By Reza Ganjavi
Practical advice for a young person starting a first job, including how to work effectively with a manager, establish reasonable boundaries, protect personal time, and begin building a strong professional reputation.
It is important to manage your manager.
Good managers welcome your help in managing yourself.
It is important for limits to be set early on. If you limit yourself too much in the beginning it's hard to extend those limits later.
You are a person and have a personal life as well and it is completely normal to take some time during the workday to attend to things in your personal life that need attending to. This frees your mind and helps you be a better worker.
Work smart. Find the best and fastest way to get the job done in the best possible quality.
Build in quality in everything you do. Strive for excellence in everything you do. A mediocre person goes half way up the mountain.
It's important to complete things as soon as possible. Completion feels good, and opens doors to the new. Creation comes out of destruction, death, ending, completion.
Manage stress. Stress management is a key in succeeding at everything you do. The society is very stressed. Many people caffeinate themselves up and companies like that because the faster you work the more productive you are. So coffee in the morning and coffee after lunch have become part of the culture... but stimulating the system chemically creates stress.
Enjoy what you do. That is the key to happiness.
If your job is "boring" there is always a chance to observe your mind and heart and body.
Stay aware of your reactions, of all that goes on in your mind and body. Awareness is the key to inward quietness.
Simplicity is very important. The most complex problems need to be approached simply.
Order is essential. Order on one's office `
Clear communication is extremely important.
Take good notes.
Stay healthy.
If you need to stay late to get the job done, do it. Don't be a clock watcher.
Keep your desk and your email inbox clean. It's an extension of your consciousness whether you like it or not. I don't like email but I have to use it because it's convenient and it's part of the Zeitgeist. The easiest way to do it is to create one or more folders for things that you're finished with -- archive off those messages that you're done with (or delete). You want your inbox to have only messages that you need to deal with / address / answer, etc. -- you can also make a "low priority" folder of open messages that don't need immediate attention, but do go back to that folder and address and archive those (or delete) as well. It's also common courtesy and respect to answer every mail that deserves and answer or feedback. A feedback can simply be, "thanks", " :) ", "ok", or a longer line. If you're close to the person and they know how you feel and you can be sure of that, then a reply is not necessary, but even then, more communication is better than less when it comes to electronic exchange which is so prone to misunderstandings because it lacks that personal touch of e.g., handwriting. So feedback is even more important in electronic communications.
Lastly, CEOs of many Fortune company were asked about the key to success. The most common answer was “enthusiasm”! Love what you do and do what you love!