Idealist Careers

Feeling Distracted By Current Events? How to Stay Focused and Productive at Work

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 10:00:00 GMT

Between the COVID-19 pandemic and the national unrest of the past couple of months, many people are feeling overwhelmed and distracted by the news cycle. And with your news feed vying for your attention at all times, it can feel impossible to focus on your work.

It’s human nature to want to stay connected at all times and to be drawn to the news that is most scary, urgent, and shocking. But it is possible, and even healthy, to maintain a balance and stay productive.

Set boundaries for yourself

While it may seem like obvious advice, putting this into practice can take a lot of self-control. With the 24/7 nature of today’s reporting, and a near-constant stream of “breaking” news, it can feel like you’ll miss something important if you tune out for a while. This is when it is most important to practice setting boundaries. Here are some ideas.

Schedule breaks throughout the day at specified times to turn on the news or check the latest in your news feed.
Write out daily to-do lists with the day’s goals and priorities. Check the news only after you’ve accomplished a certain amount and continue to set attainable goals for yourself throughout the day.
Are you someone who wakes up in the morning and starts scrolling...and scrolling? Make it a habit not to begin scrolling through the news first thing in the morning before work.
Download an app that temporarily blocks or restricts your time on the websites that are most distracting to you.

Take care of yourself and your team

While self-care is always important, it is especially critical during difficult times. Carve time into your day for activities that are not related to current events or to work, such as exercise and meditation. Maintaining a regular self-care practice lowers anxiety, prevents burnout, and helps you to feel your best both at work and in your personal life.

And if you are feeling overwhelmed, distracted, and saddened by current events, chances are your co-workers are too. Whether you are working at home or in the office, make sure to regularly check in with your team and maintain open communication. If you have co-workers who are personally affected by current events, either directly or indirectly, see if they need anything and ask how you can help. Cultivating empathy at work will help the whole team be happier and more productive.

Assess how current circumstances can be brought into your work

Rather than seeing the current events as a distraction that takes your focus away from work, are you feeling inspired to take action at work? If you’re working in the social impact space, the goals or priorities of your organization have likely been affected by COVID-19, the Black Lives Matter movement, or some combination of the two. After all, our work does not exist in a bubble. Think about whether there are new initiatives you’d like to be involved with at your organization. If you see a need that your organization is not already filling, now might be a great time to bring it up with your supervisor.

During this and other periods of uncertainty and unrest, it is essential to stay informed and to act in any way you are inspired to. But maintaining a healthy balance in consuming the news—and always taking care of yourself and those you work with—is key to staying on track and maintaining your productivity.

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Have current events affected your focus at work? How are you staying productive? Tell us about it on Facebook!

9 Tips for Running Successful Online Events

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 10:00:00 GMT

With the future of in-person gatherings still uncertain and likely to remain so through the end of the year, more and more nonprofits are shifting their events to virtual. Technology can be an incredible tool—and it also requires a bit more planning than you might expect. This list of tips will help ensure your participants have a great experience.

1. Ask the right questions at registration

A little planning goes a long way. What do you need to know about your participants to make sure they have a good experience at this event? What information would you like to know about participants for future communications with them?

Advanced registration is particularly important for accessibility considerations like closed captioning and interpreters. Make sure you have a teammate look over your registration form before it goes live so you’re not overlooking anything.

Pro Tip: When you build your registration form, create first and last name as their own separate fields so that if you have to transfer registration data for any reason, you can download and import a CSV (comma separated values) Excel file.

2. Test run your tech

This serves two functions: first, it helps you iron out any technical challenges with the platforms you’re using, and second, it can be an opportunity for participants (and presenters, if you have them) to make sure they feel comfortable using the technology tools you’ve chosen. If this has historically been an in-person event at a venue and you’re transitioning to online, it’s especially important to offer a test session. And importantly, you can use this moment to double check the accessibility of your event.

It’s also essential to have a Plan B ready in the event your platform crashes or other technology issues outside of your control take place.

3. Create clear communications, before and after

First, talk to people like people—we’re all in this new, somewhat surreal, world together. There’s no need to pretend things are “normal”.

