Whether you find yourself in an unexpected job search or you’re facing the first quarter’s performance review season, trying to remember your accomplishments, accolades, and achievements can be a challenge. Despite the plethora of organization and productivity tools (here are some good ones), there’s always one tool that rises to the top for me: Notion.
You may be familiar with using Notion to keep track of work projects, but Notion can give you time to breathe, reflect, and track things that get lost in the haystack of a year (learn more about Notion here).
Why Notion?
For years I relied on uploading my thoughts and files to Google Drive and no matter how I named the file or thought I saved it, I often found myself getting lost in the maze of file structures when trying to pull up a document or past version of my resume. When I started using Notion to house my documents and thoughts, I fell in love with its visual representation: it was like having my own personal intranet. Templates, pages, toggle lists, and icons really helped me easily track, store, and organize important documents. This easy-to-use filing system is a great way to keep track of important career milestones. Here are some easy ways to leverage Notion to help you organize your career:
1. Keep Track of Kudos
Keeping a roster of “pats on the back” not only lifts you up on a rough day; keeping track of these kudos outside of your company-issued inbox ensures you will always have access to these kind words even if your inbox is shut off without any warning. Build a Kudos Page on Notion, then cut and paste not just the text, but the sender’s name and email address. You never know if you’ll need that information to support a future search.
2. (Don’t) Reinvent the Wheel
Nothing is more de-motivating than trying to update your resume and staring at a flashing cursor blinking on a blank page. Go through your inbox and find as many offer letters, past job descriptions, and performance reviews as you can find and upload them to Notion. There’s no need to reinvent the verbiage to your professional accomplishments. Using the words describing what you were hired to do and simply giving them your own flair is certainly a lot easier than recreating from scratch. With Notion you can organize job descriptions either in one big category or create a category for each company you’ve been employed with.
3. Remember the Small Wins
“Small” projects like organizing a company-wide team building event in May can be forgotten about in December. Building Notion into your process to track contracts, documents, and kudos helps ensure that wins (no matter how small) get logged and tracked. As you start or get redirected to a new project, log your achievements in your Notion page.
4. Create Space
Carving out time for your professional growth can feel daunting (and expensive). Notion is a great (and free!) way to carve out safe space to log ideas, search for inspiration, and just be. When we spend our days producing, we can feel as if we’re only as good as what we last did. Using Notion as a repository to log our past and current successes gives us a launch pad that is of our own creation. Important notes, contacts, and documents all living in one place certainly takes some professional housekeeping pressure off while building a repository of your career.
5. Be Smart
As our personal and professional lives continue to blend with hybrid or remote working, it’s important to remain vigilant in your use of company-issued hardware and software licenses. Review IT policies and NDA clauses prior to downloading projects or portfolio pieces. Be mindful about taking screen shots, emailing to your personal email address, and sharing files with your personal hardware. A seemingly innocent move of backing up your project to your iPad may breach confidentiality agreements.
With our LinkedIn feeds constantly churning with news of layoffs both locally and nationally, the feeling like you need to get your stuff together can be stifling. Remembering to breathe and think about what you can control helps you stay calm and focused during this time of uncertainty. Nothing is a safety net, but Notion certainly is a way to ensure a safe landing. If you find yourself feeling uncertain and want a friendly team in your corner, reach out to me and the team at Elevation Talent Group—we’re here to help you navigate your next step.
