Do you have trouble with productivity consistency?  Some days you can get a lot done and then other days you lack the energy to get small tasks done?  A reason for this could be the type of work you are doing or that needed to be done the next day. It could also be mental fatigue. You could be pushing yourself too hard past your work stopping point. Your mind like your body can’t work all out, all the time. Slow and steady will give you a better average of work completed. Get into a good rhythm that works day after day.    Productivity also includes taking quality breaks. This will take some trial and error to find what kind of break works best for you.  It could be a 5-minute break when you are in a good rhythm, or a longer break when you are switching to a different type of task. What you do during your break is also important. Stay hydrated, eat a snack, take a walk. Do something that will allow you to recover. Remember to be mindful of what works or take notes for future reference.   Don’t max out on productivity one day and then be maxed out for the rest of the week. Consider blocking out smaller 3-4 hour productive blocks. We are not designed to be productive all the time.    I had a question come in that I wanted to answer today on the show and it was a question about productivity. And this person mentioned that they have really unproductive days after super productive days. They recently tried out basically like pomodoros. So it was like 25 minutes on five minutes of 24 minutes and twelve minutes of and it worked really well for them for the day.   They got a lot done and was even able to get sort of ahead of schedule. However the next day and they did this for about 7 hours the next day they got literally nothing done. They were either learning out doing a top back a piece of paper filling on the internet. They got some work done just through to guilt, but like, the day was gone, but I know it can be productive. This worked for me yesterday.   Why isn't this working for me today? And there's multiple answers to that. It could be the type of work that was done or the type of work that needed to be done the next day. It could be the fact that you might have been pushing yourself super hard and you didn't realise where you're stopping point was because it's like, I'm now going to the gym. If you go hard all day every day, it doesn't work out.   You do I know 100 pushups and that's the maximum you can do. And you try nd do 101 Luke your body's like not not doing it. If you try and do 100 on Monday and then try and do it on Tuesday and then try and do it on Thursday and every day of the week you'll have like, you know, a certain amount of push ups, but really your body can't do that. It needs slow and steady. If you did maybe 70 push ups a day instead, you could probably get a better average and you wouldn't feel so exhausted the next day.   So instead of trying to go all out every day and pushing everything to the Max, it might be better to look into where you get into a good rhythm and you're like, I've done. I've done good to dive on a certain amount. Maybe that's 3 hours work. Maybe that's far as a focus work. And then I'm going to stop and take breaks and do something else.   And here's the other important part about productivity is it shouldn't just be about the work that you do, but it should be about the quality of the break that you take and everyone is different. But you need to figure out for yourself what type of breaks work best for you and how often and that might depend on the type of work that you did. So there could be some breaks were a five minute break is enough because you want to keep rolling on and maybe you're writing a paper, whatever else kind of work that you might be doing, or you might be doing the type of work where you're actually context switching.   So you finish one thing in 25 minutes. When you stop and you go do something else.   So you might need a ten or 15 minutes break in between to go and context switch and do something else. Now, what you do during that break is just as important as what you do while you're working. Do you eat? Do you stay hydrated? Do you go and breathe fresh air?   Do you splashing cold water on your face? Do you zone out? Do you give your brain a chance to recover? So what you do on the brakes is just as important, if not more important than the work you are actually doing. Think about what type of breaks work best for you, depending on the type of work you are doing, and it will be sort of hit and miss and will take some fine tuning and tweaking.   So Journal it, write it down, take notes, have data points. But at the end of the day, it's not just about the work that you're doing. It's about the breaks that you take, how long they are, what you do with them, maybe even the time of day. So you can't just Max out on productivity all on one day and expect to be fully functioning the next day. It just doesn't work.   Is that having an introvert hangover right? You go to an event, you speak to lots of people and you come home and you're done because you've hit that wall and you're like, I'm done. I can't. I just and you come home and you're exhausted for the rest of it, like the week. But if you go speak to one or two people and leave and come home, you'll still be able to function of the next day.   It's the same sort of thing. You just need to think about it in the that sort of a way.   And so maybe try and have smaller, productive day on the whole seven or 8 hours, but three hour block or a four hour block, and it's not necessarily the amount of things you get done, but the type of work you get done right. It's just something to think about and to be fair, we're not done to be productive all the time, something that we kind of forget about. So thank you for listening. This is Janice at the Korean trip. Com helping you build your brand and get hired.   Have a great rest of your week.  