Make sure any instructions you send before the event are clear and easy to follow, and ideally include screenshots of any steps people need to take to access the event online. A screenshot guide to basic functions, like renaming yourself in Zoom, for example, can be really helpful for people who are newer to video technology.

Send a reminder the day before the event. As social distancing and quarantine stretches on to six months and longer, our sense of time and ability to know what day of the week it is gets more and more slippery.

Lastly, get your post-event communications written and scheduled ahead of time if you can. This includes links to resources (including your website!), session recordings, and presenter slide decks. If you can’t schedule it in advance, at least build out the email so that the last thing you need to do is drop in links and it’s ready to go. This helps ensure your follow up is timely, even if you hit that post-event energy slump when it’s over.

4. Create opportunities for interaction and community

One of the challenges of an online event is the loss of those random chance encounters to meet new people at the coffee station in between sessions, and the natural energy that can come from having a large group of people in one room together. But there are ways you can proactively create energy and engagement, even in a digital space.

Send a welcome package with a personal letter to your participants by snail mail.
Create customized games like Bingo with squares that reflect your audience.
Recruit some “chat cheerleaders” to get and keep conversation going. (These can be board members and other lead volunteers, and their job is simply to interact with people!)

Get creative and have fun with it.

5. Have more than one person running the show

For larger and longer duration events like an all day conference, ideally you should have your emcee/moderator, a behind the scenes tech runner dealing with any platform issues, running slideshows and screen shares if needed, and one or two other team members available to respond to questions in the chat and other on-the-fly needs as they come up. If you’re running a 90-minute lunch-and-learn or webinar, a team of two is probably sufficient.

6. Create a run-of-show and don’t skimp on details

You might not be on the stage in front of 200 people, but you’re still on a “stage” of a different sort. Develop a run-of-show with specific time increments, scripts of what needs to be said so you don’t forget anything, who each piece is assigned to, and any behind the scenes items that should happen while the emcee or moderator is moving things along.

For example, if you’re running a panel of speakers, you might have a teammate assigned to “take photos” (that is, screenshots) at a specific time while the panel is going, plus the script for the emcee. As you move through your run-of-show, you can strike out rows as you complete them.

7. Leave WAY more buffer time than you think you need

At in-person events, you can communicate with presenters and attendees differently than online. If you need to cut back on something to keep yourself on time, it’s easy to pull someone to the side and let them know that. Online, not only are those sidebar conversations a little more challenging, but everything takes longer than you think by virtue of the built in delay in technology. A delay of a few seconds during every transition can add 15-20 minutes to your run-of-show, so you need to build in slightly longer breaks and allot a little extra time to each section just in case. This is also where your chat cheerleaders can come in handy to let the audience know about small, on-the-fly time adjustments as needed.

8. Don’t be afraid of silence

Without all the non-verbal cues we’re used to at in-person events, like eye contact, body language, even the way the energy in the room feels, it can be especially hard to let silence sit. When you create your run-of-show and do a practice test run, pay attention to your comfort level letting silence exist long enough for other people to engage and participate. This is an important but difficult skill, even in person—and it takes extra practice to master online.

9. Respect that sometimes less is more

There’s a pressure to “replace” in-person events with virtual versions of themselves, and to fit in all the same stuff we would usually do into a different format. Just because you can try to fit in an entire 8 hour day worth of content doesn’t mean you should. Being in front of a video screen for an entire day comes with its own challenges for participants, including things as simple as sitting in one place for that long. Give people grace and flexibility. Sometimes, less is more.

Take this opportunity to re-think some of your events. What is their purpose? How do you want participants to feel when they leave? One side effect of this global pandemic is that our default ways of doing “business as usual” are disrupted, giving us a moment to reconsider what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and why we’re doing it that way. Read up on a few resources for being more intentional in how you structure and run events.

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What are your best tips for running virtual events? Share them with us on Facebook.

Afraid to Talk About Sensitive Topics at Work? Read this Guide First

Mon, 03 Aug 2020 10:00:00 GMT

Imagine this: you are at a meeting where some colleagues are beginning to talk about a sensitive topic, such as race and racism in higher education. You know that there is a possibility of accidentally offending someone with your thoughts, so you decide it is better to stay silent— even though you have insights and ideas to share. You leave that meeting feeling slightly resentful that you weren’t able to participate.

