- Pay more attention to your career and focus, because time is finite
- Take control of what you can: be more proactive, and try to plan and take on more impactful projects, which will usually have high visibility, and promote yourself
- Understand what is expected of you to be able to get promoted to the next level
- Work with your manager to understand his expectations along the way
- Avoid “snacking” if possible, but this cannot be avoided all the time, maybe set aside at least 10-20% of your time to work on impactful projects
- Find the balance between these 3: the things you are passionate about, things you are good at, and also things that are impactful to the company at the same time
- Double down on your goals (as well as the 3 things above) and don’t get distracted by other people’s achievements or the trending shiny things
- Double down, can make you become the go-to person, which will get you promoted
The idea of finding the overlap between these three areas strongly resonated with me: "1) Team or company impact. 2) What you’re good at. 3) What you’re passionate about."
In my case as a product designer, the one area that overlaps in these three is Prototyping.
In the teams I've been at, for some reason things accommodate in a way in which I become "the designer that prototypes", and I use this for visibility, for demos, and for challenging assumptions.
This area is not for everyone, and it's not the only way to grow your career as a designer, but it's the one that has consistently been impactful for mine.
Great article, rich of wisdom 🧠
Glad you liked the article!
My summarization of key points:
- Pay more attention to your career and focus, because time is finite
- Take control of what you can: be more proactive, and try to plan and take on more impactful projects, which will usually have high visibility, and promote yourself
- Understand what is expected of you to be able to get promoted to the next level
- Work with your manager to understand his expectations along the way
- Avoid “snacking” if possible, but this cannot be avoided all the time, maybe set aside at least 10-20% of your time to work on impactful projects
- Find the balance between these 3: the things you are passionate about, things you are good at, and also things that are impactful to the company at the same time
- Double down on your goals (as well as the 3 things above) and don’t get distracted by other people’s achievements or the trending shiny things
- Double down, can make you become the go-to person, which will get you promoted
Great article filled with lessons. Thank you for including my post!
Thank you!
Amazing article, Ben and thanks so much for mentioning my article!
Loved the visuals you made for the snacks especially. I think that image will be stuck in my head for awhile.
I also gave this article a shout-out in my most recent article
Thank you! you're too kind! Also the visual came from Ryan from developing dev from a prior article
Great advice on this article, thanks for sharing.
The idea of finding the overlap between these three areas strongly resonated with me: "1) Team or company impact. 2) What you’re good at. 3) What you’re passionate about."
In my case as a product designer, the one area that overlaps in these three is Prototyping.
In the teams I've been at, for some reason things accommodate in a way in which I become "the designer that prototypes", and I use this for visibility, for demos, and for challenging assumptions.
This area is not for everyone, and it's not the only way to grow your career as a designer, but it's the one that has consistently been impactful for mine.