Organize, Prioritize, Maximize, and Other -ize Words
Flashback time. Remember when I told you about my chaotic, crazy desk at the talent agency? Today, that messy desk is no more. I’ve finally gotten to a place where it looks organized and put together. Yes, I have my fair share of girly Intern Queen flair—but everything is presented in a very organized fashion. My sparkle notebooks are all color coded depending on what project I’m using them for; the pens are in the pen mug; my folders are labeled To Pursue, To Handle, and To File. My desk looks awesome if I do say so myself. And I was formerly known as the messiest girl in the world (seriously). But if I can change, you can change. Organization is power. When you are organized, you can easily access information—and that is powerful. Organization is only the beginning. In this chapter we’re going to explore three of my favorite words: Organize, prioritize, and maximize. I have tips—and these tips are going to help you get your work life together. Get excited!
ORGAN-IZE
Make Sure Nothing Slips Through the Cracks
I’m going to put on my employer hat and be tough on all of you for a moment. You are not good at your job until nothing—I repeat—nothing falls through the cracks. There is no worse mistake than when an important task is delegated and then is forgotten about or pushed too far down on the list of priorities. Even if it’s one e-mail that you miss or one person you forget to get back to, letting things slip through the cracks is a very visible sign of disorganization. Let me give you an example of something that could happen to you in the office. Sandra works at a very well-established marketing firm in San Francisco. She has only been working at the company for about six months but her boss is already letting her run point on a big client. The campaign is in the beginning stages and every detail matters. It’s a new client and it’s big business—she doesn’t want to mess up. She coordinates an initial call with the client via e-mail. She tells the client to plan on a call for 4:30 P.M. to discuss the strategy for the campaign. Sandra sends out an e-mail to the entire team (and the client) confirming the time of the meeting, the time zone, the call-in number, and the full names of the people attending the call. Sandra feels on top of her game and excited to really use this opportunity to prove herself to her boss. She’s going about her day and responding to e-mails when she looks at the clock—it’s 4:45 P.M.—SHIT! She is fifteen minutes late for the phone call. She doesn’t have an excuse—she just forgot. Her entire team and the client are waiting on the call. Before she can dial-in she gets an e-mail from the client, who says, “I’ve been waiting on the conference line with YOUR team for fifteen minutes. I’m hanging up now. This was a waste of time. Let’s reschedule.” And if that wasn’t bad enough, she copied Sandra’s boss on the e-mail. Almost immediately, Sandra’s boss calls her into the office. Sandra gets taken off the account, just like that. Her boss explains to her that the client pays the company millions of dollars each year; if the client gets upset and leaves, she might get fired. Sandra is usually very good at her job, but that’s not enough. If she were as organized as she should be, she would have put that phone call in her calendar. And because that one conference call fell through the cracks, she doesn’t get her chance to prove herself to her boss. In fact, it’s probably going to take her a while to be in a situation where she can prove herself to her boss in the future. Be careful about letting things slip. As you saw in this example, sometimes when you let things fall through the cracks, it doesn’t just affect you, it affects your boss, and it can also affect superiors who you don’t even see on a daily basis. You never know the end result of a mistake—so try your hardest to prevent them at all costs.
Today, I can’t stand when things slip through the cracks. Turns out I’m just like my former boss. If a member of my team misses an e-mail, doesn’t get back to someone in a timely manner, or forgets to do something, it drives me crazy. It makes me feel like they aren’t in charge of their work; their work is in charge of them. And it’s such an easy thing to fix. That’s why I can’t stress these calendars and to-do lists enough. It’s so important to track everything so that nothing falls through the cracks. When this happens, not only do you look bad, but the company looks bad.
The Perfect Work Space
When I started my first job I moved right into a messy desk. The girl who held the position before me didn’t organize anything so I was left with the remains. I had no time to organize it and kept telling myself I would get to it eventually. Don’t fall into this trap! I encourage you to go in over the weekend (I know, it sounds painful) and put on some music and get it done. Take a few hours out of your day (Saturday, and Sunday if needed) and go through everything. I promise, getting your stuff together is going to save you when it comes to your ability to get things done. Not to mention, think of how on top of your stuff you’ll feel when you walk into the office on Monday morning! The first year of my first job, I spent a few hours over the weekend in the office, just to make sure my desk was cleaned out and organized so that I could perform well the following week. This isn’t always necessary but if you are feeling really behind it can be a great idea.
