Overview
This is my reading notes from the book "Soft Skills: A Guide to Survival Beyond Code" , mixed with some insights, recorded as a bit of my life , and also reminded me how to go in the future, I believe that to others Also useful.
my career
The biggest mistake you can make is believing that you are working for someone else. In this way, your sense of job security has been lost, and the driving force for career development must come from the individual itself. Remember: the job belongs to the company, but the career belongs to you .
Only when you start thinking about yourself as a business can you start making good business decisions.
Have expertise in a profession
What are the main pain points at the company you work for now or before? Can you be an expert in addressing these pain points ? Is there a particular job on the team that no one can do, or a lack of experienced people? Become an expert in this field and you'll get tons of business.
It's good to have an all-round developer on your team, but few companies or clients look for such talent. Even if you have amazing abilities and are proficient in 50 programming languages, you're better off picking a field of expertise, even if you switch it every now and then.
Non-professional characteristics: Do what you want to do ; focus on getting the job done; pretend to understand; unpredictable, unreliable; avoid responsibility .
Professional Traits: Follow your own principles; Focus on getting the job done right; Not afraid to admit you're wrong; Consistent; Take responsibility.
take more responsibility
The most important magic weapon that will make you stand out in any company is taking more responsibility. Money and position are always the responsibility of the follower, and whenever there is an opportunity to take on more responsibility, take it. (This is the ultimate secret of promotion and salary increase)
So how can you allow yourself to take more responsibility?
- There is an under-appreciated project, can you take charge of it?
- Can you help new people in the team grow quickly?
- Can you be in charge of the documentation production process and keep these documents up to date?
- What job no one wants to do that you would like to take on and simplify or automate?
striking
If you can't find a way to let your boss or top management know what you're doing, all your efforts will be in vain.
How to make yourself stand out:
- Keep a daily log of your activities and send this log to your manager in a weekly report.
- Pick a topic that is useful to your team and offer a presentation or training.
- Express your opinion - whenever you are in a meeting, or whenever you can get the chance.
- Guarantee "exposure" - meet regularly with your boss to make sure you are noticed often.
do a side hustle
Imagine the difference between jogging on the road and being chased by a man-eating lion. This is really the difference between working for others and working for yourself. When you work for yourself, you work harder because you only make money when you work.
If I really want to change jobs, the only possible way is to start a side business and make it successful enough that I can still complete the transition even if my salary is significantly reduced after leaving.
focus
We've all been in this state of being at work and feeling effortless . This state is actually focus , and once you find it, you can accomplish a lot in a short period of time (unless you're spinning around trying to find a hard-to-find bug).
We have also been in such a state, that is, we feel that our minds can’t move, and there is no state. This is the pot of inattentiveness.
You can get into a state of concentration by gradually practicing, for example picking some task that takes 15-30 minutes, you have to be completely focused on doing it, don't think about anything else, just focus on this one task.
To get into focus mode, you have to overcome the pain of focusing your mind on a single task. Unless you fully enjoy doing the task, the pain will be intense at first . However, this is exactly the point. You have to realize that this knowledge of pain and discomfort is temporary and does not last long.
In the process of staying focused, don't think about other things, don't think about what to eat later, don't think about what to do later, don't think about the happy and unpleasant things that happened today, don't think about what messages others have sent on QQ , be sure to tell yourself to focus on one thing.
There is a method of practicing concentration - the "Pomodoro Technique" , which is also highly recommended by the author. I think the main principle of this method is to remind yourself to stay focused, and then gradually develop the habit of focusing.
Multitasking in parallel
I used to be a big fan of multitasking , so I screwed up a lot of tasks and missed a lot of things due to carelessness. This habit is very bad. Its essence is not multi-task parallelism that improves efficiency, but frequent multi-task switching . This state must not be a state of concentration , so the efficiency is very low.
Responsible for their own
There are two main motivations for people to get work done— intrinsic (motivation from within) and extrinsic (motivation from external rewards or punishments).
If you want to stop relying on the influence of others and achieve stable, predictable results, you need to learn to take responsibility for yourself .