Of course you could clean out drawers, cabinets, files, and whole closets. And that would be productive in an indirect way. I am going to share with you 5 things you can do in the next week to help you directly be professionally productive while in self-imposed exile.
- Check out remote conferencing options and decide what is best for you. Conferencing doesn’t necessarily mean a big group. Think of using options for even one-to-one conversations. My mom got all dressed up from the waist up when she Skyped her male friends!
Maybe you already use remote options. I did, but I used them so seldom that I was neither up to date nor comfortable with the options and what is best for me. For example Skype is free and Zoom is not. Skype may be fine for you. Regardless of what you use, practice with it so that things go smoothly when you have the opportunity to use it.
The same as any aspect of presenting, when the speaker looks ineffective at an aspect of presenting, such as using the microphone, they are assumed less effective in their competency.
- Be the recipient of on line learning
Take a class, a webinar; listen in to a podcast or a TED talk. Observe and identify what you think works and what doesn’t work to you. Observing others is a great way to learn and it is less painful than always looking in the honest mirror.
- Get better at online teaching
The only way to get better at online teaching is by doing it. Use your own children at home. Prepare a 3 minute tutorial and teach them form a different computer location in your home.
- Expand LinkedIn network contacts
LinkedIn is referred to as the premier business social media option. But you have to work at it. Go to YouTube and find a tutorial on it or call me. I have learned more this week than I knew in the last five years.
- Create a brief paragraph to introduce yourself and ask to connect. Make sure it fits in the block of space available, about
45 words.
- In the upper left hand corner, search for a group that is of interest to you, either professionally or a personal interest.
- Find a group and click on the people option.
- Decide if you want to ask each one to connect or if you want to choose by geography or whatever.
- Connect one by one.
- Suggest that you mention in your ask that you will respect their privacy.
- Not all will accept, when they do thank them.
- Identify an area in your professional expertise that you can get even better at during this time. Maybe it is in your core competency; maybe it is in how you present your competency in speaking or dress or in updating your website, your photo, your signature key, your social media strategy.
By the day or by the week be able to point out, observable measurable evidence that you got better at something.