Additionally, don’t be afraid to change it up. If you don’t like the filing system the last person had, start your own. Make new labels and give everything a refresh. If you can’t stand the file folders, go buy new ones, even if it’s on your own dime—it will be worth it. Find the processes and organizational systems that work best for you. Make them as intuitive as possible. When you are all done, quiz yourself: Do you know where everything is?
Organize Yourself at Work
Have a workbag that you take with you every day. Something large and black or brown depending on what colors you wear the most. You want to avoid having to change your workbag all the time, losing contents in all the shifting. Keep it organized with all of your work must-haves for the office. Some of the must-haves for your workbag might be:
• cell phone
• extra charger (portable charger)
• wallet (credit cards, at least $20 in cash, ID)
• checkbook (if necessary)
• laptop and charger (if you work from your own computer)
• iPad and charger (if you bring one to work or your company bought you one)
• pens—at least five
• smaller notepad for random ideas that come up (Of course you’ll take your work notebook with you to and from work all of the time.)
• business cards (If you have any—many companies don’t offer cards until you get that second or third position.)
• vitamins or pills you need to have with you just in case you need to stay at the office late
• scarf or sweater that goes with everything—just in case you are cold or need a quick outfit fix
• deodorant
• perfume or cologne
Create a Calendar System
In my first book, All Work, No Pay, I talked about creating an effective calendar system that works for you. The difference now is that you may need to create a system or adapt a system that works for your boss or your superiors in the office. At most companies, you will share a calendar with your team or with your boss—meaning you will have access to their calendar. This is probably the one process that you can’t change to your liking because it affects your boss. The majority of employers that I work with are using either Microsoft Outlook calendars or Google Calendar. Both are relatively easy-to-understand tools that you can practice working with before your first day. Also, make sure you figure out how to sync your work calendar to your phone. For example, my Windows Phone automatically uses Outlook, so I had to download a program called Smart Calendar to sync Google Calendar with my phone. Regardless of what type of phone you have, FIO—figure it out.
At my first job we used Outlook calendars to track meetings, calls, appointments, and client schedules. It’s so important that everything gets clearly put into the calendar. Put everything in the calendar, even notes and reminders for yourself so you don’t forget things. For example, if your boss says, “I want to talk to you at some point about that client,” you should schedule time in the calendar to make sure you don’t forget to connect with her. Just put a note at the top of the calendar that says “Ask boss about X client.” I’ve found that the busier you get the more helpful scheduling time becomes. If you know you have a busy week and that randomly on Friday you need to remind your boss to call her doctor, put a note in your calendar for that Friday morning.
Positive Calendar Habits
You want to get in the habit of developing positive calendar etiquette. In chapter two, we talked about the work itself and how to actually schedule things for your boss and coordinate appointments. Here are a few calendar tips for organizing your calendar once you’ve already entered the information:
• REVIEW YOUR CALENDAR FIRST THING. Every morning, I get on the phone with my team between 8:30 and 9:00 A.M. and review the calendar. We all share a calendar and look at every item together. We make sure that nothing is overlapping, that I’m aware of each appointment, and that I don’t have to move anything. I use the calendar as a template to plan anything else I know needs to get accomplished that day. I’ll even write in when I’m planning on going to the gym or going for a run. Look at your calendar every morning and then again when you’re ready to leave for the day. You have to be aware and on top of what’s going on with your schedule and oftentimes your boss’s schedule. You have to manage the calendar and constantly make sure nothing conflicts. On Fridays, you should look ahead to the following week to make sure you aren’t going to walk in on Monday morning and find something completely out of control. You’ll want to do the same thing on Monday and make sure nothing has changed.
• SYNC YOUR CALENDAR WITH YOUR PHONE (FOUND UNDER CALENDAR SETTINGS). My phone beeps ten minutes before every phone or in-person meeting to make sure I don’t forget.
• KEEP YOUR CALENDAR AS CLEAN AND ORGANIZED AS POSSIBLE. Enter in as much information as possible so you don’t have to look for it minutes before a call or meeting is about to start. Delete old items that are no longer relevant or old reoccurring events that are no longer happening.
Create your own way of organizing.
