11. The 6 Most Valuable Skills for School and Work
Episode 11
Have you ever wondered how some people seem to succeed in school or in work with hardly any effort? They ace the test or get the promotion and it just seems easy?
First things first: It’s definitely not easy. And second, it’s not intelligence that sets these achievers apart from the rest. Instead, it comes down to the SKILLS they have.
In this week’s episode of the Learn and Work Smarter podcast, I share the top 6 most valuable skills for school and work. I argue that these are the 6 skills with the most ROI, and if you’re looking to elevate your school or work performance, these are the skills you should invest in.
OTHER EPISODES MENTIONED
→ Episode 3: What's an Admin Block and Why You Need One for Productivity
→ Episode 5: How to Learn Things
→ Episode 7: Secrets of a Good Task Management System
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The following transcript was autogenerated and may contain some interesting and silly errors. But in the name of efficiency and productivity, I am choosing not to spend my time fixing them. :)
The 6 Most Important Skills for School and Work
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[00:00:00] Have you ever wondered how the kid at the top of the class seems to excel so effortlessly?
Have you ever looked across the table at a work meeting and wondered how your colleague got to be where they are when it feels like you are doing all the right things - for some reason just aren't moving forward.
Now comparing ourselves to others can be demoralizing and even dangerous at times.
But there's a time and a place to look at others for inspiration and dig into how it is that they seem to be operating at a different level.
Now with total confidence, I argue with that what makes a student, a top student or a working professional the best in their company is not intelligence.
Raw intelligence or how smart you are can only take you so far.
And in fact, having worked with thousands of students, In a one-to-one private capacity. I have seen some of the most intelligent students and work professionals not succeed.
And it's not because they [00:01:00] lack intelligence.
But because they lack one or more of the following six skills that I'm going to talk about in today's episode.
Now, if you really want to know how to get to the top, not the top, but your top, with the least amount of stress and the least amount of wrong turns, then you, my friend are in the right spot.
In today's episode, I'm sharing six of the most critical skills that students and working professionals need to excel in school and in work.
The more of the following six skills that you have the better.
And remember a skills can be taught. You can learn them, you can practice them. You can work on them over time. That is the beautiful nature of skills.
So let's begin.
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Now, the first skill that I argue has the biggest ROI or return on your investment is resourcefulness. And that is the ability to figure things out.
It's the ability to figure out what you don't know.
And then to figure out how to figure out what it is that you don't know.
I know that's a lot of figuring things out, but that's the whole idea behind resourcefulness.
Now the reason I put this skill as number one is because we are not going to have parents and teachers and professors and colleagues and bosses holding our hands going forward. And nor do we want to.
We are going to be told, or we are told to do our job. Whether you're a student or you are in the workforce, if you have a job to do, and you're told to do it, we need to show up and do our job.
Now, of [00:03:00] course, if you're new to something, there should be some sort of, um, guidance and some sort of mentorship that teaches you how to do that.
Right? Like if you're brand new to a job, you're going to have someone who shows you the ropes. If you're brand new to a class, you're going to have the teacher explain how things operate. But beyond that, the older we get, okay, so you're, you know, beyond elementary school here, the more that the reins are in your own hands.
And someone's just going to say, “do this thing.” And you need to figure out how to do that thing.
Or if you can't really figure it out on your own, you need to know who to go to and where to turn, to get that information. That is resourcefulness. And it is a superpower in school and in the workforce.
If you don't know how to work the laundry machines in your college dorm, figure it out. If you don't know how to make it to, you know, track practice on time when your econ class is halfway across campus, figure it out. You don't know how to let your boss know tactfully that your report is going to be late. Figure it out. Do you not know how to use the new software that [00:04:00] your company just rolled out for everybody to use?
Figure out how to figure it out.
All right. The second most valuable skill that I argue has the greatest return on your investment for students and for working professionals is time management.
So much of school and work depends on our ability to accurately assess where we're spending our time, how much time we do or don't have, and then how we're going to spend that time.
Now if you are in high school. Okay. Or when you were in high school, you only had a small chunk of time to manage. And those were the hours after school dismissal, so two or three o'clock, and then by the time you went to bed, so that's a small chunk of time in the scope of a 24-hour day.
So like three o'clock to 11 o'clock. Okay. Now when you're in college, your time management skills need to get a little bit stronger because there are classes not from, you know, eight to three every day, but they're sporadic. There are different days and different times throughout the week. So you have to get a little bit [00:05:00] more ninja with your time management skills in college.
Okay. Cause it's just more free time to manage that you have to spend doing important things.
Now, in the workforce, kind of similar. So many people are in an office from nine to five, and it's on you to manage those hours, those eight hours a day to get done the things that you need to get done.
For people who work from home time management can be a little trickier because you, you know, no, one's looking over your shoulder from nine to five. You're just expected to get those things done on your own time.
