06. January Q&A: Focus Tips and Job Skills
Episode 06
This is the first Q&A episode here on the Learn and Work Smarter Podcast! In these monthly Q&A episodes, I answer questions submitted by listeners (that’s you!).
Don’t forget – you can submit your questions too! There’s a form on the homepage. All submissions are anonymous.
I answer two questions in this month’s Q&A: one question from a working professional, and one from a college student.
QUESTION 1:
I graduated college 3.5 years ago and have been in the same job since graduation. I’m definitely not in management but I’m not entry level anymore either. I have 2 people who report to me, and I’m on a team with 5 others. I work from home 2-3 days a week and go into the office 2-3 days a week. My problem is that I’m constantly interrupted all day long, whether I’m working at home or at the office.
I like the people I work with and don’t want to make a bad impression, but how can I tell people I’m busy or can’t talk? When I’m constantly interrupted I get so unfocused and it’s hard to focus again. Thank you.
QUESTION 2:
I’m graduating from college in May and starting to look for jobs now so I can have a job after graduation. I’m a business major with a minor in psychology.
Besides finishing strong, updating my resume, and actually applying to jobs, what do you suggest I do between now and graduation that will help me once I have a job? Like what skills are good to have, besides the ones I learned in school?
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The following transcript was autogenerated and may contain some interesting and silly errors. But in the name of efficiency and productivity, I am choosing not to spend my time fixing them. :)
[00:00:00] Well, hello there. I am excited to do our first Q&A here at Learn And Work Smarter. This is going to be the first of many Q&A episodes. Just as a reminder, you can submit any question that you have about your particular situation, whether you're in school or you're in work, it can be as specific as you want it to be.
You can submit that on a form at learnandworksmarter.com. It's right there on the homepage.
Because this is my first time doing the Q&A episode, I will attempt to answer as many as I can during one episode. Depending on how long it takes me to answer each question that might be, I don't know…. We'll find out! This is an experiment. It might be one question. It might be five questions. I have a bunch loaded up already right now that have been submitted.
And so, we'll get through as much as we can.
I'm going to keep my eye on the timer and probably aim to cap it at 15 to 20 minutes. Don't know how many questions I will cover in that, but stick around.
Even if this is not your question that you have submitted, you will probably get a lot of benefit from hearing questions that other people submit.
You might think, “oh my gosh, I never even thought to have that question but that is my question.” So stick around. I hope that you get a lot of good stuff from this episode. And again, LearnandWorkSmarter.com is where you'll find the form to submit your own questions that I will happily answer on future episodes.
So I'm going to read our first question for the episode today.
It says
I graduated college three and a half years ago.
And I've been in the same job since graduation. I'm [00:02:00] definitely not in management, but I'm not entry level anymore either. I have two people who report to me and I'm on a team with five others. I work from home two to three days a week and go into the office two to three days a week. My problem is that I'm constantly interrupted all day long, whether I'm working at home or at the office. I like the people I work with and don't want to make a bad impression, but how can I tell people I'm busy or can't talk? When I'm constantly interrupted, I get so unfocused and it's hard to focus again. Thank you.
I love that you're even asking this question. I'm not using any names here. So in case were worried like, oh, I want to submit a question, but I don't want them to use my name.
A name was submitted on this question, but I'm not going to read it.
So if you've submitted this question, you know, it's yours.
Um, I love this question because it shows that you are valuing your time, that's required to [00:03:00] do deep thinking and to do work that requires uninterrupted focus. And I think that whether we're students or we're working, that that type of uninterrupted time is undervalued.
And I don't think we talk about it enough. You said in your question that you're not in management, but you're not entry-level anymore. I would say that you are kind of in management, especially if you said. Hold on. What's it say that you are, you have two people who report to me.
So that means you do manage two people, right? You might not be CEO, right. But you are definitely management. Um, this is not an uncommon issue. The question of like, How do I stop distractions? There's distractions, which we, for the most part, have some control over, right? Put your phone in another room, go to someplace.
