How to Stay Focused at Work

How to Stay Focused at Work Do you sit down at your desk, look out the window and  forget what you were originally doing? If so, then you need help with trying to stay focused when you are at work. When in the office 9-5, it can be difficult to keep your concentration and focus on your tasks. However, everyone at work wants to be able to have a productive day and to be able to motivate themselves and others to be the best they can be. In order to have a successful and fulfilling day at work, you need to make some changes in your daily routine, even if they are only small ones. If this sounds like you and you want to make a change, this  infographic by Anna Vital  at Funders and Founders  will provide some useful tips and changes you can make to improve your focus: Takeaways: Turn off your phone so you do not get distracted. Get a good chair so you are comfortable. Clear your desk so you can see everything clearly. Keep food and your desk, glucose helps your brain focus! Make a list, but make it short so it is easy to follow. Frame a picture of your goal and look at it every morning before work. RELATED: How Much Time Do You Waste at Work?

Tell me about yourself What is the employer looking for

Tell me about yourself What is the employer looking for When students ask Student Careers and Skills about how to answer this question, they are often concerned by it because it is so open-ended. How do you know what to say when there is so much that you could say? In fact ‘tell us about yourself’ is a gift of a question for the person being interviewed, precisely because you get so much flexibility about how to answer it. Other questions will require you to think of specific examples, or focus on your strengths and weaknesses (so prepare for such questions too), but for a question like this, you can decide what is important. So how do you decide what to tell the interviewer? A counselling student made a very interesting comparison the other day when I was running a workshop about job applications. A good counsellor will seek to understand the world from the point of view of the client they are working with, and a good applicant is doing a not dissimilar thing during the recruitment process â€" trying to understand the world from the point of view of the potential employer. The interview has only one purpose â€" to decide which person or people will be offered a job. Even an apparently innocuous question may form part of the interview process. ‘How was your journey?’ is often an opening question, designed to put people at their ease, but â€" putting yourself in the recruiter’s shoes for a moment â€" what might the following answers suggest to you about your potential recruit? ‘Fine.’ ‘It was awful! The bus only got me to the station two minutes before the train was due, and then the train was late, and then I couldn’t find a seat!’ ‘Oh, my Mum drove me.’ ‘It was fine, thank you. I was glad that I’d decided to catch the earlier train since I knew I would still get here on time, even though it was delayed.’ So too with the ‘Tell us about yourself’ question if you put yourself in the employers’ shoes, this can help you to think about what key information about you will help persuade them that you are right for the job. In most cases you will know what the employer wants because they will have provided this information, through the Person Specification or Job Description or initial job advert, and other information which you may have been able to pick up about the job. So tell them how you fit this information. Focus on what the employer needs to know This can also help to avoid some pitfalls, such as seeking to summarise your entire life history. Or, for example, quoting basic information about yourself which the employer could just read off your CV or giving information which is important to you but irrelevant to the employer or telling a funny story about your sister’s cat. Here is an invented example from someone who is applying for a job as a fundraiser at a charity. They have no fundraising experience, but they are confident that they have the skills for the post and they have been interested in the organisation in question for some time. They know that the person they are talking to has already seen their CV. Does their answer focus on the most important things about them? Can you think of ways to improve it? ‘Thank you for inviting me to interview. From the point of view of this application, there are two things I am particularly keen to tell you about. One is my placement last summer. One of the things I loved about that job was that I was working with different people, members of the public, every day. Although that role wasn’t as a fundraiser, it did require me to build up a quick rapport with people whom I’d not met before, which the job description suggests will be equally important in this role. Equally valuable I think was my experience as the Secretary of the University’s Charity Society. Although our focus was on information giving rather than fundraising, my involvement enabled me to gain a good insight into organisations such as yours. In fact we had Ms Charity Sector, one of the Project Officers in your Coventry office, come to talk to us. All this whilst working towards a 2:1 in a subject which I’ve really enjoyed!’ If you know what the employer is looking for and can tailor what you say about yourself to provide evidence that they have found what they are looking for in you, then you will have provided a strong answer to the question ‘Tell us about yourself’.

