Overwhelmed? Let your calendar tell you what to worry about.

Let your calendar determine what to think about

Feeling overwhelmed? Me too. Lets talk about that.....

The Problem:

There is a simple truth in life that we all must deal with; there is more to do than time allowed. We all want to do it all, and more. I know for myself I am in the middle of taking 18 credits at school, working part time, planning on writing a book, trying to keep in shape, on a intramural basketball team and trying to find time to do the dishes so my just-as-busy-wife can take a breather. Over the past few months I have been trying to consolidate all my "daily tasks" down so that they overlap, basic multitasking. What I have come to know is that MULTITASKING DOES NOT WORK.

Here is why

1. You can never be great at one thing if you are trying to be good at everything
2. You will get behind and give up, just think of your new years resolutions that you set
3. You will miss the small things
4. You will get stressed out and always feel behind

The Solution:

Instead of trying to take over the world while learning how to cook the world's best pretzels and mastering Spanish on the side, take time to plan it out so that you do one thing at a time. Even if that one thing is for five minutes. PREPARATION IS THE KEY TO HAPPINESS.

1. Let your calendar tell you what to worry about, be in that moment and no where else
2. Once the allotted time has past move on
3. Adjust how much time you need for tasks as the days go on and you get a better feel
4. Start a journal,  the more you write down the less you will have to remember, the more you can reflect, grow, review and learn

One caution- do not waste your valuable time over-planning. There is a point where you just got to go out there and live life. 

Nailing an interview

Welcome to nailing a job interview. The purpose of these posts are not to go through all the generic do's and don'ts about everything you have to do but rather some exclusive information that will help you stand out just a little more than the rest.

Quick tips a about the interview process...(beyond the basics)

Phone interviews

1. Make sure you find out if you are going to call them or if they are going to call you.
2. Have notes written down- they don't know that you have them.
3. Know your resume and have it right in front of you
4. Practice with a someone on the phone before the real deal
5. Make sure you are in a quite location, strong cell phone reception and check your phone's battery

In person interviews 

1. Remember names of everyone you talk to
2. Use mirroring techniques, as in use the same body language as they do
3.  Relax and be yourself, don't market yourself as someone that you are not

Prepare in how you respond to any interview question by mastering the  S.T.A.R. 

Specific Situation

• In order to avoid generic, broad examples, start your response with an example. Set the background by saying something like, "Two summers ago I was doing door to door sales for X company"

Task

• What responsibilities or events that you had to act upon. "We had to do training every day at 9am"

Application/ Innovation/ Development

• What did you do that separated yourself from the crowd? "I went in at 8 am every day by myself to get additional training" 

Resolution/Results 

• Give an example to show how you increased numbers or became better.  "Because my sales increased, more and more employees started to catch on to my positive energy and  join me at 8 am."

Practice doing the S.T.A.R. approach. 
Comment below what you would put to the question below and tomorrow's post will feature the best one. 

Example: What is your greatest weakness?

Situation:
Task:
Application:
Resolution:

Making business slide decks are easier than a rough draft to a paper.

Here is a quick peek at what a simple business case study slide deck should look like. Every paper has a flow to it, same thing applies to slide decks. Have you ducks in a row, have a flow and then it will make you glow. Think of these slides like a rough draft, but unlike a rough draft you are free to use pictures, graphs and cool animations that do the talking for you (caution: do not go overboard with them or, on the flip side, neglect to put them in).Lastly, unlike a paper you usually are not the only one working on the project, well some cases you shoulder more work than others, use your team to divide and conquer. Papers are written by one person, where as slide decks take teams. Follow this structure next time you get a case study and it will pay off big time as your team sees that you got skills.

Tired of Outrageous Assignments? Four Recommended Solutions

Situation:

We all have had that class where the Professor assigns an outrageous five page research paper about some topic that sounds more like a “subject does not matter” than subject matter. We procrastinate the assignment, pull the all nighter and sometimes we even, thank our lucky stars, pull off an A on the baloney we just turned in. We then go on to the next assignment to BS our way through the classes that don’t matter to us. Sadly, we are missing out on one of the biggest opportunities that no one knows about.

Anyone know where this is?

Problem:

Graduation comes, job hunts start and interview time is now. You now find yourself sitting in an interview, your potential employer asks you, "what sets you apart from the rest of the crowd?" You can say that you have obtained a high GPA (yeah so does everyone else), you can say you are a hard worker (like thats never been said before), oh maybe you can say that you have a high attention to detail. Nope, you are stuck to mediocrity. No job offer, no fro-yo celebration party afterwords for you.

Solutions:

1. Professionally engage in every assignment. Turn in every assignment like you are going to be published by your company. Money is a great incentive, think of each project like it is a voucher for dollar bills.
2. Build a portfolio. YOU ALREADY HAVE TO DO THESE ASSIGNMENTS ANYWAYS! So why not have an agenda behind your school work and start archive building your work so that you can pull examples out of a portfolio, instead of pulling it out of your "backside" in the interview.
3. We need to have a resume building mindset. If we are ever going to cruise past the sea of applicants we need to start weeks, if not months in advance. Look at papers, projects, assignments like gold to my resume builder. Look for keywords in your strengths that you bring to the table such as, research, critical analysis, effective writer, ect...
4. Take control over your education. All it takes is a short talk to your counselor or professors and boom, you are on your way to nailing that interview and celebrating by getting fro-yo. Work with your Professors, the ones who you have had classes with or even, dare I say, meet with new Professors who got their PHD in the field you want to pursue.

Summary: Be Resume Builders

Get the most out of your education. This will give you an added fire inside of you to preform at a higher level. Having a portfolio offers the proof to your pudding.

• Check out my Linkedin to see what I have done  www.linkedin.com/in/brycejnobles/

How helpful was this post? What do you want to hear next?

Do's and Do-not's of Switching Education Goals

"My favorite study spot at Brigham Young University"

There are times in our lives where we come across an opportunity that challenges our current life's outlook, career paths, friend choice and even our beliefs. Our reaction to these opportunities shape the rest of our lives. Here are some valuable suggestions;

Do's

• Do your research- get a book, read a blog, wiki it up, find out where you fit in with this new life's outlook . We have so much to learn about in the dynamics of entering a new field
• Ask for help- the worst thing you can do is try to figure this out all alone. Talk out everything with more than one person. If you don't have anyone to talk to, ask me.
• Be more than actively seeking, be effectively seeking- you can spend all day in the library and still never learn a thing. We need to do so much more than just be looking, we need to be finding!
• Keep the fire burning- Starting fresh on a new path creates a new fire of motivation that will only go out when you neglect it. Once that fire goes out then you are in trouble!

Don'ts

• Start over- You have a lot of progress so far in your studies, see how you can make the most out of what you have done. For example, my major is American Studies and in this major I do a lot of researching and critically writing. Researching and writing are two thing I can put on the old resume.
• Fall behind in your classes- This is a hard one. The constitutional history class that you were so pumped about at the beginning of the semester might lose it appeal to you but you cannot let your mindset effect that GPA.
• Put your whole life on hold- Do not get so invested in finding out ways to build the resume that you forget to enjoy the ride! Enjoy! Go and take your love one on a date
• Burn bridges- Just because your career goals got burned does not mean you have to end all the networking that you have done already in your previous field of study.

What do you think? Did I miss anything?