173: How to Further Your Career During the COVID-19 Crisis [Podcast]

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How can you further your career during the COVID crisis? Or put another way, how can you use the crisis to grow? While there are many people who are out of work or on limited hours, the separation and time warp we are living in has pushed us all to do some things differently. Besides wearing masks, washing our hands, and social distancing – this crisis should be giving us some new unexpected skills and some new perspective. 

So can you use this time to further your career during the COVID-19 crisis? I think so. In fact, if you pay attention, you might already be enhancing your skills.

How to Further Your Career During the COVID-19 Crisis

1. Think Strategically

Rethink the goal. Where will you be in the next crisis? A bit of strategic thinking on your own career can help you strengthen your thinking muscle as you get back to work. All jobs and careers need evaluating from time to time to make sure you and your team are on track. Practice it now by thinking about where you want to be in the next 5 years.

2. Better Manage Your Time

This is a great way to further your career during the COVID-19 crisis.  Working from home has some challenges, and time management is a big one. No matter how you think you are doing in this area, your time at home has helped. You have had to make some decisions about how to handle the day and how to manage your work with at-home distractions all around. If you can carry those back to work (even if you end up at home still) you will find your day more focused. Also, you might find your work gets done sooner.

3. Learn a New Skill

Go ahead and admit it, even if you are still working, you are not as busy as you used to be. What can you do next week to learn a new skill that will carry forward? What is something you have been meaning to learn? Go quickly to Udemy, Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, and pick something and then schedule some time (see the last point) to work on the new skill.

4. Be Better In Meetings

Video calls are here to stay. Most of us have found ourselves on video calls as part of the normal business – and for most – this is new. You get to see yourself in a new light. How did you come off in a video? How do you look at a meeting? You now can see yourself in a way you could not before. Were you disconnected? Do you look confident? Do you sound confident? Use this to adapt to the new normal of video calls (which we know there will be more of them now) as well as in-person meetings.

5. Get Better on TV

Since we can expect at-home meetings or video meetings to be the new normal, you need to be more prepared. How did your video setup work? Many of us have struggled to look functional on our new TV setup – which is what it is. Take the time to rethink how your background looks. If you are using the Zoom backgrounds – are they sending the message you want them to send? Setup your room with a good background. Also, invest in some better audio equipment and webcams. My favorites are the Blue Yeti Mic and the Logitech 920 camera.

6. Better and Faster Meetings

Many of my standing hour-long meetings have fallen to 15-30 minutes as we realize we have covered everything we need to cover and we can get back to work. If only our in-person meetings could be so focused and get such great results. Keep up the plan of coming to meetings with an agenda – even if you are not in charge since the person in charge likely does not have an agenda. See Productivity at Work | Quit Stealing From Your Employers.

7. Get Control of Your Money and Get Out of Debt

I hope this one is natural. I expect to see people selling their homes and downsizing, and/or selling their cars to get out of car payments. Many of us have decided to never be in this situation again. The path out is to get some emergency funds setup and to kill the debt.

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Shout Out to Podcast Reviewers

Fantastic advice to find your calling and build a career
Brianaloha
★★★★★
Great podcast- tons of practical advice. I enjoyed the series on creating your informational product and am learning a tremendous amount in the entrepreneur series. I think keeping these around 30 minutes maximum is also a great feature. I would love to hear more interviews added about people who have found their callings or shifted careers. This is one of the select few podcasts I listen to religiously. 

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Links mentioned in this episode:

• Productivity at Work | Quit Stealing From Your Employers
• Schedule Your 45-Minute Discovery Session with Dale
• Episode 119: Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset
• Master of Engineering Management in Information Engineering and Management