10 Work Habits for a Successful Career
Success at work is more than talent. Those who see work success often have traits of successful people that anyone can learn. Here are simple everyday work habits that will help you achieve career growth and be successful at work. These will not just help you at the office as career advice but bring a mindset shift to become more organized, intentional, and focused.
Do Monthly Planning to Stay Ahead at Work
One of the essential things required to be successful is to be on top of your work and be prepared. Building a habit of doing monthly planning is the best way to achieve this.
It is a great habit to do monthly planning at the start of every month, keeping in mind the month ahead and the commitments you need to honor.
Monthly planning also allows you to break the long-term goal of the company or your target at work into small, actionable tasks that can be achieved.
To start simply, you can have a look at your calendar for any prior commitments or meetings you have. You can plan your activities for the coming month based on this.
Also, set a goal for the month in line with your long-term goal to ensure you are making progress towards the achievement of your goal.
Keep a Running To-Do List to Avoid Missed Tasks
Work is never-ending, and relying on your brain to remember all the things that you need to do is a tough bet. Build a habit to keep a running To-do list.
It can be in your diary, a To-do List pad, sticky notes, or a dedicated To-do list app. You can use any that feels convenient to use, just stick to it.
Write all the things that need to be done in the same place, any meeting you attend, or any discussion you have, to keep adding to the list.
The running to-do list gives you everything that you need to do at a glance. As you keep doing things, you can strike them out. The satisfaction of sticking out work from the to-do list is amazing.
You can plan your day well with the To-Do list, and if you get some extra time on hand, you can quickly find work that you can squeeze in.
And best of all, you will never be a person who has forgotten an assignment or work assigned to you.
You will definitely be successful at work if you are on pace with the work assigned.
I use my work planner to keep everything related to work organized. The to-do list, monthly planning, meeting notes, and calls to make everything in one place. The best part is the daily dashboard that shows me exactly what I need to do on a day. It keeps me focused, and the tacking motivates.
Invest Time in Skill Improvement Every Month
Every job profile needs a certain level of education and skills. Education may give you a start to the job, but doing your work well and going to the next step in your career requires you to have certain skills.
It is a good habit to identify the skills that are required for your job or for the designation your eye and work to acquire these skills. There are many resources available to improve your skills at work.
The skills for improvement should not just be relevant to your field of work but should also expand to other soft skills like communication, time management, and leadership.
To be successful at work, think of the qualities that a successful person in your field has, and learn one new skill each year.
Prioritize High-Impact Work First
There are variety of work that you need to do, some can be administrative, mundane tasks, some can be creative, and some can be urgent. Hence, it is very important to build a habit to prioritize work.
The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80:20 Rule, says that 80% of the results are achieved from 20% of the work. Let me explain more, only 20% of the work will be there, which gives your 80% of the output or desired results. To be successful, you should build a habit to identify such work and focus your maximum efforts towards it rather than mundane tasks.
Successful people prioritize critical high rewarding work.
If you build the habit to prioritize work, you will be able to deliver better at work and be successful.
A very common technique to prioritize work is the “Eisenhower Method”. It basically means you divide your work into 4 quadrants as shown below.
Plan Your Next Workday Before You Log Off
A very simple and effective habit to be successful is to plan for the next day at the end of the day.
Get in the habit to wind up your day with a quick review of the work done for the day and plan to do 3 top priority tasks for the next day. This will get you focused and well prepared for the next day.
When you start to work the next day, you know what you have to do and can use the precious morning zeal to start directly with your work, rather than wondering where to start.
Building the habit to plan for the next will make you more productive and intentional with your time.
Learn to Work Calmly Under Pressure
Success is a hard road to walk, and there will be times when you will be required to work extra hours or take up extra work for the sake of the team or step up with additional roles when your co-worker is unable to do the work.
Your performance and the ability to deliver even in tough situations are observed and appreciated by seniors.
So it is very wise to learn to work under pressure and challenges.
Your ability to work even under pressure and stress will lead to many opportunities.
Prepare for Unexpected Tasks and Changes
I am a big advocate of planning work and making sure things are done in advance to avoid last-minute surprises. But life is full of unexpected surprises; there may be unforeseen circumstances and uncontrollable variables that you had not seen coming.
Building a habit to keep your calm and brain working in these situations will take you a long way.
I must say it is one of the most difficult habits to build, but very rewarding, and will distinguish you from others.
So learn to deal with unexpected things at work, keep your calm, and get innovative and creative to come up with solutions to beat the situation.
Batch Similar Tasks to Work More Efficiently
Many routine tasks, like reverting to emails, making reports, etc., are repetitive. Depending on the kind of work you do, you will have some tasks that are repetitive. It will be very productive if you batch all this work together.
Batching work means doing the same repetitive work on different days together in one go.
This saves you time as you need not refocus your attention and get the prerequisites for the task each time.
For example, rather than giving your attention to email every 1 hour of the day, you can spend only 1 hour of your day dedicated just to answering email. Also, rather than making some customer reports each day, batch them all together to a dedicated day and finish them all. You will save time on extracting the data and running some analysis each time.
Batching work is a great habit to save time.
Always Proofread and Add Final Touches
To be successful at work, you do not just deliver the work on time, but the work should be of good quality. To be distinguished, the key is delivering top-notch quality work that is well presented.
Build a habit to proofread your work by giving a quick glance at the critical data or key points before you submit it. Also, just spend a few minutes to make the report well-presented.
A word of caution: don’t get in the hamster wheel of perfectionism and spend unnecessary extra time on the work.
But just a quick glance and a final touch to make it unbeatable is a great thing to do to be successful at work.
Commit to Learning Something New Each Day
Each day, spend 30 min to learn something new about the field of your work or the field you aspire to be part of.
You can learn through books, research papers, newsletters, podcasts, YouTube, etc. The resources are enormous. Just make a list of things that you wish to learn each year and spend 30 min to learn about them.
Just imagine reading a few minutes from a book each day will definitely let you finish 1 book in a month. This gives you an edge of knowledge compared to your peers and will take you a step closer to being successful.
By learning a little each day, you will be more knowledgeable than yesterday.
I highly recommend the habit to learn each day.
These 10 habits may sound simple, but with consistency they will make you an organized person who has work in control, better informed and learned, and someone who consistently deliver best with confidence and not just meets the deadline.
