Sometimes it is the smallest things that have the biggest effects. A simple swap can do wonders for helping you reach your career goals.
Healthy eating enthusiasts know this principle from the suggestions made in Eat This, Not That. Eat This, Not That suggests nutritious swaps for unhealthy food choices.
In addition, replacing one habit by another is doable and helps your career. Therefore, here are some suggestions. Do this, not that for your career. Do one sensible thing instead of the other useless one.
Have lunch dates instead of eating at your desk
Having lunch at your desk in the hope to get more work done is very common. But is this really helping your career goals?
Make a point of spending the lunch break with a colleague, or eat with a coworker you don’t interact with on a daily basis. Learn about each other’s jobs and make new contacts. In the long term, this will help your career more than the few extra minutes’ work you manage to squeeze in when eating at your desk.
Spend time on LinkedIn instead of Facebook
Sometimes you just feel like mindlessly scrolling through your social network feed. But when you spend time on social networks anyway, make the most of it. Why not spend time on a professional networking site, such as LinkedIn?
You could also use Xing or ResearchGate. No matter, what professional networking site you choose, building your profile and growing your network is a good idea. Besides, some of your friends are using it as well.
Reach out to interesting individuals instead of going to career fares
It is hard to form genuine connections on career fares, professional mixers or conferences. Instead, aim to get in touch with the most interesting individuals in your field on a one on one basis.
If there were someone, you would like to meet, ask him or her to join you on a coffee break or have a short phone call. This is so much better than going to the same conference or fare and making superficial contact at best.
Doing this might sound like more effort at first. But you will build better and more meaningful connections in 10 min than in a whole day wandering about at a big event.