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What's Your Work Style?
Style isn't just about your choice of footwear. Your personal style extends
beyond your wardrobe to your workplace. It's called your "work style," and it's
the way you present and carry out your work.
If you're like most people, your work style could use a little pizzazz. Maybe
you could use a little help with organization. Or perhaps it's your
presentation skills that need a makeover. Once you've identified your personal
work style, and identified your strengths and weaknesses, you can begin to
gather the tools you need to transform your work style.
Defining Your Personal Work Style Different people have different
work styles. A style that works for one person may be an awkward fit for
someone else. See if you can identify which of these three categories best
describes your unique work style:
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Uncompromising Work Style-You tackle your tasks in a methodical manner and
value organization and efficiency. But you may have trouble responding quickly
to unexpected problems.
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Expressive Work Style-You like to concentrate on specific aspects of style at
the expense of other tasks-for example, you may have a highly developed system
of storage, but you pay less attention to day-to-day organization. So you may
sometimes work longer hours than necessary because you didn't take the time to
first prioritize your daily tasks.
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Practical Work Style-You take a no-frills approach, concentrating on quality
and content rather than organization or presentation. You may have a system
that works for you, but no one else can understand it.
No one work style is better or worse than any other. Focus on assessing where
you're at now and understanding what work style is comfortable for you. If
you're not sure which category you fall into, take this
work style finder survey to discover what work style works for you.
Once you've determined your work style, use the following exercises to evaluate
your current organization, production, storage and presentation styles:
Analyzing Your Organizational Style Make a five-column worksheet on
a piece of paper, naming the columns Work Task, Length of Time, Improve Time,
Tools, Home.
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In the Work Task column, write down a list of all the things you do in a
typical day.
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In the Length of Time column, write how long it takes you to do each task.
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In the Improve column, put an "x' next to any tasks that take longer to
complete than you think they should.
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Under the Tools column, make a list of any tools or materials you use to
perform each task, such as a Professional
View-Tab® Binder, Notebook,
or Folio.
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And finally, in the Home column, write down where you put your work when you
are finished.
Managing Your Workflow On a blank piece of paper, draw a flow chart
for each of your work tasks. Follow these four guidelines to create your chart:
1. Use different shapes to represent different elements in the flow. (For
example, rectangles represent departments, squares represent documents, etc.)
2. Give each shape a name-the name of a person, a job title, a type of
document. 3. Write the task step under each object that does something. (For
example, "reviews and edits copy.") 4. Use arrows to show the direction in
which tasks move. You can create a flow chart for practically every task in
your workday so you'll be able to see the number of steps it takes to complete
any activity.
Keeping Track of Your Information A good storage system is
essential if you want to be organized. You can save so many hours when you know
where to look for a piece of information. Storage solutions include:
*If you're not sure what type of binder would work best for you, use this handy
tool to
choose the right binder for you.
Presenting Your Presentations On a clean sheet of paper, create two
columns so you can assess your approach to presentations.
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In the first column, write down the type of materials you present.
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In the second column, write down how you typically present each item.
Now that you've determined your personal work style and dug a little deeper to
see how your work style is working for you, you're ready to move on. You're
ready to transform your work style.
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