We are living in a highly polarized time. As a result of not wanting to offend or be called out, some people prefer to keep their thoughts to themselves. But productive growth and learning cannot come from place of disengagement or fear—so how are people to thoughtfully participate when there is a possibility of causing harm or hurt? These seven steps provide a gentle guide for moving through "PC paralysis" and give you the tools to learn from mistakes related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

1. Do your homework

If you claim to care about a particular issue, it is important that you spend time learning about it. Research its history, its contemporary manifestations, and perspectives of those who have been marginalized. It is particularly important to do this work when you are someone coming from a place of privilege.

For example, a simple Google search on “history of racism in the United States” or “transphobic language” or “microaggressions” should yield some useful resources. You can also ask colleagues, friends, or other networks about books and articles that may be helpful for you to read, what documentaries and shows to watch, and what trainings or workshops you can register for. Robust participation in DEI-related conversations often requires some fluency in subject matters.

2. Lower your defenses

While it is never fun to be called out (or called in), being held accountable for an “oops” moment is an important part of learning. Try to notice what you do when you feel defensive. Do you go on the offensive to deflect attention? Do you completely shut down and disengage? When you go into a self-protective mode, are you able to hear perspectives that aren’t your own? How might you be able to prevent yourself from doing some of these things so that you position yourself for openness and growth?

3. Focus on impact, not intent

Sometimes, to protect ourselves, we overemphasize the purity of our intent with statements like “I never meant to say something hurtful,” or “I wasn’t trying to be sexist when I said…” or “You know me, I’m no racist.” But by understanding the differences between intent vs. impact, you can more readily position yourself to learn about things you hadn’t yet considered.

4. Accept responsibility

You are the greatest agent of change and growth in your own life. The best way to exercise the gift of agency when it comes to DEI is to accept responsibility for any harm or hurt you may have caused, regardless of the nature of your intention. Consider: if your intention was X, what external and internal factors could have led to negative impact Y? What are things you can do to prevent this from happening in the future?

5. Offer a genuine apology

Apologies can be incredibly generative. They demonstrate the desire for self-accountability and are an exercise of humility that can be refreshing amidst challenging conversations. A real apology shows that reconciliation is more important than one’s pride. Crafting and offering a simple but genuine apology can signal to people that you are willing to acknowledge your responsibility and have a desire to learn and grow.

6. Make a plan to learn

Now that you’ve gone through this cycle, you are likely able to identify what you want to learn more about. Perhaps you learned that you didn’t quite understand the nature of racial microaggressions and now you want to read more about it and participate in a training. Maybe you learned something about the relationship between your power/privilege and how much space you take up during a meeting. Once you have identified what you want to learn, you can then make a plan for your growth.

7. Rinse and repeat

Genuine DEI work requires a growth mindset. Humans are inherently complex and messy, and yet we are capable of incredible growth and change. One of the best ways to absorb new knowledge and apply it is through iteration.

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Do you have ideas on how to promote meaningful DEI engagement before, during, and after an “oops” moment? Let us know on Twitter!

How Older Job Seekers Can Increase Their Tech Savvy

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 10:00:00 GMT

As organizations switch to work-from-home models in the wake of COVID-19 and interviews, on-boarding, and professional development all continue to go virtual, technology has become an even more important piece of the job search puzzle.

While job seekers of all ages may struggle to keep up with the tech-centric "new normal" those in the 50+ demographic also deal with the ageist stereotype that older job searchers don’t have strong technological skill sets. To combat that cliche, you may consider brushing up or expanding upon your computer skills.

Getting more comfortable with essential technology can always help a job search, no matter what career stage you’re in. Here are some suggestions for easy ways to jump in.

Getting started on social media

For many organizations, social media is the new open-air marketplace where they showcase their work, announce changes, engage with a broader community, and share news relevant to the industry.

Whether or not you have a social media profile, it’s important to know how to navigate the most popular platforms. Most nonprofits have a Facebook page, and many have Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn accounts as well. You can usually find links to their social media profiles on their website.

Pro Tip: It is possible to browse content without creating an account yourself, but if you want to express active interest by following an organization’s page or commenting on a post, you’ll need an account of your own.