Can You Come Back From A Public Confrontation - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Can You Come Back From A Public Confrontation - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Personal branding has become an essential tool for individuals. If you want people to listen to you, to read what you’ve written, to follow you in social media, and so on, then you’re going to have to create a strong personal brand. Your personal brand is not just about you, however. On the contrary, it is more about how people perceive you â€" basically, your personal brand is your reputation. This is why it’s important that you protect your reputation at all costs. This is why, even though you try to be as real as you can, you still need to take note of what you say and do in public. A serious error in judgment can become the downfall of your personal brand. Get your reputation back on track If you lost control in public, can you bounce back from it? Can a personal brand come back from a public confrontation? How do you do it? Yes, it is possible to come back from a public confrontation. Here are steps in rebuilding your brands reputation: 1.     Don’t ignore the issue Even though you wish the problem could simply disappear without you addressing it, most of the time, that isn’t going to happen. Ignoring the issue is the worst thing you can do, because this can result in the problem spiraling out of control. The world can contribute to what happened, and a simple mistake could become a huge dilemma once everyone butts in without you saying something. 2.     Own up to your mistake If you make a mistake, it’s best to own up to it. Don’t make excuses for your behavior â€" only children can get away with that. Be sincere â€" don’t treat the problem lightly. People would be more willing to forgive you if you’re honest and upfront with them. 3.     Stay positive If you were involved in a public confrontation with someone else, and the other person is saying bad things about you, don’t stoop down to their level. It would only hurt your personal brand more if you started mudslinging as well. Stay positive and be on your best behavior. Show how your brand is addressing the problem or mistake by updating your social media accounts regularly. This will make people sympathize and even start defending you. If you engage in bad brand speak, then people are going to be left with a bad taste in their mouths, and it would be harder for them to see you in a good light. So be the mature one and let your brand speak for itself without having to point the finger on someone else. 4.     Empower your brand advocates If you have built a pretty strong personal brand, then you probably have a community of advocates waiting to defend you. So empower these advocates â€" engage them and inform them about what’s happening. Let them speak for your brand. The more positive conversation they generate about you, the better. 5.     Stay on track Though the public confrontation may have given you trouble, remember to stay on track. Continue to build relationships with people, engage your audience, and interact with your followers so you can have a strong personal brand that withstands whatever problems it encounters. Build a community around your brand who will go the extra mile for you, who would defend you to the world. The stronger your personal brand and reputation, the more that you can come back from mistakes and public confrontations easily. It’s not good for your personal brand to engage in a bad public confrontation, because it can severely affect your reputation. This is why it’s important that you protect that reputation at all costs, and avoid losing control. But if you do lose control, don’t view it as the end of the world. You can still come back and regain your good reputation â€" just remember these five tips. It takes time to come back Though your brand may suffer for a while, simply stay on track and people will start forgetting what happened. Or if they don’t forget, at least they have forgiven and the problem doesn’t seem as big anymore as time passes. So yes, you can come back from a public confrontation better and stronger. If you’ve built a strong personal brand, it can definitely withstand a lot of things. Learn from your mistakes, and try to avoid doing it again at all costs. People may forgive you once, but twice is another matter. If it happens again, they can recall the events before, and they may not be willing to let you off lightly this time. Remember, when it comes to personal branding, reputation very much matters. Author: Maria Elena Duron, is managing editor of the Personal Branding Blog, CEO (chief engagement officer) of buzz2bucks.com â€" a word of mouth marketing firm.   She helps create connection, credibility, community and cha-ching through mobile marketing and social commerce around your brand. She is co-founder of #brandchat a weekly Twitter chat focused on every aspect of branding.