The Traveling Introvert

Productivity breaks

Problem-solving is a crucial skill. All success comes with challenges and obstacles to overcome.  Tips on how to problem solve  1) Be able to adapt and learn: No one has all the answers. Focus on what you have to do to learn the answers using your " Research Mindset." You will need different approaches for different problems.  2) Be confident in your abilities and welcome challenges: Success stories have obstacles to overcome. Remember that the challenge will help you grow and develop your skills. Experience will give you the confidence to get the job done.  3) Focus on Finding Solutions: Don't focus your time on the problem. Instead, come to the table with a solution. Use your time to test possible solutions.    Don't take challenges negatively. Instead, change your perspective to consider what valuable knowledge and experience and your organization will learn.  Don't shy away from challenges. They will help you achieve more than you ever thought possible.  Transcript  . I want to talk about how to problem solve. A crucial factor that stands in anyone's way to success is how they solve problems. No success comes without some form of obstacles or decisions to make and things to overcome. So it's crucial to understand just how to go ahead and solve problems.   And so I want to took about four different ways that I've heard about or done or had people come up to me and talk about to solve problems efficiently, be able to adapt and be willing to learn. Sounds simple, but no one. No one has all the answers and this is okay. You're not going to have the answer right away. Instead, focus on what you need to do to learn it.   Research that research mindset that I've talked about in the past. Every situation you face will be different and will require different approaches to solve it. You can't expect the same approach to work every time and that's okay. You must be willing to adapt and learn new ideas and and come at things in a different way. With a curious mindset, successful people stress the importance of adaptability because they wouldn't be as far as they are today without it.   Just think about any business organisation. If they weren't open to trying new things, the business might have failed. Now you should be confident you a bit it and welcome challenges. No success comes with that action, hard work or obstacles. With every success story, there's always something someone overcame to achieve their goals.   You must welcome these challenges as an opportunity to grow and develop your skills. Experience ensures that you will learn to trust your abilities over time, allowing you to solve problems more quickly and with different facets of creativity. When you believe in yourself and your abilities, you will no longer focus your mind on what you can't do but what you can do or how best to do it. And one thing managers really love focus on finding solutions. Don't just bring me the problem.   That'll be what we can do to solve it. Focusing too much time on the problem rather than the solution really helps. It only leads to more frustration, stress and no action plan to take it. And so it just sits there and it is to be a problem. While you need to understand the problem to develop solutions, this shouldn't be your focus and shouldn't only occupy should only occupy a short period of time.   The rest should be used to creating and testing possible solution. Obviously you can have a solution and it might not work, but at least you've got something and stay positive and carb. So here's the thing. You will always have something to overcome. There will always be struggles.   There will always be someone who doesn't agree with you. There'll always be all sorts of things that you might see as getting in your way. While these things can be frustrating. You see silver lining. A lot of people see problems as new opportunities.   Therefore, the next time you run into a problem, a roadblock and issue a challenge instead of putting a negative cast on it straight away, turn around and try and think about it from a different point of view. What new opportunities or knowledge could you gain? And how will it help you achieve your goals or your tasks or your organization's? Goals or your tasks? Right?   Changing your perspective and keeping a Curiosity a curious mindset or research mindset allows you to save energy as it takes far less energy in time, and so you can focus on what matters the most. So just learn from your experiences and so that way you can look at problems differently. Don't shy away from challenges. Embrace it to help you learn and achieve even more than you ever thought possible. Thank you for listening.   This is Janice at the CareerIntrovert. Com, helping you build your brand and get hide. If there's any question or topic that you would like me to cover on the podcast, please email me at Janice at the CareerIntrovert. Com. Have a great rest of your day.  

Why problem solving is important

Hello and welcome to the Not So Travelling Introvert today I want to continue a conversation I started having actually at an event I was part of talking about work productivity, but more like how to relax and refresh and recharge at work and why so nearly 80% of work as a reporter to feel that they feel stressed at work and roughly half of them need help managing it and the other half just think that's the way it is and it doesn't have to be. Stressful. Environments do not breed positive productivity.   It hinders and store success and creativity, and your mind just doesn't work too well and de stress for long periods of time. So when you can't take a break or relax at work, you generally can't make the right decisions to perform.   At Ur best, you will always be underperforming, making it harder to focus on what matters and ultimately affecting your professional goals or tasks that you need to do. So one of the things I really recommend is recognise your triggers. Actively take notice of the things that are causing you stress, so it be obvious others not so much to have a notebook or a post it note. You can write a list so you can create a more personalised way to combat them when you're uncomfortable or you start to feel stressed.   Write it down.   You don't have to do anything then, but examine it later and it will help you better identify what is causing problems. This way you can make sure that you're doing the right actions to counteract those issues and those triggers and to make work that much better for you, speak up and establish your boundaries. You must speak up if things or people are taking advantage of your space and time. If the hours are too long or too many meetings back to back and the causing you to experience problems, speak to somebody about it to a manager.   Appear.   Find a solution. Honesty and establishing healthy work boundaries are essential for any positive relationship. Ensure you have an optimised workspace and I feel this one set up your environment and dash for success for you. You don't add items that get in your way or distract you. Add things that help you reach your work goals and be more efficient but also inspire you.   Do you like being at the beach? If so, can you get a tiny part of the sea and stick it in the wall in front of you? Do you want to remember how to get stuff done? So you have a little poster that says stuff and what to do? Yes.   No in the next step. So you just kind of look at it. Whatever it is that can optimise your workspace for you to work more efficiently or happier. Anything to make you happy. It could be a little stuffed toy, it could be a plant, it could be dual monitors, whatever it is.   See if you can get that set up for you and take short, quick breaks. Often take small five to ten minute breaks in between us and focus on your breathing and relaxing your muscles. Go for a short work around the office or your house or your building wherever it might be, go outside on a break or turn on some calming music or even just meditate for five minutes. Do something that completely distracts you from the noise or the chaos or the overwhelm and stress at work and reduces the tension.   However, don't rent to others.   This time should only be used to focus on you, your body and your mind because when you invite other people, you're not giving yourself a real break. And the other thing which is so much harder to do these days is keep work at work. You don't need to take your work stress home or do your home environment. When you're at home, you can do nothing about work issues until you get back to work. So why use that time to focus on negativity play music to separate the time when you're at work, to the time when you're at home.   I know someone who even though they work and you live in the same environment, they will make sure they get up and go walk around the block as their commute. Do something that that's your mind has a chance to separate. Oh, I'm going home now. I'm going to work now. Once the work is done, it's done and must stop thinking about it.   Don't have notifications on your phone, don't have pings on your computer, have a different computer or whatever it is. Using these tips to help you relax and disconnect a little bit at work more often and stop stress in its tracks will be great because it will help you long term before plagues plague you and stops you doing other things and it's something we kind of forget. Our brain is not made. We are not made to work for 8 hours straight. So why we forcing ourselves to do so?   You will find you will be more productive and creative if you just give yourself time to breathe and have a break. Thank you for listening. This is Janice at The Career Introvert com helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.  

