3 great practices to grow outside of work, at work
The struggle to balance our work with our personal life is a struggle for all. Some have achieved it by strict rules for themselves; others just can’t seem to get the hang of it. In the midst of constantly being pressured to deliver outputs and spending time with family or recreations, this crucial factor for success gets lost. We usually forget to cater to personal growth. Let me tell you what I mean by personal growth.
How often have you had thoughts like –
1. I should learn a new skill …
2. I should create a blog …
3. I should read more …
And such.
In our daily hustle with work we tend to pile up such thoughts, postponing them for later days when we have a bit more free time. For some it’s the weekend, maybe the end of the current project. The fact remains that we don’t spring into action with them.
Everyone knows these activities are more important for our overall growth and our careers. If you’re interested in them, chances are they belong to the field of your career or you can incorporate them into your work. But we still wait for a more opportune moment to work on ourselves. Through this article, I would like to shine some light on some inner workings that we on our US team at RingCentral.
With a great team culture and strong leadership in the RingCentral UX Team, we have gradually adopted three practices to create a stronger portfolio outside of work. To provide incentives, we have added these tasks to our quarterly goals! This means I can work on myself as a part of my deliverables, and then use those skills to improve the quality of my deliverables. Talk about a win-win situation.
1. Medium articles
The first goal we set for ourselves is to write Medium articles, just like the one you are reading now! We started this practice about one year ago in January of 2019. Each one of us motivated each other to write 1 medium article per quarter about a UX related topic. We chose to write on a wide range of topics, from core UX Concepts to team dynamics, to the Design Process and many others. Our hope is the UX Designers in our workplace and others over the world would benefit from what we have learnt.
Benefit
1. We each now have a minimum of 4 Medium articles under our belt on topics we feel we are confident writing about.
2. We create an individualistic online presence on a well-known and respected platform such as Medium.
3. Promote a strong team spirit by creating and publishing under a common publication.
4. Learning more and writing about concrete ideas to spread knowledge in our own words. Afterall communication is key for UX.
5. Gaining confidence by making our voice heard. Office chat networks can get filled with chatter, to be ignored by most. But Medium allows the right people to be exposed to the articles we write.
2. Patents
Filing Patents is in no way a simple task, which demotivates most people from even considering filing for them. We hold ourselves at a high expectation for what qualifies for a Patent.
However, what we fail to notice is that we all have great ideas while doing our jobs. And a lot of them are eligible for patenting. If any idea that you come up with excites you, consider researching online for a similar solution, if you can’t find any, patent it! If you came up with the idea, you’re already brilliant! Make use of it. Don’t let a lack of motivation or fear of paperwork stop you from fame and the credit you deserve!
Benefits
1. As we intentionally spend time on this, we are more motivated to come up with new ideas and submit requests.
2. If the patent request is approved, we achieve the credit we deserve.
3. By filing requests, there will not be any missed opportunities.
4. The more you are in the patenting game, the more credibility you gain as an individual.
3. Team building events
No team can function optimally from the get-go. A strong team spirit needs to be honed before they can be successful, streamlined, and collaborative. To achieve this, we plan fun team building events every quarter where we spend time doing an activity together. Spending time with the team outside work helps us in learning more about each other, and more important, how to work with each other. Sometimes we spray paint, sometimes we make chocolates, and sometimes we even walk on ropes! All events always end with a meal and a happy hour! :D
Benefits
1. This makes the team more open to one another
2. We learn about each other, outside of work
3. Collaboration becomes smoother
Conclusion
We accomplish these activities as a team, to ensure we’re not alone in this pursuit. We help, give feedback, and on many occasions, even create support groups to help each other to succeed in these goals. At the end, we create a stronger, a more complete portfolio for each one of us.
What other such activities that help promote individual and mutual growth do you have at your workplaces?
