Don’t Take a Summer Vacation From Your Work
By: Andrea Trapani
When the weather finally breaks and the sunshine is more appealing than your cubicle walls, it can be easy to fall prey to summer slacking. Clients or bosses may be taking vacations, easing the pressure on your workload, but it’s important to take advantage of any summer down time. Take a short vacation this summer if you can afford to, but don’t take a vacation from being productive and proactive.
Perfect Processes
If you’re feeling less stressed and can focus on the day-to-day tasks you may tend to neglect, take advantage of the time to perfect those processes. If you’ve meant to start blogging on a regular basis, pick a day each week or month to get those thoughts on paper this summer. Routines and processes are hard to perfect at first, but if you dedicate the time now while you can, they’re likely to stick when things pick back up.
Extra Education
A great way to double soaking up the sun with complementing your career is catching up on your reading. This is something simple you can do from a park, a beach or a balcony, but it’s often overlooked when there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Here are a few PR books I’ve been hearing buzz about:
Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web
PR 2.0: Putting the Public Back in Public Relations
Getting Naked: A Business Fable About Shedding the Three Fears that Sabotage Client Loyalty
CRM at the Speed of Light: Social CRM 2.0 Strategies, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers
New Networking
You know all those organizations you’ve thought about joining, online chats you wanted to try and workshops you wanted to do? Do them! You should never slack on fun ways to learn from and meet others in your field, especially during the summer months when it’s much easier to be motivated to search for a new venue when the weather is nice. Here are a few local ideas if you’re looking to connect with some new organizations and people:
PRSA Detroit: The Detroit Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America
SMCD: Social Media Club Detroit Chapter
Tweetea: Weekly event for social media enthusiasts
DYP: Detroit Young Professionals professional development and networking organization
Inforum: Professional women’s alliance
It can be easy to let things slide when the weather is nice and vacations are aplenty among your clients and co-workers. Don’t let the summer sun keep you from shining in your work. You’ll be glad you kept up or got ahead when the fall pre-holiday projects begin to build up.
What other suggestions do you have for making the most out of summer?