• MANAGING YOUR INBOX. My inbox is insane, constantly. I’m sure you can relate. Every morning I wake up to a mix of everything—author interviews, campaigns to price out, mail from readers, and other seemingly urgent work. And then there is the personal stuff—the group chain e-mails about the foodie restaurants to check out, weekend plans, and LivingSocial deals. My inbox and I have a love/hate relationship. Some days I ignore my inbox all day—I have to spend my time on active or productive work. Other days, I spend all day on my inbox. Here are some ways to manage your inbox:
• DON’T LET E-MAILS SIT. When you clean your room, you put everything in its place. Just like cleaning up any other space, e-mails should have their place. If you have e-mails sitting in your inbox that you know you’ll never go through, archive them—clear them out—do whatever you can to get them out of there and start fresh. For me, that meant getting rid of my dated Gmail account, which had more than twenty thousand e-mails, and creating an Outlook account for the purpose of getting a fresh start and a clean inbox. If I need to find an old e-mail, I can always log into my old Gmail account and search for it. I’m a big believer in an e-mail filing system. You can file by client, by project, by revenue stream—whatever you want, just file them. Today, I file my e-mails by topic: Book, TV, Clients, Interns, Fan Mail, and Branding Projects. When I go through my e-mail, I feel like I’m cleaning my room, I’m putting every message in its place.
• DON’T LET YOUR INBOX RUN YOUR LIFE. It would be easy to end up spending our entire day answering e-mails. Everyone loves to brag about how busy they are and how many e-mails they get. I’ll talk more about being “too busy” later in the book. To be honest, I’d be jealous if someone told me they got only ten e-mails a day. While e-mails are great, when we don’t use them efficiently they tend to overwhelm us. I like to put as much information as I can in one e-mail and then think ahead, predict the questions the other person might ask, and include that information in the e-mail as well. And realize that sometimes a simple phone call is best for getting the information you need or getting across the information you have. Don’t be a slave to your inbox. I try to follow the rules of my e-mail guru, the famous Julie Morgenstern, author of Never Check E-mail In The Morning. I focus on a project in the morning before scanning my inbox so that I take control of my day instead of my inbox taking control of it. The thing about e-mails is that there are always going to be more. And they tend to become this growing mountain that you just can’t keep up with until one day you are so far behind that you have to devote an entire day to simply managing your inbox—ugh!
• AVOID E-MAILS AT NIGHT. Try to avoid work e-mails in the evenings unless it’s urgent. I also try to avoid checking my work e-mails from my phone. If I get wrapped up in the wrong e-mail before bed, I can’t sleep. Before I leave the office, I scan my to-do list for anything urgent that needs to get done. In my mind, urgent is something that can’t wait until the morning that someone is specifically waiting on. For example, today I needed to leave the office by 4 P.M. for a 5 P.M. appointment. It was a heck of a busy day, I quickly scanned my to-do list. There were at least five or six high priority items (items with dollar signs attached) that needed to be completed sooner rather than later. However, there was one other item on my to-do list—it said, “Send payroll to CPA before EOD (end of day)”—that I knew needed to be done ASAP. If I don’t send my payroll to my CPA, my employees won’t get paid on time. I was able to conquer this task before leaving the office for the night.
• LIMIT JUNK. If you’ve been receiving the same newsletters for years and are just in the habit of deleting every day, click unsubscribe or create a filter that will catch and delete these emails. Only subscribe to the newsletters that you actually read. On my Outlook, I can click SWEEP and my computer will identify mail from specific junk senders and delete everything from that sender in my inbox. This function saves me a ton of time. I’m also able to determine whether or not I want to receive messages from that person again.
• FILE AND SAVE NEW CONTACTS. Always add new contacts that you e-mail with and have calls with to Outlook. You want to save their information and sync it with your phone so that you can access their information quickly. You never know when you’ll need to quickly access that person’s information and you want it in a place that’s organized and easily accessible.
• DON’T FILE UNTIL YOU ARE DONE WITH IT. Try to look at your inbox as an extended version of your to-do list. Don’t file an e-mail until you are done with it. Once you are done with a task, file that e-mail and use the search bar in your inbox to search for any other e-mails related to that task (chain e-mails, group e-mails, etc.). You can hit select all and file them all at once, that way you are removing large quantities from your inbox at once instead of having to go through one at a time.
• KEEP YOUR PERSONAL E-MAILS SEPARATE FROM YOUR WORK E-MAILS. My friends and I are on group e-mail chains all of the time. We are very specific regarding which e-mail address we are sending to. My close friend Josh works at Paramount. We don’t send personal e-mails to his Paramount e-mail address; we send them to his personal Gmail address. This helps him keep his personal e-mails separated from his work e-mails and makes sure he doesn’t get distracted during the day with personal e-mails. And remember, your company technically owns your computer and any work you do from your work e-mail address. It’s generally not a great idea to have personal e-mails that your boss could read sitting in your work inbox.
• USE FOLDERS TO FILE, ORGANIZE, AND ARCHIVE. Keep as much information as you can. You never know when you’ll need to reference an e-mail. Archive your folders on your computer and on an external hard drive. Don’t keep everything stored on your phone as it will eat up the memory. Be aware of how many gigabytes you have so you don’t start losing e-mails on your phone.
