High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 3 Ways to Be More Productive

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

• 3 Ways to Be More Productive:"When you apply an essentialist framework to tasks, you’ll quickly find that the anxiety surrounding its perceived complexity melts away."

• How to Help Your Spouse Cope With Work Stress: "Develop calming end-of-the-workday habits and rituals. You both need time to decompress."

• 101 Time Management Tips to Boost Productivity: "Double-check your work so that you don’t spend the time going back and correcting your mistakes."

• 15 Traits That Set Influential People Apart: "Influential people move through life with purpose, conscious of their actions and of how others may perceive them."
• 15 Podcasts You Should Be Listening To Every Week: "Here's a list of the podcasts I find most valuable as a leader, entrepreneur, and human being....Together, this holistic list will help you expand as a professional and as a person."

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 22 Qualities That Make a Great Leader

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

• 22 Qualities That Make a Great Leader: "If you focus on becoming authentic in all your interactions, that will rub off on your business and your culture, and the rest takes care of itself."
• The Office of the Future Will Be Natural, Chair-less, and Designed for Collaboration: "The trend will be to prevent workers from sitting all the time, in favor of walking, standing, or doing literally anything else besides sitting to maintain blood flow."
• 9 Fundamentals of Leadership Success: "Successful leaders must constantly communicate the core values which underlie their organization’s vision. In turn, the leader’s vision and actions must also be congruent with these values."
• 4 Simple Ways to Be More Creative at Work: "A rested brain, and one that is not so tightly wound around or attached to the task at hand, is more likely to think of a new idea or the solution to your idea than an overworked one. Don't force the creative process."
• 5 Ways to Be Influential: "You can influence more if you collaborate openly and willingly, with complete, honest and full disclosure."

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: How to Network Your Way to a Job Promotion

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

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• How to Network Your Way to a Job Promotion: "Your goal should be to get your boss to endorse your career advancement plan and actively help you find the next level role."


• 6 Techniques to Connect With Influential People: "Be good to everyone and when you need a connection, you might be surprised who will come to your aid."


• 11 Steps to Happiness at Work: "A key to being happy at work is to let go of grudges."


• The Surprising Truth About Passion, Purpose, and Fulfillment: "Start being in service to yourself by taking care of yourself and start serving others with your talents."


• Avoiding Six Common Job Interview Mistakes: "Your answers should be like concise mini-essays with a clear beginning, middle and end. Too short and it looks like you have little to say, too lengthy and you’ve probably babbled and missed the point."

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: Getting Where You Want to Go

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

© Bellemedia | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

• Getting Where You Want to Go: "Failure is our greatest teacher. Yet the idea of failure paralyzes many us so we fail to take the risks that might spur growth.There’s no shame in failure. When you do fail, react quickly, learn from your mistakes, and move on."


• Influencing Others When You're Not the Expert: "If you’re a thoughtful curator of the best ideas in your field, even if you’re not developing them yourself, others will start turning to you for guidance."


• 7 Lessons from Working Moms: "I've found that it's really important to take time off, and I've found that sometimes you get really important insights by taking time off, too...I want people to realize that it really is ok, that you can have a family."


• 21 Things I Wish I Knew When I was 21: "It may not always be clear to you, but the people you meet can help you. Treat everyone like you’d like to be treated and be willing to make new friends. The world is smaller than you think. You’ll be amazed at who is connected to whom."


• Improve Your Online Visibility: "One way to help people understand what you're good at and what's important to you is to write about it. You can document your own stories as case studies, expand upon or add your opinions on thought-provoking articles others have written or highlight industry news."

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: Career Myths, Rebooting, and More

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share these every weekend so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

© Bellemedia | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

• 6 Career Myths You Shouldn't Fall For: "You've probably heard the same bits of career advice tossed around over and over ... But plenty of the maxims that we hear repeated actually aren't true. Here are six of the most popular career myths that you shouldn't fall for."


• Starting Over? 10 Tips to Reboot Your Career: "If big changes feel overwhelming, focus on small daily actions. Even taking mini-steps—setting up an informational interview, writing a thank-you note, reading an industry blog, etc.—make you feel more in control as you slowly build up to your goal."


• How to Meet and Influence People You Don't Know: "Your goal is to increase the number of people who know, like, and trust you. You should identify people ... who have the chance to influence hiring decisions."


• Take Back Your Life in Ten Steps: "Human beings aren't designed to work continuously. We're meant instead to move between spending and renewing energy. Ideally, take a break every 90 minutes, even if only to spend a minute or two breathing deeply."


• 13 Little Things You're Doing to Sabotage Your Success: "If you promise me a miracle, I’ll expect it. If you promise me a little, I’ll be happy with a little and delighted with a little more. Being impressive is mostly about being reasonable in your projections and hitting them consistently." 

Marketing Your Idea

Selling your idea to your boss, co-workers, or management can be a tricky proposition. Typically, multiple stakeholders are involved, and organizations tend to be slow to change and risk averse. Before approaching your boss or co-workers with that fabulous new idea, consider the following recommendations.

Evaluate your target. If the person you need to convince is your boss, determine how he or she would view your proposal. Be prepared to respond to potential trouble spots and be ready to demonstrate how your idea will make his or her life easier. Include some of your boss’s favorite buzzwords and analogies in your proposal.
Do the research. Be able to support your idea with facts, figures, and real-world examples. Look at your role as that of an attorney putting together the most effective case. Packaging is also important. How does your boss like to receive information? Does he or she prefer a dog-and-pony show—in other words, an elaborate production—or facts and figures on a spreadsheet?
Invite without pressure. Before approaching your boss, convince some co-workers or key people in other departments to support your idea. Invite your boss and other co-workers along for the ride and get them on board early. Move slowly and be willing to accept a bite-sized “yes.” Offer flexibility by pitching the idea as a pilot program that can be regularly evaluated then expanded upon later.
Follow up. Keep your boss and other management invested in your project and updated on its progress. If your idea was rejected, find out why—and keep trying. Some of the most successful inventors in history were rejected multiple times before finally being given a chance.