let inspiration grow. The most fruitful ideas need time. How did the idea change?
AotD #98: Double up your networking and catchups with picking up lunch with your mentor or mentee. What did you eat nearby?
AotD #99: Recognize good colleagues and coworkers. Small actions like short messages showing appreciation go a very long way. Who can you follow up with?
AotD #100: Set a goal that involves 100 things and do it. Achievement unlocked. What was your last unlocked achievement?
AotD #101: Put your phone down and look around because you might be walking into someone that could change your life.

What’s Next?

I still love creating Actions of the Day, and I think I’ll keep going forward with it during weekdays. I think if I do some reordering and reorganization, I could create actions related to different aspects of career advancement. Some topics/categories could include: Networking, Understanding, Branding, Expertise, Organization, and #WorkHacks.

~See Lemons Continuously Active

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