• UTILIZE YOUR INBOX ORGANIZATIONAL TOOLS. Most of the time, you won’t be able to handle everything that comes across your desk in one day. Prioritize your inbox. Use the color coding system (if that works for you). You could select one color to flag an e-mail to say “this is priority” and others to say “this can wait.” Lacey, a former ambassador of mine, who works at Flint Communications, says, “Another cool trick in Outlook is to create rules. I use this for industry newsletters that I’m signed up for. This way, they bypass my inbox and I don’t feel obligated to read them right away but I know I can save them for future reference.”
Apps to Help You Stay Organized
Including a section on helpful apps wouldn’t have been possible if I was writing this book fifty years ago—or even five years ago, but so many of us are discovering the latest and greatest apps to help us organize our work lives. Here are a few of the most notable apps young people are using in the workplace to stay organized:
• Evernote (https://evernote.com/): Evernote is a phone and computer application for note-taking. On Evernote, I have several notepads, which allow me to take notes and photos while I’m out and about and sync them with my computer.
• Clear (http://www.realmacsoftware.com/clear/): Clear is an organization app for iPhone and iPad users. The tool helps you create simple and easy-to-navigate to-do lists.
• Google Keep (https://drive.google.com/keep/): Google Keep is a tool for note-taking available on Google Play or for Android Users. Many of my Intern Queen followers swear by this tool.
• Trello (http://www.trello.com): Trello is a system of organizational boards on which you can keep to-do lists, track projects, and share it all with coworkers.
• Basecamp (http://www.basecamp.com): Saya, another former ambassador, works at a company called Push in Orlando and says, “On Basecamp you can build your own to-do list for each campaign. It helps separate different jobs that you need to be working on and helps you mark the highest priority.”
PRIORIT-IZE
How to Make Sure You Meet Deadlines
Work deadlines are extremely important. Entry-level employees fall on one of two sides of the deadline scale. They either meet their deadlines or they don’t. I guarantee, regardless of the excuse, if you don’t meet your deadlines, it will affect the way your coworkers and superiors think about you and determine whether or not to give you additional work.
When determining a deadline, give yourself more time than usual. It’s better to get something done on time in a way that you can really handle, rather than promising some unreasonable deadline that you are either not going to make or you are going to be late meeting. My literary agent Katie is remarkable at this. We’ll have a conversation on a Monday, go over some projects, thoughts, and ideas, and then she will make sure to tell me at the end of our call when I can expect her to follow up on certain things. For example, she’ll say, “Great. I’ll get that contract reviewed by the end of next week and that call into the publisher in two weeks.” At first, my reaction was, “Why can’t we do things faster?” I quickly realized, however, that the difference with Katie was that she does what she says she’s going to do. I never have to follow up or double check that she’s doing it. She simply does things when she plans to and in the manner she is used to. It works. Katie understands her process and knows how long it will take her to complete projects. As you get more comfortable with your workload, you will be able to estimate how long certain projects and tasks will take.
Assign Deadlines When They Don’t Exist
When deadlines don’t exist you always want to find out what your boss is thinking. Don’t just let them blindly assign you work with no structure to it. Go out of your way to ask questions, such as “When would you like me to complete this by?” If they look at you funny, explain that you want to make sure you prioritize and plan accordingly. You can always express the importance of meeting your deadlines if they pry further. Don’t be afraid to ask about a deadline. Ask the questions you don’t want to ask. It’s better to know about a deadline than have your boss assume you know when the deadline is. Also, if you feel overwhelmed and like you have too much on your plate, select the deadline and run it by your boss. Show your boss that you understand your workload by setting your own deadlines. If you need to, you can explain all of the other urgent tasks you are prioritizing.
Once your boss gives you a deadline make sure to look at your calendar and actually plan time to do whatever it is they are asking you to do. It’s easy to say you are going to do things, it’s another thing to get them done.
Now, let’s say someone e-mails you to ask if you can do something. You know it’s going to take a long time and you aren’t sure when you will do it. Give yourself a deadline and let the person know what the deadline is. Even if it’s far out, give them a deadline, stick to it, and manage their expectations.
Some Quick Prioritizing Tips
• Always have sticky notes on hand. If there is something really important that you need to remember to do put a sticky note in the middle of your computer screen. If actual sticky notes aren’t your thing, your computer and phone both probably have virtual sticky note organizational systems for you to use.
