We were discussing the book “Rework” by the founders of 37 Signals – Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson – and agreed that while it’s a great book for businesses, it has some great tips on how to success in your career.

We’ve picked our top 8, but feel free to add any others in the comment section.

Making the call is making progress

Ever tempted to say “let’s decide later”? Don’t. The problems come when you decide to postpone decisions, rather than make them. You don’t always need the perfect solution, you just need to decide and move forward.

Reasons to Quit
We don’t mean quit your job, rather ask yourself whether you should be working on what you’re working on. It’s a lot easier to work on what you think need to be done as opposed to stepping back and questioning whether it’s adding value.

Interruption is the enemy of productivity
Find you’re always working late or coming in on the weekends? Well, it’s not because there’s too much work to be done. You just need to be more productive while you’re in the office. The reason why you’re not getting enough work done at the office? Interruptions.

Meetings are toxic
Remember what we were just saying about interruptions? Well, meetings happen to be the worst culprit. They’re scheduled like T.V. shows – you set aside either 30 mins or an hour because that’s how scheduling software works. What if you’re meeting only needs to be 8 minutes? You’re not going to schedule an 8 minute meeting in Outlook, but then why draw out the meeting longer than necessary.

Make more of your day and avoid meetings. If you have to have a meeting, make sure you have agenda of what you’re looking to accomplish.

Make tiny decisions
Avoid making big “game-changing” decisions on projects. It’s hard to admit when you’ve made the wrong call and even harder to fix. Focus on making smaller, more dynamic decisions that you can easily adjust if you’re assumptions prove incorrect.

Emulate chefs
Hungry? So are we, but that’s not important right now. The best chefs in the world are those that share their recipes and cooking techniques with the world. It’s important to share experience, expertise and knowledge with your co-workers. In some cases, people feel as though they’re in some sort of competition at work place and information needs to be hoarded and protected from your colleagues.

Make yourself invaluable to your company and your team by sharing what you know and absorbing what others do.

Long lists don’t get done
Stop making such long lists. When’s the last time you complete (in a reasonable amount of time) a long list of things to do? Break your big lists into several smaller lists (for instance, if you have 50 things to do break it into 5 lists of 10 things). You’ll be surprised by how much more gets done.

Go to sleep
Our favourite tip? Get more sleep. It’s perhaps the most obvious piece of advice, but also everything is easier when you’ve had a good night sleep. Make better decisions, give better presentations and be more engaged in discussions.

Photo: Photo under CC