Many of you reading today are headed into work, and it may well be slow. In the business world, it’s not uncommon to spend various days in July and August sitting at your desk and twiddling your thumbs because your colleagues and clients aren’t around to do business with. I’m willing to bet that web surfing, Facebook checking, and online shopping are at an annual high. Here are a couple of tips to get through the summer months without driving yourself to mindless distraction:
Write down your goals for the “school year”: Imagine that you are about to start a new school year. Think hard about what you want to achieve at work in the next several months, and specific steps you’ll need to take to make it happen. If your boss is around, set up a meeting to talk through what you’ve come up with so that you’re both on board.
Have lunch with a networking contact: Now that you actually have some down time, why not use it by spending a little more than an hour with a person you’d like to get to know better and who could possibly help you in your career? After all, informal, in-person networking is the most effective kind.
Organize your files: If you haven’t read an e-mail from January yet, you’re not going to. Clean up your Outlook inbox and the hard drive of your computer so that you are able to start fresh in the fall. Make sure important files are backed up and archived for safekeeping.
Walk down the hall: If you had to process some financial paperwork for a client, would you know how to do it? The dead week is a great time to better understand how company systems work and the people you should talk to in order to most efficiently get things done.
Read neglected industry
publications: That
would be Information Week, AdAge, or the ABA Banking Journal, not People.
Stop by the mailroom and pick up the summer issues, or hop online. Focus
your attention on trends pieces that will help you better understand where your
industry is headed.
I can definitely relate to this. One thing I would add: the other day as I was really struggling to get through a boring project, I looked at my daily planner and saw this quote: "new action brings new energy." I really hate cheesy quotations, but for some reason I listened to this one. I immediately took a break and switched to a less important, but more engaging, project. It gave me the burst of energy I needed to wipe out both tasks by the end of the week.
Posted by: Sara | July 23, 2010 at 04:55 AM
@Sara: I love the cheesy quotations! When I worked in an office, I had them posted all over!
Posted by: Alexandra Levit | August 17, 2010 at 01:14 AM