Take Time for Yourself

As much as I want everyone to actively manage their career, I do think that there are times you need a break. I was reminded of this while reading Angela Tidwell's reflections from a recent event.

Life is busy, chaotic even. That's how I feel too often, especially during the fall when there are lots of conferences where I have committed to speaking. With one more child in her final year of school, I'm trying to spend time with her, and still make time for my wife.

And learn.

I feel as though my learning plan for a few things this year has gotten away from me, and the weekly times I setup to focus have been missed far too often.

However, I think it's valuable to understand there is a need for some down moments. I tend to go tot the gym to relax, but I also think it's good to sit and watch the world go by sometimes. I've done some of what Angela did at times, but not enough. I need to sit more, with friends or by myself, and just relax. No TV, no games, no distractions other than conversation or observation.

Busy, busy, busy

My apologies for not updating this blog lately. I’ve been busy, and working on my career, but I’ve gotten behind updating this blog.

I have delivered the Branding Yourself for a Dream Job talk a few times this summer, but I haven’t had any great comments, questions, or ideas for new posts. However, a few people that had seen the talk in the past have noted that the things I’ve suggested have worked for them.

I will likely be out of touch on this blog for another month as I have a number of events to travel to and various work commitments, but I’ll endeavor to do a better job keeping posts coming that can help you with your career.

My Apologies for the Neglect

I haven't posted much here over the last few months. Life has been a bit distracting and busy, but that's not a great excuse. I apologize for that.

I haven't been sitting still, however. I have been working on my career in a few ways. My job changed slightly this year, with a greater focus on software development over administration. I've been a bit of a technical journalist for the last decade and more of my efforts have gone towards managing databases, but the last few years I've been moving more towards building them, and this year I've had quite a bit of focus on development.

As a result, I've spent the last six or so months doing more learning and teaching on the software development side of things. I've been reading books, practicing some techniques and in general trying to improve my skills in these areas. I've been teaching a bit more as well, which is something I enjoy.

I have collected a few links, but I've managed to avoid blogging too much with a busy schedule at home.

However I'm making an effort to change things and add more posts, hopefully one a week going forward.

Remember Who You Really Work For

I saw this on a post from Brent Ozar recently. It's a post of pictures from his company's vacation last year. There are two sentences. The first is that you should listen to a PSA that notes your company gives you vacation for a reason. However it's the ending line that stood out to me:

Remember who you really work for. Schedule your 2015 vacations now.

Who do you work for? You work for yourself, and you should remember that. By yourself, I mean you, personally, and your family. That's who you should put first and take care of, ultimately.

Employers come and go. Remember that and insist that you get your vacation time. Even if you want to sit in your house and stare at the wall, take the time.

Have I scheduled mine 2015? Not completely, but I did schedule a week with my son at Seabase for a Boy Scout trip. I'm also waiting to hear from my brother before we plan a larger family vacation. And, of course, I'm taking a few days in Jan and Feb to ski.

I haven't always used all my vacation each year, however I also get a lot of vacation by US standards. 25 days, so I often sell back a few to the company. However I have made sure I've used my vacation the last couple years and taken 20 days off.

Life is short. You work for you. Work on your career, but remember to take care of yourself (and your family).

Be Happy

Work on your career, improve your brand, but remember to live your life.

And be happy.

Pay it Forward

Helping others online, such as in forums, or teaching them something at work is a good way of paying it forward. It’s something that shows you care about more than yourself and will work to make the company, or perhaps world better.

This video isn’t related to work, but it was touching, and I think it’s a good reminder to not judge too harshly up front, and to help others when you can.

 

Helping the Homeless

 

It’s also a good reminder that a little humanity and compassion can make a huge difference in the world. Or in your company. Treat others well.

The Work Life Balance for Men

A great piece by LZ Granderson, and one that really make me stop and think a bit. Work and life is always a balance, and men certainly don’t have it easier. We make different choices, or we set different priorities. It’s worth the read, and as you do, before you dismiss it, consider this: how would work life look if women had been a part of business and work for all of history?

I sometimes look at the way I do things, and wonder if I’m balancing too far one way or the other. Ultimately I don’t know if I’m doing it right, but I keep an eye on it.

Refreshing

I hope everyone has a great week this week. I’m off, trying to recharge and refresh after a rough speaking schedule this fall.

My family has a tradition of spending Thanksgiving up in the mountains skiing. There isn’t a lot of snow, but I look forward to skiing, dominos, ping pong, and more with my wife and kids.

You should be sure that you take a break periodically from work and make sure you refresh and recharge. All too often I see people skipping vacation, which isn’t good your mental health.

Measuring Your Career Success

“Life is a lesson, you learn it when you’re through.” - Limp Bizkit

There are things in life we can’t judge until we go through them, perhaps even get near the end of the process. Retirement, long term health, and even the measure of your career success.

There was a piece in the CNN Money that interviewed Clayton Christensen from Harvard Business School. It’s about a new book, “How Will You Measure Your Life?” and it talks about the work you do in career and in life and how they should relate.

In the piece, there’s a great paragraph:

“I believe that the source of our deepest happiness comes from investments we make in intimate relationships with our spouse, children, and close friends. But if you measure your life by how much money you make or where you go in a hierarchy, you invest more and more to maximize those things and less and less of your time and energy on family. Even though you think family is important, you invest in things that are counter to what you had intended to do in your heart. ”

There’s more about career and what you should think about as you try to grow your career and move forward.

