Most people are looking for ways that they can improve their career performance. It might be so you can earn more money, or so you have a better chance at getting that juicy promotion. Or it might be so that you feel more satisfied and fulfilled by your work.
In any case, “performance” is a general term that means different things to different professionals. For many people, this is a measure of raw productivity—how much are you able to get done in a fixed amount of time? For others, it’s a measure of effectiveness—for example, can you get better results than your peers?
The good news is that there are some big-picture strategies that can help you improve your performance, no matter how you measure it, in nearly any career.
Take Continuing Education Courses
In some career paths, like respiratory therapy, you’ll be formally required to take continuing education (CE) courses. These courses are designed to educate you on the latest findings in the field, the latest best practices in the industry, and the latest technologies changing the game. Once you complete them, you’ll be better equipped to perform your role—and you might have an edge over your peers.
But even if your career doesn’t require you to take CE courses, you should consider investing in your education anyway. Depending on the classes you choose, you could easily develop a new skill, improve your understanding of the industry, or get used to the new changes that are transforming your role.
Long-term, this can help you gear up for a promotion, earn a raise, or even prepare for a transition into a different career path entirely.
Consider Cross-Training
Cross-training in business is all about learning from other people in other departments. It may not seem like becoming familiar with the skills and processes of another department can help you in your career, but there are a number of benefits to consider. For starters, you’ll have a much better idea of how the organization works—and you’ll get along better with your colleagues, making collaboration easier. On top of that, you’ll learn new skills that you can apply in your own role, and potentially position yourself for a raise or a promotion, accordingly.
Automate Small Tasks
Automation is one of the best ways to simplify your life and improve the way you spend time. Chances are, you spend at least an hour every day on tasks that are short, simple, and repetitive. With just a bit of upfront effort, you can likely automate these tasks, utilizing an algorithm or an app to take care of them on your behalf. You won’t lose anything by not doing them; instead, you’ll free up significant time that you can apply to more important things. The only real holdup here is identifying the tasks that are capable of automation.
Find a Mentor
If you want to improve your career performance further, one of the best ways is to find a mentor to work with. Ideally, your mentor will be someone who has been in this career field for a long period of time; they should be familiar with the ins and outs of the job, and have weathered many changes across their journey. Assuming they’re available, they’ll be able to provide you with advice, perspective, and possibly even training to help you be better at your role. And if you’re ever confused about something or in need of guidance, they can be there for you.
Min/Max Your Effort
Have you heard of the Pareto principle? It’s an informal rule that states that about 80 percent of the outcomes in a given system come from 20 percent of the inputs. For example, 80 percent of your sales may come from 20 percent of your customers.
Knowing this, you should be able to identify the tasks and responsibilities in your job that are most responsible for your raw results. For example, over the course of an 8-hour shift, there will likely be many things you do that are inconsequential, such as attending meetings or deleting emails. But there will also be things that are very impactful.
Over time, try to optimize your workload so you spend less time doing inconsequential activities (minimizing them) and more time doing the impactful activities (maximizing them). This is a way of min/maxing your effort efficiently.
Committing to Ongoing Improvement
The most important way to boost your career performance is to commit to improving on an ongoing basis. There’s no switch you can flip to permanently and significantly improve your productivity; instead, this requires you to invest effort on an ongoing basis to gradually improve yourself. Although there is an easy way to boost your productivity quickly without efforts by only taking the “nootropics” which are known as cognitive enhancers that will boost your brain power and strengthen your focus and memory. You can find the best nootropics with high quality on the Chemical Planet website. Once you commit to ongoing improvements, you’ll find yourself on a long-term trajectory for improvement and success.
