Below are two articles on work habits, self-discipline while working and work style. The first article entitled "
8 work habits that will kill your career," offers tips on what NOT to do to sabotage your career and prevent yourself from getting a promotion or a raise.
The second article,
"7 steps to good work habits away from the office", discusses how to keep up your self-discipline away from the office (on the road, while working at home), with the basic tenet that success will come with thoughtful planning.
See below:
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8 work habits that will kill your career
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7 steps to good work habits away from the office
8 Work Habits That Will Kill Your Career, by Alison Green, U.S. News & World Report
Wondering why you're not advancing in your career more quickly, or why you always seem to be overlooked when it comes time for raises, promotions, or important projects? The answer might be that you're holding yourself back, through one or more of these eight career-killing behaviors.
1. Not promoting your own work. Your work might be fantastic, but if no one knows about it, it won't help your reputation, your salary, or your advancement opportunities. Make sure that your manager knows about your accomplishments, whether it's kudos from a hard-to-please client, waste you uncovered and fixed, or anything else that goes above and beyond your normal work.
2. Getting defensive. If you get defensive when you get less than glowing feedback on your work, you might be striking a death blow to your career. Many people simply give up on having meaningful interactions with defensive people, so your co-workers may avoid you, and your manager may stop telling you how you can improve. "That sounds great," you might respond--but it means that you'll destroy the relationships you need to advance in your career and denying yourself the information that you need to grow professionally.
3. Making rash decisions. Whether it's walking off the job because the boss said something you didn't like or taking a job offer without thinking it through carefully, impulsive decision-making has no place in your career. The decisions you make about work will have far-reaching ramifications on your wallet, your reputation, and your daily quality of life.
4. Not being assertive. You might think that not making waves is the best way to succeed professionally, but being unassertive is more likely to hurt you. If you believe a decision is wrong, or a project is headed for disaster, or that you deserve a raise, good managers will want you to speak up. There's a difference between being assertive and being obnoxiously pushy, of course, but voicing your opinions in a professional way is key to professional success.
5. Being too negative. If you're constantly complaining about new projects, your company's policies, and why it's taking IT so long to fix the network, you're probably creating an unpleasant environment for people around you. The same goes for negative humor--if you're regularly snarking about your boss or the new guy down the hall, chances are good that--even if people are laughing--you'll get a reputation for being bitter and having a bad attitude.
6. Lying. If you get caught in a lie--even if it's small or if it can't be proven--you'll destroy your credibility, and that's something you can never get back. You could be scrupulously honest for the next three years, but you'll still be remembered as the person who lied and can't be completely trusted.
7. Being chronically disorganized. People pay attention to whether you do what you say you're going to do, by when you say you're going to do it--whether it's as small as forwarding the document you promised in a meeting or as big as meeting a project deadline. If you do, they notice and you build a reputation as someone reliable and someone they can have confidence in. If you don't, they conclude that you can't be counted on to keep your word.
8. Not learning new technology. You might feel that you're perfectly comfortable with your existing ways of doing things, thank you very much, and therefore have no need to learn the latest technology ... but if you resist new ways of doing things, you'll soon be left behind by colleagues who aren't so change-resistant. If you find yourself printing out emails to read them or heading to the library to look something up rather than Googling it, you're likely to be overlooked by employers in favor of your more technologically savvy competition.
7 Steps to Good Work Habits Away From the Office, by Jeff Wuorio at microsoft.com
Your laptop was built for doing work away from the office. Making sure your self-discipline comes along for the trip is something else.
Many business owners and executives associate an office environment with the will to work. As a result, they fret that they—or their employees—may be less than diligent when working from home or a hotel room.
But keeping up your self-discipline away from the office is just a matter of thoughtful planning. Here are seven strategies, culled from feedback from experts and my own experiences.
1. Know your work patterns.This philosophic tenet is particularly important to being disciplined away from an office environment. Consider what makes you more productive: being proactive well in advance or sweating things out under a tight deadline. Knowing what sets your wheels turning can help you establish work patterns and systems that bolster your discipline."Are you motivated by feeling good or fear?" asks Jan Jasper, author of Take Back Your Time: How to Regain Control of Work, Information and Technology. "Some people don't need to plan ahead as much because their discipline comes from adrenaline."
2. Keep a comprehensive to-do list.Whether you seek to stay ahead of the game or you spring into action at the last minute, keeping track of all you need to accomplish is particularly important outside of an office setting.You're absent from anyone ready to remind you what's going on. But knowing just what you need to do and when, in comprehensive detail, can keep you focused and motivated. No matter how you do it, be it with a PDA or day planner, be obsessive about planning out your activities.
3. Set up a comfortable workspace. Ads showing a businessperson sprawled on a hotel bed, cell phone in one hand and calculator in the other, belong in the netherworld of Madison Avenue. Discipline away from the office often derives from a setting that singularly represents work.No matter where you are, earmark a particular spot for work. Jasper suggests bringing along family pictures and favorite music to bolster your perception that this is where work is going to happen. "It's important to arrange things so you can function," she says.
4. Look at time in a different manner. One of the pitfalls to discipline away from the office is time—or, rather, the lack of a regular schedule of events, be they meetings or business lunches. That can lead to downtime and, conceivably, a lapse in productivity.Plan ahead to make the most of those few minutes here and there to keep your discipline sharp. Recognizing the importance of working when time permits, many airports offer workstations for businesspeople in between flights.By the same token, read a business article while your flight is tenth in line for takeoff. Lisa Kanarek, founder of HomeOfficeLife.com, suggests clipping articles of interest rather than hauling along entire magazines. It's less weight and a more expedient way to focus on what's of interest to you.
5. Keep the paper moving. Working away from the office often means limited space. That, in turn, makes paper management critical.File those documents with which you're finished and recycle any and all papers you don't need any more. As Jasper notes, nothing can be more discouraging and crippling to discipline than a snow bank of papers with little clue as to what's important and what's left over from 2008. "Just clearing out every bit of paper that's unnecessary can do wonders for your morale," she says.
6. Keep in touch with the office, but thoughtfully. Communicating with the folks downtown (or in another state) is not only essential to the mechanics of a workday; talking with colleagues and others can also be a boon to discipline. Even if you can't see them, talking with others in the company is a reminder of people down the line who are counting on you.But tailor your communication accordingly. While you may want to check in with some people on a regular basis, you may want to shy away from others who, for instance, may take an hour to explain a two-minute problem. "You have to determine the level of contact that's most helpful to you," Jasper says. "Communication problems are really magnified once you have to deal with them away from the office."
7. Know the dangers of procrastination—and avoid them. Putting off necessary tasks melts discipline in any setting, but it's particularly destructive when you're away from the office. For one thing, there's no one physically nearby to boot you back into gear.On top of that, a task that's repeatedly put on the back burner until it becomes a bona fide headache can drain time from other responsibilities—a workload that fosters despair rather than constructive discipline."Procrastination is terribly damaging," Jasper says. "The more you procrastinate, the more you turn a routine chore into something that's really painful."