How to Relax More at Work, and Why

This week's topics: Making extra time and having a research mindset   Are you not scheduling time to review and do tasks after meetings?  Sometimes meetings require you to block out additional time after the meeting to review the slide deck or task for that meeting.  Are you going about your work with a research mindset? Doing so will eliminate the possibility of letting your assumptions guide how your work. Instead, when going about your work, confirm or research your assumptions. Sometimes you will find that what you believe to be true is not the case.    Hello and welcome to the not so travelling introvert. Today, I want to talk about making extra time. So I was in a meeting the other day and it was the usual PowerPoint presentation with lots of hyperlinks embedded within the presentation and the presentation hadn't been hadn't been shared in advance. You didn't know what was going on and then the person is like, so doesn't have any questions. And I said, Well, you know me.   I'll look at the presentation later and then I'll get back to you. Only then did I realise that I've said this multiple times and not actually done that thing. I always mean to go back and look at whatever was presented, but I don't actually schedule time to do it because other things. Ok. The reason isn't because other things getting the way.   But I just go about my day and continue doing other things. I very rarely go back and do and look over the things that I said I was going to do. This leads me to realise that not only do I have to schedule in time for these meetings, but depending on the type of meeting, if I can't convince them to share their screen or the slide deck earlier is to set aside time. What I'm in that meeting to review said slide deck, and I can't believe I've been working all this time and haven't done this.   It's amazing when you think of random things.   That is one way to make sure that I go ahead and move you the information and get what I need from it and come back. So decide time only for the meeting, but we view the meeting afterwards. Another thing that I've realised is some people go about their work with a research mindset and I think this comes across with this, you know, going ahead and reviewing that information, everything that they do or see or try is a data point to be put aside and come back to later or built upon having a research mindset like the growth mindset thing but sort of approaching projects, tasks, assumptions with.   Okay, I'm going to try this to see if it works or what I need to tweak or what I need to reiterate or iterate having that research and curious mindset stop you from making assumptions and moving forward with those assumptions, speaking to a client the other day about pay rates for their staff and they're very much like all they get paid this and then I get paid that and then as far as I know, they get this and I'm sure they get the paid X, Y and Z after this point and we have the conversation where was like, well, actually, I've spoken to your staff and they get paid this and then this which isn't the number that you gave me.   And that doesn't happen at the time.   You told me she's like, Wait, what? But I assumed it seeshe's like, oh, well, I'm going to have to research into this. So after making the assumption, she's now going back and researching what she thought was true in her assumptions, which could have been avoided. If, instead of making this options, you go from a research mindset. Hey, I want to double cheque that this is true.   I want to make sure I got this right. Just because this book sets, though, doesn't make it right. I highly recommend thinking about your work and your assumptions and projects, and that sort of thing with a research mindset. Just think about it from a curiosity standpoint. Oh, what happens if this what happens?   If that I think this happens? Does that actually happen? Let me cheque. Let me ask someone. Let me test.   You will be amazed at what you will find if you come to something with that time of a mindset. And if you feel you struggle with that crowd source, I had a problem recently. Not a problem. I had a thing come recently that I really had no clue about. I asked three or four different people who all gave me three or four different pieces of advice, but all together made this wonderful thing hopefully happened.   And it all came from different angles. Different viewpoints, different expectations, different things that they had seen and heard. But that helped me learn so much. And so when I was creating this thing that I needed to help with, that nothing about. I came at it from a research point of view.   I'm getting data points to help with that. So just my thoughts today. Talk about research. Thank you for listening. Have a great rest of your day.    

Do you have a research mindset?

It’s easy to feel guilty, want to avoid conflict, or simply make other people feel good. However, you can’t consume your whole life on how other people react, nor should you stress about other people’s happiness. Your happiness is more important. In fact, saying no more often is crucial to accomplishing your goals and aspirations.   “No” Is Not Always Negative   Behind every no, there is also a yes. To explain further, when you say no, you are also saying yes to another opportunity that can better serve your life. Just because you are saying no doesn’t mean it is the end of the world. Saying no means that you are committed to your values and goals in life. If you always say yes without considering everyone, the sad truth is, you will always be living someone else’s life.   Stick to And Establish Your Boundaries   The only person you are responsible for is yourself, and you can’t expect others to know what you need if you don’t speak up. Practice assertive communication, always speak up about your boundaries, and not be afraid to let others know. If they can’t respect your boundaries, you don’t need them in your life. They will only hold you back.   Find the Right Words   You don’t have just to say “no.” There are other ways to let others know you can’t do it. Suggest an alternative or provide an apparent reason why you can’t do it. Let them know it doesn’t work with your schedule or objectives: the more communication you can provide, the better.   Take the Person Out of It   In other words, you are not saying no to the person asking; you are simply saying no to the activities you want to do. Often people don’t want to say no because they are afraid to offend the person; however, not being fully honest with yourself isn’t fair to them either. Instead, realize that it isn’t about the person but rather what they asked for. More likely than not, they will understand why you are respectively declining their request.   Strive to Be More Authentic   If you are always saying yes to people or activities that you don’t enjoy, you will never live the life you want. Even if you're going to avoid conflict, you can easily create more by being dishonest with yourself and the people around you. A vague yes versus a firm no can be seen as more harmful as your lack of commitment and poor attitude are noticeable.   In the end, saying no allows you to control your life and accomplish more goals. It is not about making others feel unwanted or being rude. It’s about ensuring you are using your time more wisely and following the path you want. Once you find the balance that works for you, you’ll never regret taking control of your life.

Saying No and How to Do It Right

Controlling your emotions or possessing proper emotional intelligence is vital for a successful life. Feelings, along with rational thoughts, ensure you get what you need out of life financially, physically, and mentally. This is essential to understand your emotions and improve or possess emotional intelligence. The following five tips, when implemented, will improve your emotional intelligence:   Recognize Your Good and Bad Emotions   When you feel a particular emotion, recognize and label it right away. Don't push it away or ignore it. Allow the feelings to happen, good or bad. Let them rush over you. Then take a moment to recognize how it makes you feel and what reactions you took or want to take. To understand your emotions better, you need to experience them first, not avoid them.   Identify Your Triggers   A trigger is something that starts or causes you to react and experience an emotion or feeling. Before you feel something, there is likely a cause or culprit. Take note of the cause, how it makes you feel, and what actions you take now. This is important so you can learn to control your emotions before they happen. If you know that you will be around a particular trigger, you can bring resources to cope or avoid it altogether.   Understand the Difference Between Responding and Reacting   Often people tend to react to conflict instead of responding to it. This situation can lead to further consequences. These reactions don't benefit the situation. Learn to take the time to listen and then respond instead of reacting.   Receiving criticism from a peer or manager is often an excellent example of this type of situation. Imagine the last time you received constructive criticism. Did you take the time to listen to what they had to say genuinely, or did you feel attacked and react?   Utilize Active Listening Skills   This includes your own thoughts before you express them to others. If you have difficulty processing, your emotions pause for a moment instead. Reflect on your behavior and truly analyze what is being said by others and yourself. "Think before you speak" is an all-too-common phrase that is just as easy to avoid as it sounds. It takes determination and will power to control this behavior.   Be Mindful of Your Actions   Last but certainly not least, you must practice self-awareness and mindfulness. You need to understand your actions or lack thereof can have a negative or positive consequence at any moment. With this in mind, you won't allow your emotions to overcome or control the situations. Instead, you will likely choose a rational solution or make a good decision.   Keep track of each of these tips by investing and writing in a journal or diary. By keeping track, you allow yourself to look back on your progress, and seeing that proof can help you find the motivation to keep growing and improving. You have more control of your emotions than you think, if you keep trying and doing the work necessary to understand yourself truly.        

