Work Awesome

I recently watched a TED talk by Jason Fried of 37 Signals entitled Why Work Doesn’t Get Done at Work. The message was right on: The office has become a place of endless distraction; so much so that people seek anywhere but there to get their real work done. What happens is the real work ends up getting handled at home, on the weekends, super-early in the morning or days off. Office distractions are almost an institution in the workplace.

Bullies have always been among us. The sad truth is that most of us have experienced a boss, supervisor, or co-worker who has treated us with disdain, contempt, or worse. Some of us have been verbally attacked and even threatened with physical violence in our workplaces. Even sadder, perhaps, is the fact that few of us had the willingness to complain or report these activities, and simply remained silent in the face of attacks because we were afraid or just wanted to keep our job.

We’ve all had bad bosses or supervisors who drove us absolutely crazy until we found a way to deal with them. Or, they left the situation/job/career/company. Or we did. That’s a last resort, but you may get there unless the situation improves. The first step in dealing with bad bosses is to make a personal determination. How bad is this? Can I live with it? Is it likely to change in the short term?

If you are one of the many people who feel their career is in a rut and that it might be time for a promotion or raise, then it is time for you to become the “Go to Guy”. But why would you want to do that? The Go to Guy is the person that your boss and colleagues know they can turn to whenever they need advice — or just need to get something accomplished. The Go to Guy is indispensable (therefore, powerful) in the greater scheme of office politics.

As the landscape of job hunting changes, so does the way job hunters need to present themselves. While the traditional written resume is going to be a staple for most, there are others who have taken it upon themselves to enhance their resumes through unique design implementation or delivery method. Bringing your resume to life with a slidedeck is becoming increasingly popular.

How many times have you heard, “You need to create systems for your business”? But what does it actually mean? Where do you start? Where should you have systems? How do you create them? A system is basically a set of procedures, and a procedure is just a checklist or a step-by-step way of doing things. Best Course of Action I have a side gig as an accountability coach, but my day job is flying a medevac helicopter in Alaska. (Cool, right?) Pilots have been using checklists for years.

One of the best ways to get more done every day is to make sure you get your most important task done first, from start to finish, without interruption. Focusing on that one task exclusively can be simple, but not easy. The problem usually isn’t lack of effort, but lack of clarity. How do you decide what’s most important? Maybe that’s not the right question. Perhaps it’s not how you decide, but when. I’ll suggest that the one of the worst times to decide your top priority for right now is right now.

If you’re an employer looking to find the best employees, you need to make sure that you are doing everything possible to attract them. By following these five tips, you’ll be able to create a recruitment strategy that will help you find the perfect candidate for the job. So what are you waiting for?

You can break down work environments into two broad groups (with a ton of shades of gray in between). The one that employees dread waking up for every morning and can’t wait to get out the door at night and the other where steps are consistently being taken to improve the workplace so that the employees look forward to the day, the people they share it with and the work they are doing.

If your career path is shooting for the stars, you might find yourself landing in a new city along the way. Relocating can be as thrilling as it is intimidating, as your living situation and your job blur together for the months of your moving process. Though you may be moving for a promotion, relocation can still be an expensive affair. With that said, it’s still possible to break into a new city without breaking the bank. Here are seven tips for saving money on a work relocation.