“If you want something done, ask a busy person”, right?  I was wondering the other day about how this concept could help or hinder your search for what’s next for you.

If you are anything like me, on days that you are busy, you get loads done and even when you added a few more things to the list, they get done too.  But on lazy days, nothing gets done, no matter how long the list is.

It’s a weird phenomenon, right?  We all have 24 hours in our day.  Some people manage to make more of those 24 hours than others.  There was a meme that did the rounds for a while referring to the fact that “you have as many hours in the day as Beyonce”.  Several responses were written, which included this one from the BBC: “Beyonce’s Clock: How do some people achieve so much?”

Busy with Your Career?

So what does this have to do with searching for your next career move?  If you are finding it’s taking a long time, it’s possible that you are being a bit “lazy” about it.  If you are not getting results, maybe you are struggling to motivate or organise yourself to have an effective approach.

“Plan your work and work your plan” – a phrase I recently learned when doing a 3-month course where we asked to make a project happen.  Each week, we had to hand in a plan for the coming week along with the results for the previous week.  Funnily enough, writing down my plan and then committing to it by actually scheduling the activities in my calendar meant that I got my project completed.

Planning Your Work

So how are you going to plan your next career move?  How will you work that plan? Here are some steps you can take:

• • Choose a couple of job search activities to start with
    • e.g. updating your LinkedIn profile, networking, volunteering
  • Decide what percentage of your time you are going to spend on each strategy
    • e.g. 50% on networking, 25% on LinkedIn etc
  • Decide how many hours you’ll spend per week dedicated to your job search activities
    • e.g. 10 hours
  • Calculate how many hours for each activity
    • e.g. 5 hours on networking, 2.5 hours on LinkedIn
  • Decide what you’ll do each day
    • e.g. 2 hours at a networking group on a Monday evening, 30 mins LinkedIn on a Tuesday

Once you have your plan, your next challenge will be to stick to it.  If you want anything bad enough, you’ll figure out how to make it happen.  If you can be clear with yourself on what you really want for your next career move, you will figure out how to make it happen.

How will you plan your work?  If you are not so sure, maybe it’s time to work together to get a plan in place.