Why Improve Your Emotional Intelligence

I want to talk about self assessment or that can other both be sort as self view or a retrospective. This is something that this came  up recently with the clients that I work with, but also just myself. I'm very good at planning. I say that I'm fairly good at planning most of the time, but very, rarely do I take the time to review and look back and see what you know, what has happened and how it's happened and maybe reasoning why.   So I've all these data points, but I'm not really using them to the to you know, how I could improve things for myself on my business. And so some of my clients and now started doing retrospectives from products that they've done. But here's the thing about doing sort of self assessments or your views. It helps you to be honest and open and ask yourself challenging questions and the reason why you want to do this so you can learn. It's not just for you to do a workplace on annual sort of review to get a promotion or anything like that.   It's a great strategy to use on yourself yearly, monthly, weekly, whatever sort of time period feels right for you to ensure you are on the right path for your idea of success. Just think about it for if you never got the opportunity to reflect new abilities and mistakes and what you want in life, you know, how does that really affect when you're going? How would you know if you're making the right decision to ensure the future is the way that you want it to be see you at some time.   And one of the things you should do, especially if you do this weekly, is what is one thing is a question I should say, what is one thing that I struggled with this week? And the more often you ask yourself that question, the easier it will become, because sometimes you don't want to admit that you've struggled with anything like that.   Everything this week was fine. But the more that you ask yourself and you're like, okay, well, today I struggled or this week I struggled with getting spending time in myself or setting boundaries or whatever it might be. Then the next question from that is sort of OK, well, how can I make sure that doesn't happen again, or what can I do to improve my chances of it not happening again? And so that gives you the actionable steps to take that will help make your life better in the long run.   Another question could be what negative is emotions?   Have I experienced this week day, month, whatever it is and why this will help you figure out maybe certain aspects of certain situations that start these emotions and set them off? Another question you could ask yourself is, what change can I make right now to get me closer to my goals. You might have three or four different types of goals, but it could be what can I change right now that will get me closer to my self care goals or what can I change right now? That will make me do X, Y and Z.   And when you think about what that change is, then go ahead and put it in your calendar, but it can note of it to make that change and go ahead and do it right then and then document and keep track, keeping track of your progress and achievements.   Failures in most challenges and rewards. These are all essential for you to look back and be like, oh, I felt this at this time. I didn't realise that it's probably because of this, this and this. Oh, all right. So I should avoid it in the future because of this.   This or this helped me grow. Or this helped me change this or this is why I ended up doing this particular thing and not the other. Take the time to be proud of yourself. Brag on yourself. A little self evaluation or reflection isn't just about the bad stuff.   You should also the good stuff, too. And it's not about comparing. It's not about a competition. It's just making sure that you're aligned in what you want to do and making yourself better, incrementally, bit by bit. It's a great thing.   Also learn forgiveness and be more mindful be forgiving to yourself realise that you are human. And yes, you will make mistakes, and that's okay. But dwelling on them instead of forgiving yourself and taking action is really where you will fail and stay sort of trapped and not move forward and to make sure that you do take the time to put like, yes, this happened. Yes, it wasn't quite what I wanted. This is what I've learned from it.   This is what I'll do. Moving forward to this happen again. Now move on forgiving yourself and realising your human is key and also part of that is that the thinking about it because making a mistake might be lead to negative thinking. Failure isn't a negative. There's a positive, positive side to it, but yes, go ahead and ask yourself those questions today and then maybe do it once a week whenever you listen to this podcast.   Thank you for listening. This is Janice at the Cure. Introvert. Com. Helping you build your brand and get hired.   Have a great rest of your week.  