That's not going to have a lot of distractions, but what do you do when you're, when you're at the office? That seems to be your question. And you also worked from home. So I'm assuming that some of your interruptions might be [00:04:00] coming from messages that you're getting, whether you guys are using slack or maybe, instant messages or emails or phone calls. Cause sometimes we can get more focused time when we work at home, depending on like what's in our home environment.
Listen, the bottom line is it is okay to tell people that you are busy and can't talk. Especially, if you are in charge of two other people, And you're on a [00:07:00] team of, I think you said five. Then I think this is an incredible skill or a habit to role model for the people around you.
And then who knows, maybe it will become normalized behavior to say, listen, I I'm busy. I can't talk right now. And I can, you know, reach back out to you in an hour, or I can get to that tomorrow, or let's chat at four o'clock. I think that we're doing everybody a disservice, ourself included and our companies, and those we work with, we're doing a huge disservice if we are available 24 hours a day at the drop of a hat, anybody can come in and demand our time and attention.
The reason that does a disservice to the company is that that's time away from the work that we're being paid to do.
I know connecting with colleagues and answering phone calls and writing emails and someone just quickly pops in-
hey, do you have a [00:08:00] minute?
We're inclined to say yes, because that kind of is good for company culture. It's good for personal relationships, but at the end of the day, it's not good for your actual job. Right. So I have a suggestion here. I love the idea of office hours. Of course I didn't invent the idea of office hours.
Right. But I love the idea of office hours for work. And I can see this working two different ways.
could be really, clear and upfront saying that I am available for drop-ins, emails, phone calls, questions, messages, whatever, between the hours of let's say 10 and 12, every day. Or Monday, Wednesday, Friday, between the hours of 12 and two. Okay, whatever you want your offers hours to be. Okay.
But make them really consistent. Say "I'm available to speak or to, to meet with you and answer your questions on demand, whatever between these very specific hours." Obviously, if your boss comes knocking, then you know, you'll drop everything. And [00:09:00] respond to your boss, but this is for like people on your team and people that you manage.
Another approach could be to say, I'm not available on these days from, I dunno, 10 to two. Okay. So maybe it becomes known or you make it known you just kind of casually. Hey, just want to let you know, I have a lot of work to do and this week I'm not going to be available between the hours of 10 and one.
So if you need me, reach me before that, or after that. Okay. And you know what, you might get some resistance, but you might not. Chances are people are gonna be like, cool. Like no one cares. Nobody cares. No, one's going to go, oh my gosh. I needed you. I really needed you between the hours of 10 and two.
And you were unavailable. If you made it clear that you were going to be unavailable for those times, then somebody can wait.
Like chances are, unless you're, you know, a firefighter here that there's no actual fire for you to put out.
So those are two approaches. I'm available a hundred percent for you between these [00:10:00] hours each day or I'm unavailable, but for these hours each day, And then be consistent with this, right?
The more consistent you are with letting people know that you're available or unavailable for certain days and certain hours, the less you'll have to explain yourself. And if someone has a question, they might be like, oh, I need to ask so-and-so a question. Oh, shoot. It's a. He's not going to get back to me for an hour.
So maybe I won't reach out for an hour. I know he's busy for an hour. Or let's say that they do send you an email. That doesn't mean that you need to stop what you're doing and instantly reply to the email. Wait until your office hours are done. The office hours you set for yourself. Put them on a sticky note next to your workspace so that you hold yourself accountable. Resist the temptation to respond to an instant message that comes in between your office hours.
Unless of course it's, it's urgent. It's it's your boss, but like, Hey, do you have a quick sec? You can either not reply or you can say. Hey, actually, I don't. But, um, how about two o'clock, [00:11:00] which might be after your office hours? Does that make sense? I wish more people did this. Um, it would normalize it.
And I think that if you start, with your people that you manage and you're a team of five. Then maybe they'll start doing it too. And then maybe it'll just create a company culture of accepting that people need time in their day to do work and focus. So that would be my approach.
I did mention really quickly the idea of internal distractions. Internal distractions are distractions you're in charge of, so put your phone away, put yourself in an environment where you are less likely to be interrupted. If you were at the office, you could always shut your door.