• Planners: Some people keep their schedules solely online while others still enjoy carrying around a cute planner in their purse (I personally love the Lilly Pulitzer planners). Melinda Price from the Autism Community Network says, “I use my planner to keep a running to-do list, as well as write down all of my appointments and meetings so nothing falls through the cracks. There’s nothing more rewarding than checking things off as you go through your day!”
• Always have a notebook with you. They change lives. You should have different notebooks for different projects and parts of your job.
• Make piles of different things on your desk. Try to avoid clutter at all costs.
To-Do Lists
• LEARN TO PRIORITIZE. Make sure to go through your to-do list after you put it together and circle anything that should be done first. It’s easy to start with the fun stuff that you enjoy, but I suggest starting with the things that you don’t want to do. You want to make sure you get these things done and you will most likely get to the things you enjoy regardless. When I write my to-do lists I try to estimate the amount of time it will take me to accomplish that task. This helps me prioritize my list and figure out what I should work on first. Depending on deadlines, I like to tackle the most important projects first to get them out of the way.
• AVOID DISTRACTIONS AT ALL COSTS. Find your no-distraction zone where you can get into a rhythm. Do you need to sit in a conference room? Close your door? Shut your cell phone? Put your headphones on? Do whatever you need to do to get to that place where you can rock through your pile of work. When I’m in book-writing mode my e-mails, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and friends calling my phone all easily distract me. In order to make sure I’m focused and able to prioritize my time, I shut my phone, sit far away from the television, and shut off my internet connection. I realize that you might not deal with television as a distraction at your office but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other types of distractions you have to deal with. The point here is do what you need to do to get in the zone.
• LISTS PRE-BEDTIME. I find that making to-do lists the night before helps me stay on track first thing in the morning. I write down the five most important things I need to do the next day and usually the time frame that describes how I’ll conquer each task. Doing this helps me dive right into my day and get focused faster.
• MY TO-DO LIST MIRRORS MY INBOX. I like my to-do list to line up almost perfectly with my inbox. If it’s in my inbox, it’s probably on my to-do list. If it’s in my inbox and not on my to-do list, it SHOULD mean I’ve completed the task and can delete the e-mail. Remember, you can’t let things fall through the cracks. This is a way to double-check that you don’t miss things or let them slip.
• BE FLEXIBLE. Although I’m clearly obsessed with my to-do list, I must also understand when to be flexible. Being flexible is necessary in your first job and in any fast-paced working environment. Things pop up—such is life. This is just another reason to start with the most important stuff on your to-do list. You want to be organized but not so tied to your ways that you can’t be flexible and move some things around. I make a to-do list every night but I guarantee things get changed around several times during the day.
• COMMUNICATE ABOUT YOUR PROGRESS. Check your to-do list throughout the day to make sure you stay on track and see what’s coming up next. Keep an open dialogue with your boss so that if something is taking you longer than you thought it would they are aware. It’s always better to over communicate. Follow up with people about your progress on tasks before they have the opportunity to follow up with you.
MAXIM-IZE
When I was in college I was into making collages. (Now everyone does that on Pinterest.) I would rip out my favorite fashions, slogans, motivational words, celebrity photos, and put them up all over my dorm room. One specific phrase always stuck with me. It said, Maximize Your Potential. I loved it. It impacted me. I felt it. In college, I knew I wanted to do something amazing. I remember sitting by the famous landmark fountain on Florida State’s campus (the first college I went to before transferring to UCF) with friends one evening and just looking up at the stars. “I’m going to do something big,” I said. “I don’t know what it is yet, but I know it’s going to happen.” It was one of those magic moments that you never forget. And I just remember thinking about that phrase I ripped out of a magazine and taped to the middle of my bed post. “I’m going to maximize my potential.”
Maximizing your potential is making the most of your time, being efficient, doing your absolute best on the job every single day. I have a few pointers I’d like to share on how to maximize your potential.
Surround Yourself with People of Similar Mind-Sets
Don’t work with people who can’t get it done. We all know which people in the office do what they say they are going to do and which people are slackers. When you work with others on assignments, try to partner yourself with like-minded people who take themselves seriously and have a “get it done” mentality. You want to work with people that have a similar work ethic and hold themselves accountable for doing what they say they are going to do. Work with people who maximize themselves in the office every day, who love their jobs, who come in ready to work, who display compassion and humility in the workplace. Work with people who can get the job done. The benefit here will be mutual. Remember the old rule: You are who you associate yourself with.