Self review

I realize that this is possibly a topic I haven't gone over whenever I am working with new contractors to taking on new staff. One of my go to questions always is, what does introversion mean to you? Because as we know, there's a lot of misinformation out there and I wanted to just talk about some of the things that people say when I ask them what introversion means to them, bearing in mind what I do and where they find me, where they hear my name.   So one person said to me, Introversion means being more comfortable, either alone or in smaller crowds, are not expressing ideas and thoughts outside of an inner circle. So I found this really interesting, that the thought process there wasn't necessarily about being aloof, it was just setting boundaries and knowing that very comfortable with a smaller group of people, people you trust and telling them about stuff which was interesting. And someone else said it's being shy and possibly not being able to or wanting to express oneself, always wanting to be alone and indoors.   And I think they're not being able or wanting to express oneself could come from, yes, quite happy to express oneself, but get shot down by extra first or by other people or in general, what needing the right time or to think about something before expressing oneself which can come across as hesitancy. Then someone said, introversion for me means a lack of confidence.   Okay, I wanted to delve a little bit deeper into that and asked, Why does introversion mean a lack of confidence? And they're very much like, well, if you're not outgoing and bubbly, it means that you are not confident in your abilities or what you want to do. So there's that juxtaposition there. You have to be seen as outgoing and bubbly to be sure of yourself. And that's not necessarily true.   A lot of people who are sure of themselves, whether they are introverts or extroverts, might not be out there or the time they're just cracking on and doing their thing. This next statement was really interesting. It was an internet is a person who is shy and not able to convey their ideas to the world in a convincing manner. So it's not what you say, but how you say it according to this person makes an introvert an introvert, which is really fascinating. And someone mentioned introversion to them was focusing about how they handle emotions with their mind.   So when I delve a little bit deeper to them, being an introvert or an extrovert was all a mind game kind of a thing like you could get out of your comfort zone if you really wanted to, sort of a thing, which was fascinating. Now I'm going to move on to introverts that I've spoken to and what they feel introverts or introversion is. So someone said, as an introvert to me, it means only being able to handle groups of people for so long. I require time to recharge alone.   I prefer to be more alone than with others, which makes it hard for us to start businesses and brand.   Pitching to others about what we can do is draining someone else mentioned as an inert myself. I like to describe it as having my own bubble. It means knowing oneself, having a safe space to be alone with my own thoughts and feelings, and having the power to decide if and when I want to participate in what's going on on the other side. I love that she's happy with what they've got and she feels empowered, which is wonderful. Someone mentioned that I'm an introvert all the way, and to me it means that I want to recharge, and I do this by spending time alone with self care and meditation or just downtime helped with that.   I process things internally first and think about them before answering, and I love this statement. For me, introversion means having a calf and exciting world inside one's own thoughts. It is found that really, really fun, and there's nothing negative there that introverts said about themselves, which is really interested that it all comes from people who might see themselves as being more extroverted. So dear Listener, I'd love for you to email me and let me know. What does introversion mean to you?   Email me at Janice at the current overt com helping you build your brand and get hired, and I guess I should finish with to me for me, for me and my introversion, it means where I get my energy from how I recharge. I am occasionally shy, but generally it's me figuring out for like you are not an on going from there, but yeah, how I get managing how I recharge, and it's an ongoing learning journey and process. All right. Thank you for listening. Has a great rest of your week.  

What is introversion

Today I want to talk about the difference between energy management versus time management. What I've found that working with my clients is so many so often they're trying to manage their time, which is great. All the projects and all the things that you have to do and figuring out what goes and what bucket and using line of house matrix or, you know, using get stuff done, flow whatever it needs to do. And that time management.   And they kind of forget that as an introvert, energy management is just as important. You've likely heard the old adage that life is a marathon, not a sprint. So if you're trying to manage your time effectively, but you are not paying attention to your energy management, you might end up with like sprints and sprints and sprints rather than like a long, sustained marathon, and that it could be fine if that works for you. But more than likely, it's better for you to do something in a sustainable manner than it is to sprint, get stuff done, burn out, have to stop for however long, and then sprint burn out and then stop for however long.   So experts are always saying about productivity and productivity can mean very different things to different people, and productivity and success have more to do with how you manage your energy than it does with time management.   And so many people try to do everything to give us more time, because time is like one thing that we only have a certain amount of, but thinking about staying healthy, eating healthy, spending time, doing things and connecting and all of those sort of things. This a time we don't necessarily schedule in time for energy management. Right? And so we normally scheduling all the things that we have to do. But whether we have the energy to do all of those things, it's a problem that is often overlooked.   Trying to adhere to a certain time to manage everything can leave us feeling exhausted, so we're not even able to relax and enjoy ourselves when we've scheduled at the time for it. So an alternative to managing your time or can be used in conjunction with managing your time is to manage your energy effectively, and it works by taking time for recovering from those sprints so you can make it to the end of the moth and so to speak. So here are some things that I found with my clients work work well for managing your energy, and these are some of the things I've talked about previously, like learning how to recharge what you need to do to recharge yourself.   Make a list of what makes you feel refreshed, more creative, lift your mood, feels rejuvenated all of those things. Write them down and will help to remind you about the benefits of these particularly uplifting activities.   For example, watching a great series or show that you follow on TV, sipping a cup of tea and listening to music can be very rejuvenating to your energy levels, and they can go on and do something else. Doubling the time you usually take for breaks. Don't get to a timetable when it comes through vibing your energy level. Take that hour instead of a half an hour and have fun with whatever you're doing. You might have a schedule that, you know, I'm going to have the study minute break, and I'm going to go do something else.   But if you get to the end of the study minute break and you still don't feel quite Rejuven idea enough, take that extra time. And as the time with so concerned about having time to do stuff that we never scheduled enough time to not do stuff and then reward yourself for every goal reached. If you have lots of projects and it seems like you'll never finish them to be able to relax and enjoy yourself, break those projects down into parts and reward yourself. After that, you complete each one.   And rather than waiting to the entire huge project is finished, make sure you sit frequent recovery stops with those so that while you're doing that sprint, you may stop, take a break, rejuvenate, and then start again.   Do it. You'll feel so much more like completing everything when you and you'll be happier at the end. Managing your energy is a much more effective way to get through life rather than putting time limits on making schedules for everything. Your energy thermos that doesn't pay attention to the timetable you've created. Instead, make your energy the most important factor while you are going through life.   Thank you. This is janice from the career introvert helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.  

