The career habits school never taught me

School didn’t teach me any of the habits that help me grow in my career, but I wish it did. Here are a few habits that have been essential to my sanity and professional development.

1. Note Taking: Your Second Brain

Choose an app that works for you and treat it as your second brain. I recommend something smart that offers features like timestamps, filing, formatting, and preferably AI (because who doesn’t want that these days?).

This will help you stay on top of your life at all times. You will storm through to-do lists, have data-backed answers in conversations, and become the star of meetings who always knows where you last left off. Plus, you’ll remember details that help you build important relationships, like the names of people’s kids, their favorite travel destinations, or their preferred cuisine.

Use this system for meetings, to-do’s, content drafts, and ideas.

2. Swipe Files: Instant Inspiration

Swipe files are the ultimate hack if you want to get inspired the moment you need that magic in your brain.

Create a dashboard once and dump things you like or dislike that you want to keep in your archives as you browse the internet. A swipe file can be as simple as a folder on your desktop where you add screenshots, a Pinterest board, or something more advanced in Notion with tags, filters, and notes.

I’ve created swipe files for copywriting examples, ad examples, YouTube thumbnails, and several other niche categories. This way, I don’t stare at my computer for 30 minutes when starting a new project because I’ve collected so many inspiring examples over time. It works like magic, and I thank myself every time for having this handy.

3. Templates: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Templates are like the gift that keeps on giving. You put the effort in upfront and use it forever (or update them when things need a refresh).

I create templates for meeting agendas, marketing campaigns, budget plans, analytics reports, YouTube videos, you name it.

Get my toolkit which consists of my four essential templates that I use day in and day out.

If you're doing a task repeatedly, there’s a 99% chance it can be templatized.

4. Wikis: Your Self-Service Tool

If you have team members who work on a project or task with you, or you plan to transfer something to someone else, creating a wiki (aka a step-by-step guide) is incredibly valuable. It serves as a self-service tool to help others onboard to a task you’ve been doing.

Your work becomes second nature to you once you've been in the weeds for a while, and you’re likely to forget every little step you go through. Write it down so you can outsource the work or onboard others without any additional effort.

What are your best-kept secrets and work habits that make you feel like you’ve found a career hack?

2 Ways I Can Help You When You're Ready

1. Be a better marketer with the resources I created, including a kickass course to help you land your dream marketing job, templates and lists of resources to accelerate your learning.

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