We’ve all been there: you’re between major projects because the next project isn’t ready to rev up just yet, because you have a bunch of proposals pending, or because you’re just not sure what your next project should be. I’ve heard this called the in-cube sabbatical, and it happens to creative types in traditional and non-traditional (read web-based) workplaces.
It’s easy to lose momentum during the sabbatical, but there are some tasks you just might want to tackle:
1. Take a moment to reflect on the direction you’re heading. This goes beyond just the Getting Things Done that you might be doing daily, and I’m afraid it requires some deep thought. Are you working on projects that you find engaging, or are you just paying the piper without enjoying the tune? Is your work making you stretch, taking you to places that you want to go, or do you find yourself wondering where you’re going and why you might be in that handbasket? The ever-thoughtful David Seah has written eloquently about this activity, and his musings are worth reading as you consider what you’ve been up to and what you’d really want to be doing.
2. Tidy up physically. Open up those file drawers and consider whether project files from long-completed projects are filled with hidden gold mines of useful insight or notes from dull meetings that weren’t even useful to you when you were actively working on the project. Just imagine: if you are hit by a bus, will people going through your files think, “Gosh, she really has saved the most strategically useful information from her years of work.” Or will it be, “Good grief, didn’t he ever throw anything away?!?”
3. Tidy up electronically. Don’t force yourself into email bankruptcy. Get it together and just confront all the things in your inboxes and assorted folders. While you’re at it, look at those perpetual items on your assorted to-do lists and knock out as many as is humanly possible. You’ll feel an enormous surge of accomplishment, even though you haven’t actually done anything other than basic communication.
4. Give yourself some training. So often web workers are working outside the normal workplace re-education schemes that keep our colleagues up to date on employment law, server virtualization, and the like. Commit to keeping your own skills sharp and filling in the gaps about what you know about your toolset by committing to spend a week or two working through some self-education. Get a teach-dummies-something-in-some-period-of-time-headfirst book and start at the beginning and work through every exercise until you get to the end.
What do you do when you find yourself in the midst of a lull in your work?
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