Energy Management vs. Time Management

today I'm going to talk about not doing something, I find that not doing something is the hardest thing of all to not do, to do. Not sure which way I'm not supposed to go. There's times where you might have a lot going on. You keep busy. Things are coming at you left, right and centre. You just want to go, go, go, go, go all the time and you might lose focus of what your overall goals and mission is because you're just kind of stuck in the weeds taking five minutes to just not do anything and look at a piece of paper.   Maybe that's on the wall or on your your board that says whatever it is you're famous for the year or the week or month or whatever it is, and be like, OK, well, the things my doing today or in this next hour that are working towards that goal or are in line with that mission is everything that I'm doing towards that yes or no. Also not doing something is really helpful when setting boundaries. For example, I have been known to not be good at setting boundaries with clients and if something is urgent or I know that other people are depending on me or I know that it's urgent for somebody else, I will probably go out of my way to work hours that are not paid for or do work in times that I would not normally work.   And so it's really hard to not just automatically default into that, but you need to remember that it works both ways. And if they are not willing to do the same, then you really shouldn't be. And it's not setting healthy boundaries for yourself. So not doing something. For example, this weekend I saw two emails come in to my business email address, and my first thought was to, oh, I know this is really urgent and this needs doing, but at the same time me stopping and thinking and being like, what kind of expectations am I sitting if I now go and respond to these emails on a Saturday night, on a Sunday mid afternoon?   And is that how I want to be moving forward? Is that the impression I want them to have and I setting myself up for failure because they're just going to keep doing that. And to be fair, I have lost clients because of this. I know previous clients have gone on and hired other people who would be more flexible, but that's not what works for me. I can't remember for the longest time when I have had a two day weekend and I'm still working towards that.   So and with that, it's doing nothing because I could have a two day weekend, but what else would I fill it with? And that's normally my first thought is OK, well, so now I have this time what can I fill it with? But if I just take a second and do nothing, then my brain gets time to process, my body gets time to relax and repair itself and life goes on. Other times when it's good to do nothing is when you get an email and and it invokes a reaction and emotional reaction.   You might want to fire off an email straight away, be it happy or sad or angry. But I can almost guarantee you that it is better to do nothing for at least five minutes. You could write that email, you could journal about that thing, but do not send a response email in that time. Just do nothing, sit with it, think about it, think about it from that other person's point of view. Think about how you were communicating.   What you are communicating in the right way was the information that you are missing. Maybe you won't play it, but just stop and do nothing. And it is the hardest thing because in this day and age we are primed to be always doing something. Even if we're sitting still on board, we're scrolling through our phones on Facebook or Instagram or Reddit or whatever it is doing. Nothing is almost harder than doing all the things and all the hustle. So if you can at least once a day just sit and do nothing.   Thanks for listening. This is Janice from The Career Introvert, helping you build your brand, get hard and do nothing. That doesn't quite sound right, does it? All right. It's been great speaking to you, looking forward to the rest of the week. If you have any questions for me, please email me at Jannis at The Career Introvert dot com. Have a great rest of your week.  

Do Nothing

today I want to talk about something that happens a lot with some of my clients. They confuse a plan with a to do list. And so I want to talk about how these things are completely different. A to do list is basically a list of tasks that you want to do during the day, the week, the month, the year, etc.. Plan is what's the plan? OK, so this is what a plan could look like.   10 a.m. wake up 10 a.m. to 10, 30, some sort of loose morning routine, 10, 30 till one deep work, one o'clock. There's going to be breakfast probably in there somewhere, but it might be part of your morning routine, one o'clock till to go to the gym or sort of meditate or do something that is a self development wise, two to five more deep work. All right. So what I'm trying to show that is that a plan doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the tasks that you'll do during the day.   And I have a rough idea, but not necessarily. So you set the intention during the time frame, your work on your business or your career or your job or whatever it might be. The point is to include in your plan or the kind of activities that you want to do throughout the day, but not necessarily exact specific things. Because here's the thing. As an introvert, your time is precious. As a human, your time is precious for making sure that you have enough time to do the things that you want to do and get recharged in the way that works for you is really important.   So you must guard your time wisely. And a plan, of course, can include non-work activities, i.e. recharge time. That's why it's called a plan. Doing something for yourself, doing something for yourself, like I said, meditating or anything of that nature. That is OK, because it's something that you need to do for yourself. And it shouldn't cause guilt. It should be intentional and not just sort of like, oh, fit that in somewhere.   Right. If you don't have a plan and you will let yourself become sort of susceptible to wasting time and being distracted and procrastinating or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So you need to set out like a carved out time. Some people call this time blocking. Some people call this planning whatever wording you want to use, but your time must be guarded and protected. The way you use your time should be aligned with your values. So some of the things to consider are sort of what are your values?   Who do you want to be? What do you want to do, where you want to get to? And it's really interesting that you just need to take ten minutes per day, probably before you go to sleep or at the end of your workday to map out a plan for the next day. But it is not a list of to do items. You can block out time. That's deep work. And then you go and look in your list of things that I need to work on and then work on those things.   During your deep work time, the plan is to do deep work. The to do list is to do deep work on marketing and then deep work on client work. I'm in deep work on something else. You see the difference between the plan and the to do list. The plan is all about you and protecting what you need to do and making sure that your life and day works for you. The to do list is more along the lines of stuff you do for others or the individual tasks that you do to complete your overall plan.   So don't be confused with the two. So many people are like, yeah, I have a plan, I have this like to do list of stuff to do. No, you have a to do list, which is great. It's great to have to do it, but it is not a plan. So that's something for you to think about. And again, God, your time, how you God, your time is really important moving forward, because a lot of the time we let other influences and outside influences push us into doing different things with our time.   But as an introvert, we need our time to recharge. We need our time to regroup, to help us be better humans. And so, God, your time wisely by creating plans with time blocks, with what you're going to do moving forward and then go from there, take some time to make a plan, a plan in order to do list. Thanks for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. If you have any questions or topics that you want me to cover during the podcast, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com.   The Confort speaking to you next week and have a great rest of your day.  