3 Reasons Why Youre Still Stuck in Your Career - Classy Career Girl

3 Reasons Why Youre Still Stuck in Your Career Everyone wants to succeed at something. You probably know a lot about success. You’ve done well, continued to excel, and keep advancing up the ladder as you’ve been told to do all your life. But have you ever stopped to think about what that advancement will really lead to? So many people simply follow the logical progression of their resumes and don’t think about where that will lead them. Instead, they continue along with the same habit of progress and advancement that got them to where they are and that they’ve always assumed is the best path. Advancement? Check. Achievement? Check. Fulfillment? Not so much. Is this you? Have you made it to the top of your ladder and realized it’s not all you thought it would be? Or maybe you know it’s not at all where you want to be but just kept moving and now feel trapped and alone up so high in the wrong place. I recently spoke with a woman who had been practicing law at the same firm for 22 years. By most peoples definition, she’s a success. A partner at a great firm and highly regarded within her firm. When we dug a little deeper, though, she wasn’t happy. Here’s what she actually said to me: “Every year I just assume I won’t be here by the end of the year. But here I am. 22 years later in the same office at the same firm. I get good reviews and people love to work with mebut I’m not happy.” Sound familiar? Even if you’re only 5 years in, this could be you. Here are the traps that lead you there and how to avoid them. The Coping Creep: 3 Things Keeping You From Doing What You Really Want To Do 1. The Coping Creep At a certain point, people just settle in. It’s not terrible, but it definitely isn’t great, so they just let it ride. If you know anything about me, I’m willing to admit that sometimes work will suck. But, generally, you shouldn’t want to change your job every year. This is what I call the coping creep. You settle in and think life is good enough let it ride. And then, 22 years later, you’re still there. Not doing what you want to do and assuming it won’t last much longer. And trapped by the income and status you’ve achieved (the higher up you get, the harder it is to get hired in a new role or profession). Life often demands a bit of coping and being happy with what you have and not needing to progress. But at a certain point, the happiest people learn to balance being satisfied with what they have with doing something to advance to where they want to be. When you let the coping creep settle in, you’ve essentially given up. You can’t be coping with your job and have goals. The two don’t go together. [RELATED: 3 Steps to Finding a Career Youll Love] 2. Fear of Giving Up Issue two? The fear of giving up or changing gears. I hear this ad nauseum: Well, I knew I wasn’t happy, but I didn’t want to just give up or I thought I’d just be a failure if I called it quits and tried to find something else. Whew. I get it. I did it. It’s hard. I’m a believer in sticking something out if you committed to it. I don’t think you should just quit at the first sign of struggle or when something gets uncomfortable at all. I practiced law for nine years before I quit. Within 6 months of practice, I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do long term. But, I tried some different settings (two very different in-house positions) and thought about many other options I could stick with as a lawyer. But after the exhaustive research, it just wasn’t right for me. And that was so hard to admit. Really. Spending $200K on a degree and nine years of your life (12, if you include law school) is really hard to give up. I was giving up more than just a job or even a career. I was giving up an identity. But how could I see that as a failure if I knew the identity I was holding on to wasn’t accurate? To me, the really tragic thing would have been to charge ahead and wake up in 20 years realizing I had spent most of my life doing something just because I started it. While I’m not a big “live your life according to quotes” person, this one from CS Lewis sums it up quite nicely: “We all want progress, but if youre on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive” And you don’t even have to do an about turn. Everything that you’ve done so far is worth something and not JUST a lesson in what you don’t want (though that is helpful). You’ve developed transferable skills and contacts and general knowledge you can capitalize on in your new career. All it takes is a shift of perspective and finding the right thread to connect your new path. But, trust me. It’s there. If I can find a thread between being a commercial attorney and a career coach, I KNOW you can find a commonality between whatever you’re doing now and what you want to be doing. 3. Lack of Creativity Simply put: most people lack creativity when considering other options. Some of this comes from merely not knowing what’s out there because you’ve been in the same or similar type of work for several years. To combat it, get out there! Read, engage in outside activities, and talk to people about what they do! It will help spark your creativity and might even make you happier in general. Some of it comes from being too literal: “I have an accounting degree. Therefore, I must account.” Not so. Your accounting degree can be used for so much more, and we all know your degree has very little to do with what your talents and skills are anyway. You need to think outside the box and shift your viewpoint from myopic to expansive. If you’re having a hard time with that, ask your friends, your family, mentors, strangers on the street anyone! And, if none of that works, hire a professional! Seriously it’s easy to get trapped in a very narrow viewpoint, but once you start to understand that there’s way more out there, you’ll be rewarded and see all of the possibility out there. Don’t define yourself by your job title, define yourself by your experience and talents. Ready to Shift your Ladder? If any of this rings true, get ready to shift your ladder. It’s not worth it to sit in safety. I’m not encouraging you to give up everything you’ve worked so hard for. I am encouraging you to figure out a way to capitalize on it in a deliberate way that will leave you more fulfilled in your career. It will be a bit scary, for sure, but it doesn’t have to be as scary as you think with the right support! And isn’t a life of settling ultimately scarier than the potential your life can hold?

What It Takes to Become the Cream of the Crop in the Corporate World

What It Takes to Become the Cream of the Crop in the Corporate World Success in the upper ranks of the corporate world is the goal of many aspiring professionals, especially younger ones. Reaching this goal will mean competing with other driven individuals and going through rigorous work experiences to gradually move up the ladder.Once you have done it, however, the rewards can be enormous. Here are some of the most critical steps you’ll need to take to become the cream of the crop in the corporate world.1. Hone Your Networking SkillsevalThe old adage that who you know is more important than what you know isn’t entirely true, but knowing the right people certainly can advance your career. For this reason, it’s important to get good at networking.Go to corporate events and conferences to meet and interact with other people in your industry. Also make sure that you are using online platforms, such as industry forums and LinkedIn, to network with other professionals in the online space.2. Get the Education You NeedIn large part, success in the corp orate world depends on how much education you have. Get into the best school that you can and do everything in your power to keep your GPA as high as possible. Not only will you emerge with skills and certifications necessary for the career that you want, but you will likely also make connections in college that can benefit you later on in your professional life.If you cannot devote yourself to full-time classes at a traditional school, consider getting a business education online. This is an especially good option for those who are already working in their careers and can’t take the time off to do school and would rather just get their public administration degree or whatever other program they’re going for outside of work hours. Some businesses may even compensate you for doing that.3. Understand Corporate CultureIf you want to succeed in corporate life, it’s important that you adjust yourself to the professional culture that you’ll consistently be surrounded by. If you dr ess, act and speak in a manner that reflects your readiness for a job above your current position, it will serve as a signal to your superiors that you are a good candidate for advancement.Not only that, but you’ll look good if it appears that you try to support the culture in all that you do. This is especially true if culture has anything to do with a philosophy or set of values in your company. If the higher-ups can see that you embody what they want their company to be, then you’ll be someone that they’ll definitely want to have their eye on.4. Build Your Value ContinuouslySucceeding in the extremely competitive world of modern corporate life means constantly improving and adding value to yourself. As your career progresses, continue to learn new skills and keep old ones up to date. Continuing education can be an invaluable tool in this effort, as it will allow you to keep yourself at the cutting edge of your industry.evalRising to the top in the corporate world will be a long and difficult process, but for the truly driven individual it is very achievable. Always remember to keep yourself sharp and competitive, as standing still in the corporate world equates to moving backward.