This site, and the talk I give focuses on the things you can do to improve your career and find happiness, but I’m not sure I emphasize the balance enough.

I think it’s important that you continue to work on your career, in almost any field. Find time to work on professional development, learn more, but keep it in balance.

Life is short.

Remember that you want to focus on what’s important, and often the really important stuff isn’t in your career. It’s outside of work.

Time Off

Reprinted from my Voice of the DBA blog

As a US citizen, I’m lucky to work for a UK company. I get a generous allotment of vacation, and desperately try to use it all each year. I haven’t been successful yet, but I’m getting closer. If we could only get a little more snow at the beginning and end of the season…..

Last year a friend told me that they lost 6 days of vacation. Over a few years this person had accumulated extra vacation by basically working too hard and when the year ended, some of their vacation was lost because of carryover limits. This person vowed to change this year and use all their vacation, but with a busy job at a small company I’m not sure that will come true. Unfortunately, I’ve all too often seen this same behavior from many people in IT.

This piece shows that all too often people are not taking their vacation, or they’re not taking it as a complete break from work. I’ve been in both situations, and over time I’ve learned that I’m not being more productive in either case. I’m unbalanced, and over time I become less productive. That’s especially true if I’m doing creative work, like writing, or developing code.

There’s no shortage of poor managers out there, and there are plenty of them that will work you as hard as you allow. I don’t have any great solutions for dealing with them other than scheduling vacation every year, insisting you get to take it, limiting contact with work, and if all else fails, looking for another job.

Life is short, too short to spend more of it as work than you have to. Take advantage of your vacation to relax and recharge, even if it’s a stay-cation at home. Getting away from work is not only important, it’s something you owe to yourself and your family.

Steve Jones

The First Hour

What do you do the first hour of your day?

For me, at least my work day, it’s get a pulse on what’s happening through email/twitter, and then check on my site, SQLServerCentral.

However that’s easy. It makes me feel a bit lazy to check email because I know I can do it easily. With school in session, I wake kids up and then usually spend 5 minutes sitting at the top of the stairs, getting shoes on (I like wearing shoes) and scanning email to look for what’s happening. I don’t process it all (I know that’s bad), but I just see if there’s anything seriously wrong.

This articles says that we should spend that first hour another way as many successful people do.

Perhaps I should be spending that hour in another way. Perhaps eating a live frog.

Intelligence vs. Effort

This is a really good way to look at the world, IMHO. I am in a growth mindset, valuing effort more than results. Results count, but if they are valued so far above the effort, we get into a short term mindset.

Sometimes you have to try things, and learn from them. You can’t let a misstep, failure, (likely) partial failure, or the most likely case, an unknown result, prevent you from trying things.

The important thing, especially in your career, is to continue to move forward. Try things, learn, improve yourself. Not everything will be positive, and not everything will be better. However you can learn from those things which don’t work out well.

I’ve often thought that knowing what I didn’t like, or what I didn’t do well was more important than knowing what I like or can do.

Recharge

Whether you're looking for a new job, or just chugging along, it's important that you get some breaks and recharge in your life. I write so much about the ways in which you can improve yourself, and get ahead in your career, and that's important.

However it's equally important that you find time to relax, to recharge, and get away from your career. Whether it's a hobby, vacation, time with your family or time alone, make time for more in your life. Even if you enjoy the career work, or enjoy learning about it, take time to recharge and balance your life.

This week is an unwired week for me. I wrote this just before I left on Sunday, and scheduled it. I'll be at Camp Alexander with my middle son for a week of Boy Scout summer camp. He's enrolled in classes, but I'm mostly there supervising and helping keep the boys organized. Lots of free time for me to read, relax, perhaps write a bit, but mostly to get away from life a bit and enjoy the Colorado mountains.

Make sure you schedule some downtime in your life as well.

Why Bother with the Effort?

Is it worth your time to build a better brand, and allow yourself the chance for more opportunities in life? After all, that's what this brand building stuff is about. It's not here to ensure you make a million dollars or ensure you are famous. My goal with this blog and the presentation is to give you ideas and ways to make yourself stand out slightly from the rest of the people in your industry and help you to get the interview at the place you want to work. A better brand should give you more opportunities, hopefully in the areas in which you want to work.

I think it's definitely worth it, and this image says it all:

You want to have the best life for you, which is a very personal, yet elusive thing. A better brand in your industry will help you with this.

The important thing is to make sure that you don't spend too much time on career, branding, or work and make sure you enjoy life.

Settling or Pushing On

I read a blog recently that was titled: Time to Stop Settling. I think that the author (a friend) was intending to motivate you to move forward, and try to change things when you see a way to make them better instead of living with them.

I agree, but….

My caveat here is that you also need to find balance in your life. One of my favorite quotes is “God grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” I think that quote is telling you to strive for balance, and realize that you cannot change everything, but you can change some things and you ought to think about those that you can.

We all have tough times in our lives, especially at work. Even though I have the best job in the world, I have bad days, I have things I don’t like, things that I can’t change. I strive to balance the stress and workload with the good things, and while I try to move forward, I move forward in different ways. Some periods might involve more time with my wife, some more vacation with family, some more speaking, some more writing, but they all are a part of life.

Don’t settle when you don’t need to, but don’t try to change everything. Pick your battles and look to make headway, make things better, not “fix” everything.