A to do list is not a plan

still today I want to talk about days off. This came about because I was talking with a friend and we assume when people take time off work that it is full recharge and fun reasons. And let's be honest, it's not always the case. And when you come back to work, people like, oh, he must be now well rested after that time off. You took time off work.   Yes, that may be the case. But if you look at the last year, a lot of people have taken time off for funerals. A lot of people have taken time off for mental health. A lot of people have taken time off to deal with whatever it is they're dealing with. It might be you need to put down an animal. It might be you need to look after grandma. It might be the plumber's coming and you have to take the time off work.   So we were talking about how it would be great if there was a different way. There's two things. There's one is a different way of calling time off when you're doing something that isn't fun or recharging. And the other flipside of that is how to deal with people, how to change people's assumptions. That time off is always a vacation or holiday or recharging and or fun without because you might not want to tell people why you're taking time off. If you're going to put your cat down, for example, you might not want people bring it up.   You might not want people going, oh, I'm so sorry about all of this other stuff. You might just want to get back to work and work. But at the same time, when they're like, oh, what did you do on your day off? You don't want to say so how do you deal with that and how do we get around calling? Time off. Time off? Yes, it might be time off from work, but that doesn't mean that you might not be not thinking about work.   Maybe you are seeing the emails pile up and it is stressful. Maybe you get a phone call from work and it is stressful or WhatsApp message or whatever method of communication it is. How do you let people know that there are boundaries with the time off? Yes, you are taking time off from this thing, but it doesn't mean that you are coming back refreshed all the time. I know there is no well, I mean, there might be a right answer.   I do not know it. So if you have any ideas, please feel free to email me. But it's a very interesting thing to think about how we use time off, what the expectations are for time off and people's assumptions with time off. I know that there is definitely the idea that people shouldn't be asking you why you're taking time off. You just taking time off and that's that. Managers, CEOs, supervisors should not be asking you why you're taking time off and in all honesty, should not be making comments about, oh, this is the second Friday you've had off in two months or whatever it might be.   You might be taking an exam, you might be applying for another job, whatever it is, the reason you are taking time from not doing work should not be up for discussion in general. And then the other part of this conversation was the work that's left behind when you know in advance that you're going to take time off, even if it's one day, sometimes you might find yourself working weekends or working extra time that week to make up for the time off that you have not been at work.   And so does that make your time off enjoyable or not? Because the rest of the time is spent stressing around that one day off or two days off that you will not be around at work. How do you balance the workload? How do you make sure everything gets done and people know what's going on and you don't come back to a train wreck yet? Enjoy that time. Because what tends to happen is if you have like, you know that you're going to take one day, you're not going to be at work.   You tend to front stack all your other work on the other days. You're not going to be there. And so you end up working more anyway. And so then is that day off? Was it because then you just playing catch up and all recovery and not necessarily enjoying it is something that you need to enjoy while having the headspace to deal with that time off when you are not at work. I know. I just find this very fascinating and I would love to hear people's thoughts about this because it's all about mental health, physical health and how the work life balance is that even a thing anymore is lines are blurred.   Anyway, thanks for listening. We'd love to hear from you. Please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com. This is Janice from The Career Introvert. How can you build your brand and get hired? Looking forward to speaking to you next week. Have a great rest of your week.  

Days Off Are Not Always Fun

I want to talk about volunteering, something I've done for the majority of my working life in one way or another. And yes, there are upsides to volunteering and giving back to the community, your local community, the international community and people in general. And there are also downsides. But let's talk about the benefits, first of all. Volunteering can be seen as a vital service to your community. There are many organisations that rely on volunteers to help them get done what they need, doing charities and nonprofits.   Basically, it often takes the care and empathy from volunteers to provide help the community's needs. Now, there might be a lot of different organisations that thrives on volunteers, and it can provide benefits to your life as well as the people that you are helping. It can help you build more relationships when you're part of a team connexions form learning. This affects three out of five Americans. According to Signees 2020 Loneliness Index. Loneliness needs depression and anxiety and can wreak havoc on people's immune systems and the economy.   As we have seen recently, when you start volunteering virtually or otherwise to meet new people who share your values but are different from you, from those you help and from those you work with, they are all different. Creating new relationships and opening your life to more opportunities, knowledge and understanding of the world is a huge benefit from volunteering. And the great thing is you can do a lot of virtual volunteering, especially right now. But even before I certainly did virtual volunteering and it can be such tasks as compiling data during analyst work, it doesn't necessarily have to be the kind of work we have to be out talking to people all the time.   It could just be creating a spreadsheet for people so they can see where the money's coming from or where it's going. It could be leading a coworking sessions. There are so many different ways to volunteer to help organisations. One of the other benefits is it increases your knowledge and understanding of others only volunteer. You get a clearer idea of how other people live differently or similarly to you, opening your perspective and getting a new understanding of the world and the people within it.   This increases your compassion and empathy, and this knowledge allows you to live a more positive life with more intention and knowing empathy, where people are coming from and the struggles and maybe how you can help them. It can also provide you a sense of purpose. It doesn't have to be overall purpose, but a purpose while doing this role. When you know your purpose is in life, is it to understand he one where fit best within a community, within the world, within your role and your job?   This knowledge also helps bring a greater sense of happiness and success. Most of time, because you feel fulfilled, it helps you feel fulfilled. Purpose and fulfilment do tend to go hand in hand, and volunteering can give you a sense of direction. It can help you figure out things that you do like and don't like work that you would like to do and work that you do not do well without the added pressure of it being for a job and for money and, you know, to pay the bills so you can use it in a way to test different types of roles and things that you would like to try out.   Also, I can give you a sense of pride because of what you're doing and the difference you're making in people's lives. So these are all various methods where volunteering can bring a benefit to your life. But please not let's not overlook the downsides of volunteering so many times you can volunteer and have your work taken for granted or basically have an organisation use you instead of paying somebody, instead of paying somebody to do the work part time, paying a reasonable wage, just get so used to having a volunteer.   They forget that if they actually want to have a thriving business, they should be able to afford to pay someone that will. Sometimes being a volunteer is a thankless role. Sometimes you do not get fat for being a volunteer. You don't get any praise, you don't get any recommendations. Nothing comes up on your LinkedIn profile. Sometimes it is a thankless job and you might feel that you are being taken advantage of. So just be aware when you're volunteering what you get out of the situation as well as the organisation.   Thanks for listening. This is Janice from The Career Introvert, helping you build your brand and get hired. Looking forward to speaking to you next week. Have a great rest of your week.  

