On 3rd October 2018, I completed two years in my first job as a researcher at NEC Corporation Japan. Super-excited and energetic with new dreams and a little anxiety I moved to Japan. Over this transformational period, I learnt very valuable and practical lessons related to professional life through my experiences, colleagues, friends and self-analysis. In this post, I want to summarize of all those key lessons which I truly admire and want to keep in my attitude always.

  1. Never show your weakness in office (atleast not verbally). Instead highlight your signature strengths in all the assigned tasks.
  2. Try to make good and genuine friends but do not indulge in flattering.
  3. Embrace disagreement, try to think from the perspective of the other person and negotiate.
  4. Never take your bad mood to office. Have some transition time/break before office to fade away that sad face.
  5. Dress well. It boosts your energy.
  6. Do not waste time in pleasanteries (especially with familiar people) and get straight to the point.
  7. Make connections across different departments.
  8. Health first! Stop outsourcing your happiness to people and situations.
  9. Keep your workplace organized and clean- files, codes, shared information, important documents, office memos. Create a logical structure of your folders and files.
  10. Manage your time well- project timeline, reply to colleagues, meetings, decision-making etc.
  11. Dedicate some time each day to learn something new in your field and stay updated with news.
  12. Be a leader. Be proactive to ideate and take initiatives.
  13. Be a good human, human > profit. Everybody is going to remember what type of person you are and not your PPT’s.
  14. Enjoy the process and not just the achieved goal. Focus on everyday growth. Celebrate small successes and retrospect briefly on mistakes. But do not dwell too much and be a little detached with success and failures as these are temporary. Just keep on moving forward.
  15. Know the responsibilities of your job and important of your work. Define your goals very clearly. Always ask ‘how can you step up the ladder?’
  16. Do not react to people and situations but choose to respond. Remember it is completely your choice that how you project yourself to the world. Nobody can make you feel important or horrible unless you allow.
  17. Leave office on time and have a great life outside office as well. Explore your hobbies, join meetups, talk to family/friends, study something different. Don’t be so exhausted in work that you don’t enjoy your life. After all you are not born to just work but also to have fun. Be balanced!
  18. Use dedicated time slots for each activity to enhance productivity. Focus is the key. Club similar tasks together and finish them at one go.
  19. Minimize your everyday decision making. Set separate time slots for making decisions or thinking deeper.
  20. Be very clear about ‘So what’ before starting any work. Define goal (in terms of time/performance) before starting any work.
  21. Create a log of your achievements, learnings and ideas.
  22. Don’t get stuck in a problem. Be a problem solver and make your way out of the chaos as fast as you can.
  23. Keep a planner for the entire year to plan and track your goals, habits, achievements and anything you want to log.
  24. Do check all your organizational systems per month.
  25. First clearly define your goal and milestones and then start any development/implementation.
  26. Start things passionately with a vision in mind and also complete them beautifully.