Build Realistic Goals
Remember, failure is not an option. You are going to maximize yourself every day on the job. You will set goals, decide how to reach those goals, track your progress, and then continue to set higher goals. However, don’t set yourself up to fail. Build realistic goals. I’d rather you surpass your goals than fall short of them. Like everything else, it takes baby steps. Meet my friend Ashley. She and her husband just took over a restaurant in Cincinnati, Ohio—the Rail House. The restaurant they took over had a primarily older clientele, and with the new restaurant they are trying to attract a younger crowd. Ashley is in charge of the marketing for the restaurant. She doesn’t have a ton of marketing experience but is ready to set realistic goals and give it a try. She eventually wants to pack the house (every night), but knows she needs to start small and build up to her larger goal. She starts out with a few realistic goals for every week: Host at least two parties in the restaurant each week, promote the restaurant to at least five local businesses each week, and personally get to know ten young customers each week (when you have personal relationships with your customers they are likely to return). These were the goals that Ashley started with. Once she accomplishes these goals she will be able to focus on her larger goal—to pack the house every night.
Goal Setting and Tracking
I hear people talk frequently about short-term goals and long-term goals. We all have long-term goals. We want to be millionaires. We want to get married. We want kids, a dog, and a white picket fence. Personally, I want a closet like the Kardashians, a condo overlooking the water, and a Mercedes-Benz G-Class Wagon—yes, it’s the one that looks like a milk carton! But what about the long-term goals pertaining to our career? Where do we want to end up? What kind of position do we want? And what about the short-term goals? What do we want to achieve next month, next year, or even tomorrow?
When you start your job, you get thrown in. But a big mistake that first-year employees make is to forget to set goals for themselves. You can easily get so swept up in the madness of your first job that you forget to make goals and keep yourself on track. As I explained in chapter two, a job isn’t just something that goes on forever. It has a start date and an end date. It’s one leg of your flight; it’s part of the puzzle; it’s just the starting point of your career. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average person stays at their job four years longer than they want to. This is your warning. You can get stuck. Don’t get stuck. Have a goal. Have a plan. Typically, once you start in a position and learn the company culture, you’ll learn the average time it takes someone to get promoted, and you’ll start to notice the “lifers,” the people who have been at their jobs forever—some by choice, some not. Take note of the average time and make a goal of getting promoted one month before the average time. Is the first day of your job too early to start thinking about your promotion? No way. At Morgan Stanley, you are eligible for a promotion every eighteen months. As soon as you start a new position, they start preparing you for the series of interviews that will prepare you for your next position. This is a great example of a large company that encourages goal setting regardless of position or rank.
Meghan Maxey, executive store team leader at Target, spoke to me about the importance of young executives continuously setting goals for themselves. “Not only is it important for our execs and leadership teams to set goals for themselves, but it’s also important for them to find out the goals of their team members. Once you understand someone’s goals, you are better able to understand their motivation.”
Examples of Goals to Set Within a Company
• To get promoted to the next level
• To make connections and nurture relationships
• To be aware of your company’s or your team’s current projects and feel up to speed with the current projects in the office
• To earn your boss’s respect
• To demonstrate that you can think outside of the box
• To show that you can be an entrepreneur inside a large company
• To develop a better understanding of the industry
• To read X amount of trade publications about your industry each month
• To be directly responsible for generating X amount of dollars for the company (if this applies to your job) and to bring X number of new projects to the table
• To set up X amount of work-related breakfasts, lunches, dinners, or drinks each month
• To do your job better than anyone else could do it
I use Excel and Google Docs to track my goals. Google Docs are great for easily creating detailed spreadsheets and providing users with the ability to share their information. Multiple people can view a Google Docs file at the same time, so this helps whether you’re organizing a project with team members or planning a vacation with friends.
On top of just tracking your goals, you must hold yourself responsible for accomplishing them, constantly coming up with new strategies and having a set of consequences for yourself. If I don’t finish filing every paper, what happens? Remember when I spoke about thinking about the consequences before you make decisions in chapter one?
Accountability
We spend so much time setting goals and making to-do lists, timelines, and strategies. But who holds us accountable for achieving these goals? Here are some of the tips I follow to hold myself accountable.
Ways to Hold Yourself Accountable
I suggest finding an accountability partner. Years ago, I met a fellow female entrepreneur, Elizabeth Saunders, now the founder of RealLifeE.com and author of The 3 Secrets to Effective Time Investment, at a speaking conference. Elizabeth and I got along great and one of the things we had in common was that we were both young female entrepreneurs who had just started our own businesses. Elizabeth and I started getting on the phone every other week, talking about our goals and what we wanted to accomplish that week. As accountability partners, we always made sure to check in with each other at the beginning of the call to see if we completed our goals from the week before. Elizabeth and I started doing this in 2010, and four years later, we’re still going strong. Even today, when our goals are bigger and have more financial bearing on us, we still need someone to hold us accountable. It doesn’t necessarily get easier. But the goal is to create systems to make sure you are able to get things done.