If you have a door. If you're in a cubicle sort of open office setting, you could put your headphones on. Um, even if there's no music or sound just. Kind of give off the body language that you're focused. And I think you don't have to explain yourself all the time. Right? We don't have to say like, oh, I'm so sorry. Um, I'm unavailable right now because I'm doing this [00:12:00] project.
And instead of say, Hey, I'm actually working on something. How about, uh, can I, can I reach back out in 45 minutes? Can I reach back out in an hour? Right. I think that's perfectly acceptable. And I think it's actually a really good practice for us all to get into. Hopefully that answered your question.
The second question.
How am I doing for time? I'm doing okay. The second question. This is from a student. I love this. I'm graduating from college in may. And I'm starting to look for jobs now, so I can have a job after graduation. Yes. I'm a business major with a minor in psychology. Besides finishing strong, updating my resume and actually applying to jobs,
what do you suggest I do between now and graduation that will help me once I have a job? What skills are good to have besides the ones I learned in school?
Okay. I like this question. You know why I like this question is that you didn't ask about how to get a job. Okay, because that would be a whole different question.
And that, I mean, you could [00:13:00] have asked that and then there's different strategies there, but you asked how to be successful. Once you have a job, what skills will help you at your job? Now, you said you're a business. Let me see your business major with a minor in psychology. So I'm assuming you're going to do something business, right?
It's usually what we do. So I read this question and I liked it, and I immediately had five tips for you. And these are strategies that I've written about on school habits.com the blog, in terms of the skills of the most successful students, the skills that are like life skills. So some of this might be repetitive if you follow the blog at all.
But the first tip I have is to be resourceful. That is a skill to learn how to be resourceful. Resourcefulness is a skill that will lead you to success at whatever job you end up in. Okay. Being resourceful means learning how to ask questions if you need clarity, but it also involves learning how to figure things out for yourself. Right.
It's one thing, let's say you're at a new job and you don't know how to do something. It's okay [00:14:00] to ask. It's okay to say, Hey, I, um, where can I go for more information about this? I'm struggling with X, Y, Z. Could you help me with this process or whatever? It's fantastic to ask questions, but you're going to be a much more valuable employee
if you do some of the leg work first by yourself, before you ask your question. So for example, instead of just coming up to your manager and saying, Hey, I don't know how to do this. Could you train me on this? You could say, Hey, I was confused on this. So I tried a B and C. Didn't seem to work.
What am I missing? What do you recommend?
But show that you took some initiative upfront before you went asking questions. Okay. Of course, sometimes you need to ask questions right out of the gate. Right. And especially if they're right there in the moment is right. And you're in a training session, ask questions, but if it's something that you were sent off to go do as part of your job requirement and you don't know how to do it, figure out how to figure out how to do it.
And if you really get stuck, then approach [00:15:00] your person who has the information with, Hey, I tried this first, where can I go from here?
The next skill that's gonna make you a really valuable employee and it's actually just going to make your job easier, I think is to be dependable.
Do what you said you're going to do when you said you were going to do it. So being a dependable employee, someone who shows up and follows through and does what they're asked to do. That sounds like it's just basic job. 1 0 1. But unfortunately, a lot of people don't do what they're supposed to do when they say they're going to do it because they don't have the systems in place that lead to you being able to complete or do what you said you were going to do, when you were going to do it. Right.
So you need task management, you need time management systems. Those systems, those two systems there's more, but task management and time management together will create accountability for yourself, where you're keeping track of things and deadlines. And what, what, what is expected of you?
Right. Being [00:16:00] dependable makes you an incredible employee.
Number three being organized. So, uh, your digital files and assets. You should have a system for managing the things that are related to your job, you probably have a personal email account or maybe it's on Google, right.
And you've got, you've got your Google docs, Drive, all your Gmail or whatever, maybe you're using Outlook, whatever. Keep your personal stuff separate from your work. Okay. And start using out of the gate, an organization system for your digital assets. So folders that are named a certain way.
You can make adjustments as you go, right. As you start a job, you don't always know what type of organization structure is going to work for you best, but start with something. Start naming your files a certain way using a naming convention. That means that every single time you have a certain type of document, you name it a certain way.
