As more and more firms extend their Christmas closing hours, it can feel like you’ve been out of the office forever. Lots of people feel a bit blue in January. Summer holidays are a while away, the excitement of Christmas and new year are over, it’s cold and dreary and you have a nasty cough – although maybe that last bit is just me.
Don’t be downhearted though. January needn’t be all doom and gloom. See it as a fresh start – a time to set yourself new challenges and deal with things that you have been putting off for ages. 2011 could be the year that you stop procrastinating and get on with things. Make it the year that you make things happen.
Firstly, catch up with your emails from over the festive period and make a concerted effort to file away those you need to keep and delete any unwanted messages. Then make a to-do list and actually DO the things on it. That means calling that really annoying girl in accounts who has been asking you for invoicing details for months. Suck it up, it won’t be as bad as you think.
Dig out last year’s appraisal form and check what was set as your goals for the year. Have you achieved them? Have you even *started* to achieve them? Now’s the time for a plan of action. Set the wheels in motion – book relevant training courses, speak to your manager about taking on extra responsibilities, brainstorm with colleagues to come up with new and inventive ways of keeping costs down. Make sure you there will be no reason not to promote you or give you a pay rise this year.
Most people spend a fair few hours at work so it’s important that you want to be there. One of the easiest ways to enjoy your work is to be friends with the people you work with. If you’re not a naturally social person try and push your boundaries a little by arranging to go for a drink with some colleagues, and offering to help them out if they have a heavy work load. Having friendly, encouraging colleagues can do wonders to lift your mood.
If you have been bumbling along in your job for ages and are bored, do something about it. You shouldn’t be dreading going back to work after the Christmas break so if you found yourself having to drag yourself into the office, now’s the time to look for a new role. After the austerity measures of last year many companies are loosening their purse strings and are hiring again, so polish up your CV, brush up your interviewing techniques and start reading the job ads.