Don’t just talk about your goals, take the necessary steps to achieve them. I’m perceived as someone who does what I say I’m going to do. If I hear myself talking about an idea, I immediately follow it up with a calendar note so that I make time for myself to work on that idea. I do this very frequently. For example, I’ll tell my Programs and Projects manager, Lindsey, “We need to set a time to discuss X client,” and my next sentence is, “Okay, let’s open the calendar and actually coordinate a time to discuss that client.” If I’m talking about it, I need to make it happen. It’s important that my personal brand be one that people can count on no matter what.
Encourage Frequent Evaluations
Most companies do offer yearly reviews where you sit down with your bosses to review your performance and discuss whether or not you get a bonus. I suggest speaking to your boss when you get hired and asking how frequently you will get evaluations or feedback. If you have the opportunity, try setting up evaluations every six months. Regardless of your ability to get a promotion, you want to constantly stay top of mind for your boss, continue an open dialogue about your future inside the company, and get as much constructive criticism as possible. Sometimes, we think we are doing our best at work and our bosses or colleagues think differently—you want to try, as much as possible, to stay on the same page as your boss in terms of your performance.
I’ve compiled a list of criteria from various entry-level evaluation forms I gathered from both large and small companies. Go ahead and take this mock evaluation and see how you do.
Overall Performance
Evaluations are crucial to your success at a company. If you want to grow within your role (as I believe you all do), you must constantly be evaluated by the company so they watch your progress. Evaluation is also a great individual learning tool. It’s very healthy to comprehend how your employer sees your strengths and weaknesses.
GENERAL ORGANIZATION
We talked about overall organization in chapter three. Organization of information usually means you are organized enough to get your job done in a timely manner. Are you able to easily access information? Are your e-mails filed in a systematic way so that you can quickly access information when you need it? Is your work being handled in an organized manner? Are things popping up last minute? Are you prioritizing your work properly? Are things slipping through the cracks?
TIME MANAGEMENT
During your evaluation, time-management skills will be one of the things they look at. Does your employer feel you are on top of your workload? Do you have a solid understanding of your boss’s priorities or your company’s priorities? Is your boss confident in your abilities to manage a heavy workload and meet your deadlines? Are you completing assignments on time?
PROFESSIONALISM
How do you carry yourself? How do you handle stressful situations? How do you handle rude clients or coworkers? Do you treat everyone respectfully and professionally? How do you carry yourself from day to day?
WORK ETHIC
Do you work hard in your role? Do you show up on time? Work until the job is done? Do you appear passionate? Do you get your tasks completed in a timely manner?
CONTROL OF POSITION
Are you in control of your position? Or is your position in control of you? Are you always a hundred percent aware of the business you have to handle? Are all of your projects and clients under control at all times?
CLIENT MANAGEMENT
How do you work with the clients? How promptly do you handle their concerns and requests? Do you follow up with them frequently enough?
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Are you effectively managing all of your projects and campaigns? Are you on top of every deliverable? Are you appropriately communicating with the client? Are you keeping your supervisors in the loop regarding the status of all projects? Are you following through with all of your promises?
SAMPLE EVALUATION
• General organization
• Time management
• E-mail organization
• Prioritization
• Solid understanding of company
• Meet deadlines
• Punctuality
• Professionalism
• Mannerisms
• Work ethic
• Follow through
• Control of position
• Detail oriented
• Client management
• Relationship management
• Project management
Raising the Bar and Keeping It Up
My friend Rob (one of the many people I got to meet while in an internship program) is a television writer. Rob started in show business as an agent’s assistant (like me) and as a writer’s assistant. Rob knows what he is good at and is very aware of his skill set. Two of his greatest strengths are fast typing and detailed note-taking. Rob was taking notes in a meeting one day alongside the show’s assistant. At the end of the meeting, the two of them compared notes and Rob’s were much more thorough. They were detailed, focused, and easy to read. Rob consistently brought this skill to the table—he took better notes than everyone else 99 percent of the time, and people started to notice. Rob was eventually given the role of being the “official” notetaker. It might not sound like much, but in Hollywood where promotions are one in a million, this was big. Rob then got to be part of every meeting. He would get called into rooms where important decisions were being made. He understood the level of detail the producers were looking for. Because he was in those rooms, Rob was able to build relationships faster than anyone else while simultaneously adding value and creating a lasting impression. He was executing on a regular basis to the best of his ability.