The two sides of volunteering

I'm going to talk about creating a reference system and this is something I've realised that I've been doing unintentionally for a little while now. So when I say creating a reference system, the reasoning to do this is so that you you free up space in your brain for other things. And what I mean by a reference system is, for example, when you go shopping, do you go ahead and just make a list of all the things that you need and then go shop for them?   Or do you make a list of all the things you want, go around your cupboards and those sort of things, and then go shopping? Or when you run out of something or when you're down to the last jar or 10 or kind of something, do you then go to the place where you normally go shopping online or place where you make a list and write that item down straight away, which those three things do you do? And which of those three things do you think helps free up more space in your brain for other things?   So what I've been doing for a long while is any time I think of something that we need in the house, I'll go ahead and go to my target dot com or Amazon.com or whatever site that is to whatever it is that we're using for shopping and go find that item and put it in our cart, not buying it then and there I am just adding it to our cart to buy later. And I've been doing that for quite a while. And then what I've been doing is as far as I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about content, how do I think of content and where do I come up with ideas, etc.   ? And I was I said, well, I come across things all the time when I'm not thinking about content and when I'm not thinking about my podcast or my newsletters. So when I am coming across content, what I do is I have a place where I go and store the link to said content that I want to go ahead and talk about. And so this place I have, this could be a better name for it, but it's like the dumping ground.   And so it is a dumping ground of ideas. Articles means Facebook chats, things, whatever it is that have sparked interest about whatever it is that I'm going to talk about. So this is a dumping ground and it frees my brain because I'm like, OK, I'm going to remember that thing, because otherwise what I used to do before was, oh, that's a great article. Click read article, maybe have a tab that's open for months on end because I'm like, I need to come back and read that and talk about that.   And then when I do want to go ahead and create content around that thing, I can't find it. I'm not thinking about it at the time. I'm on a different, different document, a different item like it could be a laptop. I could be on the phone, can't find it, or I'll just go and do something totally different. So having one main place where I put stuff that I want to talk about on my podcast, stuff that I want to talk about in my news, that is stuff that I want to talk about in webinars is a really good way for me to keep track of content and be free my mind from having to remember what I did with that content so I can go ahead and use it later.   So I realise that now this is expanded into other areas of my life. So I use it, my shopping, I use it for creating content. And so I was speaking to a colleague about this because they found it really difficult to sit and create content because they had to find inspiration for that content. So now they have this Pinterest board and they have this Trello board and some other places where they go ahead and dump content. And it doesn't have to be just for creating content.   It can just be for it. For an example, you are talking to a client you're having is a meeting and they're telling you this list of things that they want to do in the future and mid-term and stuff that you're going to do now and you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then maybe write it on a Post-it and then nothing happens. You remember some stuff because you're going to do it straight away, but the long term stuff in the midterm stuff kind of gets lost.   What did you do with that Post-it note? You need a system. So whether it's always clear or Post-it notes at the end of the day and make sure that it is inputted into a computer or a note taking Apple to do task list app, what is it you do? What is your system to make sure that you remember all the things that you need to remember that is really important will help you free up space to do other things and be more creative and just have space to breathe rather than having to remember all the things because your brain can only remember.   Say so much. Thanks for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Thank you for speaking to you next week. Have a great rest of your week.  

How to systematize your memory

I want to talk about procrastination, kind of, but in a different way, how to bounce back from feeling like you've been procrastinating or lazy or that you've wasted any time in your day. Because here's the thing. We have a habit of, as humans say, it's midday, like, oh, well, I haven't studied X, Y and Z, so I'll put it off to tomorrow because I won't have time to finish it today or then before you know it, it's two o'clock.   You're like, oh, well, I could have done this other thing, but now I'm going to put it off to the next day and then it's five o'clock. You're like, oh, well, like, I'm not going to do all the other things right. Don't wait till some future moment to start something or do better. You have an opportunity to do better or to start something right now. And I think what we get trapped in with our thinking is that we have to start fresh tomorrow.   We can start fresh next week. We can start fresh next month. We're always waiting for that. But delineator, which we've made up arbitrarily in our minds what that is, and just by doing so arbitrarily in our minds, we can choose to start now. I definitely have been the person that, you know, like, oh, wait till, you know, the next set of virtual cycles starts what I'm working with coworking like, oh, well, it doesn't start for like an hour and a half, so I won't start X, Y and Z.   There's nothing stopping me from studying X, Y and Z. It's just a form of procrastination or having a start point. Something about us as humans feel the need to have a clean, fresh start point. Now you have the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and begin again. This is easy. If you have a way to mark the transition, you could use mealtimes or other daily rituals to create transitions. For example, you could be like, OK, I'm going to start after breakfast.   I'll do this thing after lunch. I'll do that thing after elevenses. I'll do this other thing, whatever it might be. Or you could use physical action as a divider of time. If you need to get a fresh start for your day, get up and go for a walk, do some breathing exercises, meditate. Any of these things can help your brain believe that you were leaving behind a previous state and decisions and then you are starting fresh to make better ones moving forward.   There are so many things that you can do in that way. So just think about it doesn't have to be dinnertime or lunchtime or after this meeting, it can really be as simple as. Getting up. Going outside, walking around the block or just walking down the street, coming back and sitting down again, that's your fresh slate. It could be going sitting in a corner for three minutes, centred deep breathing. Meditating a little bit, clearing your mind, stopping coming and starting again, that could be your clean, fresh slate, it could be journaling and a book, getting a book, writing a bunch stuff down, doodling, colouring, stitching, crocheting, doing the laundry, anything it can be used to help your brain reset.   And I think it's really important that we learn to do this as humans and not just wait for that arbitrary day in the month or day of the week to start a thing because nothing is worse than not starting something. You don't know what the possibilities are and what could happen once you start this thing. And I am definitely guilty of putting things off. I know from a previous month I was like, I'm not going to do X, Y and Z because I'm waiting for other people to make decisions about A, B and C.   Were these decisions linked? Sort of, but not really. It was just an excuse me, procrastinating, maybe me being scared. That's something to think about, is also why you don't want to start this thing that you are putting off, because getting to the root of that might help you also move forward. Well, thank you for listening. This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Looking forward to talking to you next week.   Have a great rest of your week. If you have any questions that you would like me to answer on the podcast. Email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com. Have a great rest of your week.  

How to create a starting point

A bite-sized podcast about traveling while running a business and being an introvert. Not knowing what introversion was until my 30s, I feel that I wasted some of my early years by not really understanding myself. An inspiration for my business is that I want to help others understand themselves better, earlier on in their careers and their lives. Introversion is a very misunderstood area – introverts can suffer mentally and physically because people typecast them or act negatively towards them. It’s not nice to be trapped in a little box. When you label somebody, they tend to act like that label, which stops people from achieving their true potential. I don’t let being an introvert define me, I let it guide me. If you are looking for some career coaching or just want to reach out contact me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com

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The Traveling Introvert

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