By following an organization on social media, you’ll get a feel for their culture and priorities and whether you’d find a mutual fit. Make a note of any posts that grab your interest, like an intriguing article about their work or photos from a new initiative. This might be something to mention in the interview stage to reinforce your shared values and show you’ve done your homework.

How actively should you engage with social media yourself? That depends on how relevant it is to your field—marketing and communications professionals, for instance, are expected to be pretty conversant in social media platforms. And if you post about your interests, passions, and goals, a potential employer has an opportunity to learn more about you as a candidate (bonus!).

While you don’t need to post a ton of personal updates (especially if that’s not your style), there is one exception. Your LinkedIn profile should be updated semi-regularly since it’s a virtual resume. One benefit of LinkedIn for older job seekers is that it highlights the time you spent at an organization, rather than the dates of your employment, putting the focus on your experience and expertise.

Finally, be sure that you understand how to manage account privacy settings, especially if you use social media frequently for personal communications. Most platforms let you choose the privacy level of information you share, so you don’t have to publicly post anything you’d rather not share with an employer.

Pro tip: If you “like” or follow an organization on social media, the platform will suggest other, similar pages for you to check out. It’s an easy way to discover more organizations and job opportunities in your wheelhouse.

Understanding how to use video conferencing tools

You’ve probably heard of (or used) the major conferencing software tools like Zoom or Google Meet, but don’t panic if your interview invitation includes a link to a platform you’ve never heard of before.

The key is preparation: download (or update) and test the platform at least a couple of days before the scheduled interview on the device you plan to use. Desktop or laptop computers and tablets are preferable for interviews, but a phone with video capabilities will work in a pinch.

You could enlist a friend or family member to have a video call trial run. Give yourself time to install any necessary software updates pre-interview.

Make sure your video screen is clear, not grainy or choppy, and that you can hear and be heard as clearly as possible. Audio is even more important than video on virtual conference calls. It might be worthwhile to invest in a small microphone if you’re concerned about audio quality.

Pro tip: If you don’t have a lot of internet bandwidth (for instance, if you share an internet connection with others), it’s harder to upload clear images. You can change your image settings to be a little lower-resolution—around 720p or pixels is fine—which may make the video run more smoothly.

Then present yourself confidently during the interview like you’ve been remote conferencing for years.

Get set up early so you can log in ASAP, right at the meeting start time (most conferences won’t let you log in any earlier).
Pick a spare background, like a white wall, to minimize any visual distraction.
Make eye contact with your interviewer(s) and pay attention to their visual cues, just as you would in an in-person meeting.
When you’re not speaking, mute your microphone to cut down on background noise.
When you are speaking, look into the camera and keep your voice at a normal volume. Take a breath after you finish a statement and give your interviewer(s) time to respond.

Updating your office software know-how

Microsoft Office Suite—including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access—is still the gold standard in most offices for day-to-day work. The software has been around in some form since 1989, but it has gone through a few changes.

You don’t always need the latest version of Microsoft Office (unless an organization specifically recommends it) but you should know the capabilities of the version you do have, especially for remote work. Your device will usually notify you when it’s time to install an update.

If you use another word processing program, find out if it’s compatible with Microsoft Office and if there will be any issues sending or receiving documents.

And if you’re thinking about upgrading your email from AOL, Yahoo, or another server, Microsoft Outlook is a solid professional choice, as is Gmail. It’s also smart to install an up-to-date web browser like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox if you can—they have better functionality than older browsers like Internet Explorer.

Pro tip: A Gmail account connects you to Google Drive, a platform many organizations use for file sharing. Fortunately, Google Drive is pretty easy to navigate.

Job seekers in fields with industry-specific software—like accounting, data analysis, and fundraising and development—should be aware of the latest versions that industry insiders are using. If the organization requires or prefers a candidate to be proficient in a software you’re not familiar with, don’t automatically rule yourself out. Instead, look up the software platform online and see if there are step-by-step tutorials for new users.

To learn more complex programs (or programs that come up in job descriptions often enough that you’ll almost certainly need to use them) it might be worth paying for an online course. You can mention this course on your resume as an example of ongoing professional development.

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Job searching as an older candidate can be tough, but stay confident. While new technology can be learned at any age, it’s no substitute for experience, commitment, and genuine passion for the job—let these features show as well.