What it is or what project it's related to. Okay. If you have a job where there's a lot of like paper things, then have a filing [00:17:00] system. It sounds like archaic, but have a filing system for your papers. If you're suddenly meeting a ton of contacts through your job, and you're supposed to keep track, I was thinking business, like it's just to keep track of who's who.
And you have their email, but you need to start keeping track of who these people are and what their connections are and what accounts they're related to, whatever. Maybe you personally need to create a system for keeping track of, of your network. And eventually you won't need that, cause you'll know your network.
Right. But you, sometimes the organization isn't just files and papers, it's people as well. Right?
Another thing that is related to organization is SOP. Start organizing or creating an organizing SOP standard operating procedures. So if you have a component of your job that is repetitive and you're doing it maybe like every week or once a month, and there are particular steps that you need to follow in order to complete that task, then write them down in a Google doc.
First do this, this, this, this, then [00:18:00] this and this, right? So that way you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you go and do that task. You don't have to say, oh, what do I have to do? How does this work? What step comes first? It's a checklist of the process that you need to follow for some of your standard job Tasks.
Those are called standard operating procedures and they can help you really stay organized.
Number four, get a grip on your tasks by creating a task management system.
In a previous episode, I covered some basics of task management systems. So your task management system has to be more than a basic to-do list. If you've never used the task management system..., you're graduating college soon,
so I'm assuming you've used a task management system or you wouldn't be probably successfully graduating college. Right. But in the workforce, You're going to need something a little bit different. It's still gonna need a place for you to capture all of the things that you need to do, but you might have more projects in the workforce than you did in school versus like assignments that are due in like, you know, one, one or two days. [00:19:00]
For work sometimes it's an ongoing project that's fluid and moving, and there's different people who are involved in different parts of the project and deadlines get shifted around. And you're working with a team. You might need a task management system that's a little bit more robust than what you used in school.
I've mentioned this on previous episodes and no, I'm not sponsored or an affiliate or anything, but I'm a real big fan of Asana, a S a N a, I mean, you can pay for it too, but the free level is fantastic. The learning curve is really, really simple. That might be something that you could look into, but having a task management system right out of the gate, um, is, is awesome.
And then number five. I know you're asking what skills would help you be successful at your job? And I really think the skill of self-assessment is critical to be successful at your job, to be successful in relationships in school, in whatever it is that you are trying to do.
So the ability to pause once in a while, I don't know, [00:20:00] maybe monthly, right? It depends how often you want to do this. And to say to yourself, what is working? What is not working?
What do I want? What do I not want? What do I need more of. What do I need less of. Where, can I put in more energy? Where can I remove some of my energy? Where do I need to focus more? The ability to pause and look at our systems and look at how we are operating as a human in our environment as you in your job.
And to say, what is working and what's not working. That is a magic superpower, because the opposite of that, is just someone to not recognizing that things aren't working and then just trying to plow ahead.
And that leads to overwhelm that leads to falling behind that leads to just like, that's like, um, Christmas lights that you have like one little tangle.
Right. And you don't acknowledge it. You're like, oh, they'll untangle. It'll be fine. And then before, you know, it everything's in a tangle because they started with one [00:21:00] tangle. And didn't admit that it was a tangle.
I don't know if that analogy works. It worked wonderfully in my head. Maybe not so much as it came out of my mouth, but you have to develop the skill of pausing and saying am I headed in the right direction?
And if you are not, be resourceful, which was tip number one and make an adjustment.
Um, I hope that those tips help. I think it's amazing that you're even asking this question. The fact that you were asking this question tells me right off the bat, that you are going to be a valuable employee 'cause a lot of times people who are graduating college are like, Hey, how can I make the most money? And you're being like, Hey, how can I have the most success in my new job?
What skills will I need? And you didn't even say a specific job. You're just looking for like human skills that will make you a good worker. And I think that is, that is incredible.
Remember you can submit your own questions at learnandworksmarter.com. There is a form on the homepage.
I'm going to wrap up today's episode
after these two [00:22:00] questions. I had one more. I thought I would get to, but we are, pushing the time limit. So I'll save that one for February's Q&A episode. And please follow this show, leave a review if you find it helpful.
Aand remember: never stop learning.
