TGIF – To Thine Own Job Tasks Be True

As the week winds down, we wind down with some tidbits for your information, education, health, and enjoyment.

Quote of the Week: “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” Steve Jobs

Humor Break:

Bev: Al, I have so much to accomplish today and I feel like I am already behind. Do you know what time it is?

Al: Yes, but not right now.

Stat of the Week: Identify Your 3 Most Important Job Tasks. “Passion and skills alone aren’t enough to ensure success, but periodically analyzing the key success factors of your job can help you excel. To get up to speed, start by addressing the top tasks that are most vital to your career success. Ask yourself: If you were starting the job now, what would be the three tasks most critical to superb performance? Then assess how your current skills align with those requirements. What training or skills development do you need? Focus on a plan to update your skills and spend at least 70% of your time on these responsibilities. To keep your three key tasks in focus, write them out and look at your list before agreeing to other demands on your time. Going forward, reassess your key tasks on a regular basis and update your list.”

Action Tip: The above management tip comes from Harvard Business Review. With the new year just around the corner, this is great advice as you set goals for 2014. Somewhat hidden in the advice is after determining what three job tasks deserve 70% if your time, you need to do a self-assessment to determine what skills, abilities and knowledge you need to effectively perform your critical duties and set up a separate development plan for yourself.

Self-Development Corner: There are no more recommended courses this year from Coursera, the free online university. Stay tuned – there are more than 500 coming in 2014. Then it will be back to Happy Learning!

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.