Whether on the job or in your personal life, you more than likely run up against the “tyranny of the clock” at some point. Time management experts tell us we need to focus on the most critical factors to get the most out of each day and accomplish the most we possibly can. You might feel on occasion–such as around the year-end holidays–that no matter how good you are at time management, you’ll never dig yourself out of the...

You might be concerned about your references for a variety of reasons–uncertainty about what former employers will say, how they’ll say it, whether anyone might respond to inquiries with a negative reference, and so on. Especially if you left your last position under less than ideal circumstances–either voluntarily or involuntarily for reasons you weren’t happy about, you might have genuine reasons for concern.References–Wh...

Before you break out the party hats and festive beverages for that year-end office celebration, you might want to give some thought to where this year has taken you professionally and what you want next year to look like. While your “wants” won’t necessarily predetermine how the new year plays out, failure to take them into consideration when making your career management plans could leave you with having next year look pre...

In any business environment, meetings are probably an inescapable fact. While not bad in and of themselves, they create a hugely negative impact when they aren’t well-organized and managed. The sad fact is that this happens much more often than it should–and it can be avoided (at least for the most part).Way back when I used to organize meetings, I would become very frustrated at the lack of cooperation from people who were...

You can do a lot of things on your own, without help, and that’s true not only personally but in your professional life. It’s important not to delegate actions to others that are integral to your professional growth and career success.But that’s not all there is to the story. You need collaboration–in the best (most positive) sense of that word–to carry out career management plans that offer the greatest possible chance for...

If you operate with the philosophy that looking after #1 is all that counts and you’ll stick with your current employer only until you think you see something better on the horizon, that’s a questionable rationale. On the other hand, blind loyalty to your employer that ignores any other considerations is going to the other extreme. Neither choice is great, and neither is likely to provide you with solid career success.Compa...

If things aren’t going well with your professional life–maybe you’re engaged in a frustrating job search–you might feel as if you don’t have much to be grateful for right now. You could be viewing Thanksgiving Day as “Turkey Day” at best and as a waste of time at worst.I’m not going to deliver a Pollyanna sermon to you. At the same time, focusing the lion’s share of your attention and energy on the highly unsatisfying situa...

If you’re by nature or inclination a disorganized person, the thought of conducting an organized job search or applying organizing principles to your career planning might strike fear into your heart! Okay, so that’s a bit of over-dramatization, but the point is, whether you’re innately drawn to organization or just the opposite, a certain amount of organization is pretty much critical to a successful job search or to smart...

Some of you probably knew what you wanted to be when you grew up, even before you left childhood behind. Many of us, though, take longer to figure it out, and some take a really long time.Others never quite do choose a single goal. If you’re one of those, does that mean there’s something seriously wrong with you? Not necessarily, but it might mean you’ll have a more challenging career road ahead, with a lot of zigs and zags...

Every now and then, we hear about the large number of employed people who are on the verge of retiring and the risk to their employers of having irreplaceable knowledge walk out the door with them. Yet it seems to me that not enough companies are taking positive steps to meet this challenge before it becomes an epidemic.It does occur to me that I might not know everything that’s going on “out there,” so I could easily be mi...