Tech For Life

There are very much two sides to this blog. One side is the geeky tech loving button and screen fetishist lurking inside all of us. The other is what has come to be known as ‘lifehacks’.

Lifehacks are those tips or methods, like David Allen’s ‘Getting Things Done’ that help us get organised, or make life easier, or more fun, essentially anything that makes our work and play better.

One way of hacking your life (ewww that sounds…serial killer-esque…must remember not to use that ) is to alter the way you think about certain things, like your job. A recent article in stevepavlina.com shows this nicely. Essentially the key to advancement at work is to consider yourself self-employed, even if you actually work for someone else. Your business is you. You are providing services for that company, in the same way that you would if you worked freelance, except you use their office every day.

This makes a lot of sense to me, and touches a nerve that I find is often exposed with certain members of senior management in almost all large businesses which I have had the pleasure (?) to work for. They think they own you, and any request is reasonable because they pay you.

Repeat after me…I work for me, I am the boss of ‘Me Plc’.

The first benefit of this attitude is that all important vision of self worth. No longer are you at the bottom of a hill down which regularly slides all that cr*p that no one else wants to deal with. You are at the very top of the tree of your own private enterprise. You have as much to say about your own company as the managing director has of his. Maybe more, as you control every single employee with a single minded determination (OK so there is only 1 employee, and it’s you, but hey we are talking positivity here, not literalism)

Once you start thinking in this way, you can also make much more objective descisions about your working life.

Look at it like you would a small business. How do my customers see me? How is my ’stock value’ with my regulars? Is my own personal business growing, shrinking, or mund numbingly static?

One of the most important areas that this can pay dividends in, is deciding whether whatever you are doing for a job is time well spent. If it pays the bills, great! If it is fun (just sometimes, doesn’t have to be a constant barrel o’ laughs) then that’s a bonus. But put yourself at the centre of every single viewpoint. No longer will it be ‘Will my boss let me take 2 weeks off’, it becomes ‘I want 2 weeks off, what do I have to do to make sure my customers are catered for’. You see the difference?

All in all, I think this is one of the most positive shifts in thinking you can make in your working life. Those of us in full time employment for ‘the man’ so often feel downtrodden and helpless. Well bring the power back! You are your boss.

Go and read Steve’s piece, it left me with a set jaw and a determination to give it a good try, and it’s working so far.