Complacency Kills
I was training at the gym the other day with my trainer, Mo. He’s the manager of the entire team of trainers at the gym. I asked him what the biggest mistake is that he sees entry-level trainers make. He laughed at me. “I can’t help you with your book. This is a completely different world.” I reminded him that workplace advice is more universal than he thinks. Mo said that the number-one mistake he sees is that the new trainers get complacent quickly. They get comfortable. They reach a certain point, then they get lazy and they don’t want to try anymore. What a great universal tip for all people in every kind of workplace to hear. You have to fight complacency. Just because it’s not the first day, the first week, the first month, doesn’t mean it’s time to sit around. You should always be setting goals, challenging yourself, and learning new things. The second you catch yourself becoming too comfortable at work, challenge yourself. Give yourself a project. If you can’t think of something ask your manager—or your mentor—to give you a special project.
You should constantly be evaluating whether or not you’re on the right path to your dream job. Sometimes the job that’s right for us at the beginning isn’t right for us a few years later. That’s what happened to me with my talent agency job. It made sense at the beginning but after two years, I needed to get out of there. I was wasting my time being complacent at work. You want to make sure you don’t get stuck. If you stay in the wrong place too long you could burn out or you could get promoted. Now, a promotion might sound amazing but if it’s a promotion in the wrong department it could delay your reaching your dream job scenario even longer. When you get offered a promotion in a department that isn’t what you really want it’s appealing because of the title, the pay, and even the respect you know you’ll get in the office. However, a year after the promotion you might be stuck in a job that pays you but makes you miserable. I’d rather you hustle and be happy than make a ton of money and be miserable. Wouldn’t you?
Constantly Reinvent Yourself at Work
At any stage in your career, but especially at the beginning, you never want to stop building, creating, trying, and reaching for a goal. Try these steps to keep yourself fresh and inspired at work:
• GIVE YOURSELF AN EVALUATION. Time expert and author Laura Vanderkam told me that every January she makes a list of goals for the year and every December she gives herself an evaluation to see how she’s done and what she’s accomplished. I love this idea! Give yourself an evaluation. Are you reaching your goals? Are you staying focused and motivated at work? Are you continuing to strive for new tasks, responsibilities, and promotions?
• WHO DO YOU ADMIRE? Think about the people within your company and outside of your company who you admire or catch yourself saying, “I wish I could be more like ______.” What would that person do in your situation? How can you make the most of your current position? What more can you be doing? Make a list of what you come up with.
• SURF, LOOK, READ. Read about your industry. What are the trades? Find out what your CEO reads on the weekends. Even if you can’t stop what you are doing you can always print that stuff out and read it on the weekends. My first boss would refer to this stack of magazines and interesting articles to take home over the weekend as her “weekend read” pile. I also know people who use the app Pocket to keep track of online articles they come across during the week that they want to read later.
• STAY CONNECTED AND IN TUNE WITH HIRINGS AND FIRINGS IN THE INDUSTRY. Make sure to congratulate contacts when they get promoted. You never know what’s going to happen—no one is ever as safe as they think they are. Should the worst-case scenario happen and you get let go from your company, you want to feel confident that you are connected enough to find your way. If you follow my work, you know my signature Intern Queen “three times per year” rule, right? My rule is that you stay in touch with your professional contacts three times per year. I’m not in school anymore but I still follow the school year calendar for this rule and get in touch with my professional contacts in the fall, spring, and summer. When you reach out to employers, you just want to drop them a short paragraph telling them how you are doing. Don’t ask for anything unless you need to. You want to get in the habit of just reaching out to these contacts so that they don’t forget who you are and so when you do need advice, you haven’t already tapped out your resource. You also want to stay on top of Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, Twitter, and more. Chandra, one of my former ambassadors who now works for the start-up 99dresses.com, says, “Keep in touch. I had the opportunity to work with the most amazing people throughout college and in my postgrad years. I make it a point to stay in touch with them, keep them updated on what’s going on in my life, and meet up for dinner or coffee whenever possible. My former internship coordinators have introduced me to my future bosses and have offered me invaluable insight. It’s great to know I have such a wonderful support system.”
Are you done with your -ize words for now? Have you had enough? Have I hit the wall of your attention span? Feel free to take a break if you need to but I have plenty more tips and tricks for you in the works. I encourage you to take a moment to think about how you can apply some of my tips related to organizing, prioritizing, and maximizing to your work life—to your real world. I know that you can’t implement everything overnight, but try to take one or two of these tips and focus on it tomorrow. Why wait?