Career Journal

I, like many individuals, often struggle with the idea of where I would like my career to go. It's hard to know how to navigate the waters of the working world to find the next step that puts you in a position that you want to be in and advances your personal and professional goals. I was emailed the idea of creating a "Career Journal" and think it's a great idea. I plan to start working on my own Career Journal next week and hopefully within the weeks to come will have a better idea of where I would like my future to lead. I thought I would pass it along to share with those of you that need a bit of guidance as well and don't know where to start. See details below and best of luck!

Creating a Career Journal

Creating a career journal can help you move faster and more strategically from where you are now to where you want to be in your life.

If you at all struggling to figure our what's next in your career OR you have a vision of a future you'd like to achieve but no idea how to get there, a journal could be the thing to turn your dreams into solid planning.

GETTING STARTED

The recommendation is creating a Friday Update for your boss each week. Friday updates are a bulleted list of your…

… accomplishments,

… areas of challenge or where input is needed, and

… goals for the week ahead.

It's a simple exercise that should require no more than 15 minutes per week to complete, yet the benefits in communication and overall productivity are immeasurable.

Each week, set aside a small chunk of time (20 to  30 minutes) to really analyze what you've done and what you need to do to pursuit your goals. To begin, create a checklist of 5 things you want to complete this week.

Keep a career folder on your desktop, add photos from magazine, etc. for visual inspiration, it could also be a notebook, whatever works for you. Good apps are Evernote or Momento.

Next pull out your journal on Friday and evaluate your progress. Commit to doing this for one month and see what happens. 

It will take some discipline to keep your journal current, but if you do this consistently each week, you will  achieve far more progress on the road to your goals.