Etchings on the Attic Wall

Highly Effective Work Habits:  Choose a Mentor

No matter what your position at your company (unless you are the CEO), make sure you select a mentor.  This is someone you look up to that you can learn from.  This could be someone in the same department who has a similar position you want to eventually [...]

Highly Effective Work Habits:  Take Your Vacations

Most jobs will either give you about 2 weeks of vacation when you first start or you earn hours as you go.  And usually those benefits will increase the longer you stay with a company.  If you’ve got vacation time, take it!  Working hard is all well and [...]

Highly Effective Work Habits:  Conformity of the Dress Code

Every workplace has this policy – the dress code.  Depending on where you work, this could be business professional, business casual, casual, or no dress code at all.  I had never heard about the latter until recently.  At this particular company, they have employees coming to [...]

Highly Effective Work Habits:  It Is OK If You Don’t Know Something

I’m sure most of you out there want to try to work on things yourselves without any help.  There isn’t anything wrong with this – unless you spend too much time here spinning your wheels.  At some point, you have to ask for [...]

Highly Effective Work Habits:  10 Things to Never Put on a Resume

If you are currently looking for work, Salary.com recently published an article about what NOT to put on your resume.  These are things that an employer might quickly find on your resume and push it aside without looking at it any further.  Here [...]

Highly Effective Work Habits:  Know When and How to do Research

I can’t imagine too many jobs out there where you haven’t had to do a little research from time to time.  But, how effective are you at it?  Do you stumble around trying to find the answers but don’t have the patience, don’t know [...]

Highly Effective Work Habits:  Leverage Alternative Office Software

Do you use office software on a regular basis, such as word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations?  Who doesn’t, right?  If you work independently and don’t have the cash to spend on an expensive software package, work for a company/department that doesn’t use Windows as the primary OS, [...]

Highly Effective Work Habits:  Know Your Behavioral Style

There is a great program out there called DiSC.  It is designed to help you understand how you behave based upon your style tendencies.  After taking a questionnaire, you’ll know your tendencies, needs, preferred environment, and strategies for how to be most effective.  DiSC is broken down [...]

Looking for a way to deliver just the right message, so there is no misunderstanding?  The Bureau of Communication web site has a large selection of fill-in-the-blank stationary that you can use to send a formal apology, a statement of gratitude, a declaration of romantic interest, or an airing of grievance.  The site allows you [...]

Highly Effective Work Habits:  Do Your Own Reviews

By this, I mean when it is that time of the year for your workspace review, perform a self-review rather than have someone else do it.  If your department typically does not work this way, suggest it.  I realize this is more work on you, but you [...]