Category Archives: Work Life

6 Ways to Rock Life as an Intern

7th June 2012

This week marked the start of one of my favorite seasons of the year: intern season. We had a great group of Enterns start at Engauge this week and I cannot wait to spend time with each one of them and learn more about their passions, experiences and goals over the next three months.

Interns always bring back so many memories of my intern experiences and it’s crazy to think it has been year(s) since I myself was an intern. First, congratulations. Getting an internship these days is an accomplishment in and of itself. You beat out countless other people for the position you now find yourself in and now it’s time to spend the next few months proving to everyone why you earned that spot.

In honor of the occasion, here are a few tips for anyone getting their foot in the door this summer.

1. Make it count. Work every day like it’s your first. If you think you are being judged, scored, evaluated everyday, it’s probably because you are. Prove to your company why they can’t survive without you.

2. Ask questions. Lots of them. You are not supposed to know everything, show that more often that not. The only way you are going to learn is to ask why, ask why not, ask what that crazy acronym stands for, chances are your coworkers will not look down on you for not knowing, but commend you for the courage it takes to speak up.

3. Dress for the job you want. Just because people at your office look like they just left a college classroom too, doesn’t mean you should. While you may not need to wear a suit everyday, no one ever looked down upon a girl in heels or a guy in a nice button down and kahkis. And even though Mark Zuckerburg can get away with a hoodie everyday, doesn’t mean you can.

4. Don’t do as your told. Do better. As an intern, you may be asked to help with not so fun tasks or projects, but most of the time if you weren’t there, we would be doing that work too. Go above and beyond and show your supervisor you are capable of thinking outside the box and event expanding the way they may think. When I first started my first internship I had no idea how to put together a good powerpoint presentation. During my down time I spent time on SlideShare trying to pick up tips from what others had done and applied that to my projects, that downtime went a long way.

5. Keep smiling and stay focused. In every single internship I ever had there were days I hated. There were days I came home and cried. Days when I felt like I wasn’t making a difference. But for every bad day, there were 10 good days that lead me to the place I am today. The relationships I formed became great friends, coworkers, mentors and bosses, who have all made me into the person I am today and I wouldn’t change a thing about the journey.

6. Enjoy it! You’re only an intern for so long. Have fun. Get out and meet people in the office. Go to a networking event. Make friends with the people you work with, don’t be afraid to show them who you are and why you are the best darn intern yet. 

 

The definition of busy

13th February 2012

Life in the agency world moves a million miles an hour. OK make that a bazillion. There are few days I spend more than a few hours at my desk and without my two monitors and mobile phone, I don’t know how I could juggle all of my open projects. You could say things around here keep you a bit busy.

Last week, I challenged myself to rid the word busy from my vocabulary.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself stressing more about what I have to get done than actually tackling the projects in front of me with a smile on my face. The negativity leaves me dreading tasks rather than excited at the challenge. The truth is we are all busy, but what I’ve come to realize is we all have a different definition of the word busy.

A coworker and I had a discussion about this topic a few weeks ago while out for an afternoon run and came to the conclusion that you are really only as busy as you want to be. You can always make time for the projects you want to work on, the afternoon runs and the quick conversations that mean the most.

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”  – Marcus Aurelius

After cutting the word (and a few others) from my vocabulary and focusing on what I could accomplish and how to get there, I found myself not only a lot more productive, but also more positive and less exhausted at the end of each day.

Clearly just cutting a word from my vocabulary isn’t going to force action, but luckily, there are quite a few tools out there to help you along the way.

  • Wunderlist – I keep note of all of my ongoing projects and tasks with this desktop app
  • Evernote – How did anyone keep track of multiple notebooks before this one? My favorite extension – seamless sync across devices. This means even my grocery list ends up here as I think of things throughout the week
  • A good old fashioned technology break – I know, crazy. Sometimes I am the most productive when taking a break from work. Trying eating lunch outside for 15 minutes this week, it will change your outlook, promise

There are some days that can’t be helped. Sometimes you just need to vent and sometimes there really are not enough hours in the day, but what I’ve realized is talking, thinking or stressing will not to accomplish any of it. Guess what? Next week I’m going to learn a whole new definition of busy, so what better way to prepare than to avoid the thought of it all together.