So if you're a student or working professional, you're working from home, you're working in the office, whatever you need to have some way to track your time, Google calendar, time-blocking, things like that.
If you're feeling overwhelmed and chaotic I had a whole episode on what to do when you're overwhelmed and time management is one of those strategies, but if you're starting to feel overwhelmed and out of control, look at how you're spending your time.
Because when you don't manage your time, that's when your stress goes up and your work in [00:06:00] school performance goes down.
So time management begins with making time visible. Time is abstract. Okay. And that's not helpful when we're trying to manage it. So the step number one to managing your time is to make it visible. How do we do that? With calendars.
In my online course SchoolHabits University, I have an entire module where I teach really high-impact time management skills.
These are the skills that you wish you had learned years ago because the negative impact of not having these skills is so severe.
Now, another side of time management involves recognizing if you're doing too much or perhaps sometimes it means we're actually not doing enough. When you have so much time in the day, or you don't even know where your time is going,
that's often when this stress kicks in.
So I teach how to do a time inventory in schoolhabits university, as well as, you know, nitty gritty time management skills like the Pomodoro technique [00:07:00] and the power hour and time-blocking and things like that.
But if you don't have solid time management skills in school or in your working life, you're going to find that so many other pieces in your life that don't even have to do with school and work don't operate the best that they can.
All right.
The third skill that I argue has the greatest impact for students and for professionals is task management.
Task management is a super valuable skill. And it's not one that's, you know, again, like a lot of these skills that I'm going over in today's episode, these aren't necessarily taught in school. I wish they were, but that's just not the way that our education system works.
We've got to have a way to keep track of our tasks and our projects, our status and progress on those tasks and projects as well as when they are due.
This is an absolutely basic school work and life skill that when it isn't in place, it can destroy your productivity and your school and work performance.
And to be honest, this is one of the ones that if you [00:08:00] don't have it in place, it can destroy your reputation because not having good task management -you know what I'd say the same for probably nearly all these skills too. Right? Um, I have, this is only the third one I've gone over, but so far for Resourcefulness and time management and task management. If you don't have those skills in place, they make us less credible because they decrease our ability to do our job.
Again, whether the job is being a student or being, you know, a working professional when we can't operate ourselves in a way that's functional and in a way that, you know, enables us to do what we're supposed to do. Then we don't become dependable and other people can't depend on us. And that directly impacts our reputation.
Now, I'm not going to dive too deep into the strategies for developing task management, this skill, because I just recorded a whole entire episode on task management. That is episode five and it's all about how to build a task management system that you can [00:09:00] customize depending on, you know, what your needs are.
In that episode, I share at the basics of task management systems.
And going back to SchoolHabits University, my online course module one, so the very foundational first module of the entire course of six modules, it's very robust. It's all about task management because that is the most critical thing to have in place that so many other pieces of our school and work lives depend on.
Knowing what you're doing and when you're doing it is essential.
Okay, moving on to the fourth skill with the greatest impact and the greatest return on our investment if you are a student or a working professional, is how to learn things.
Now if you've listened to more than one episode of the learn and work smarter podcast, if you have that's awesome. If this is your first episode, then you will hear me say it at the end of this episode. But I close out every episode with never stop learning. That is my tagline.
Why? Because in reality, [00:10:00] learning doesn't just happen in a classroom. The minute we stop learning that's the minute we die. I know that sounds so dramatic, but I stand by that. Right. If you're in in a job, unless it's a dead-end job, you're going to constantly be learning every time you meet a new person you're learning.
Anytime you, um, are given another responsibility in school or in work, you're learning.
So learning and study skills are essential for students. Yes, but they're also essential for working professionals. So in school, right? You need to learn content, social studies. Econ, ELA, foreign language, whatever it is. Okay. But knowing how to learn that stuff is where the magic is.
At work, you might need to learn new skills and new programs and maybe do some professional development.
Okay. And the things that you're learning are important. Yes. But how are you ever going to learn the content? Unless you know how to learn the content? There is a way to learn things. We don't just I look at [00:11:00] a book. We don't just look at a manual. We don't just listen to a presentation and then suddenly we learn it. That is not how the brain operates for better or worse, whether we like it or not.
That is not biologically, anatomically, chemically, neurologically, how learning works.
Now in episode seven, I will link everything of course, in the show notes or in the description box. If you are watching this on YouTube, but episode seven is called How to Learn Things. Okay. So I do teach the pillars of how to learn -there's active recall and space repetition.
Those are really, really important.
So how to learn or study skills is the biggest module in SchoolHabits University. That is where the juicy is the most, like, the most robust module of the entire course is how to learn things. Okay. And I have had working professionals make their way through SchoolHabits University, and provide the feedback that that was the most the most valuable module for them, even though they're out of school.
I market the course towards high school and [00:12:00] college students, but professionals have taken it and have been like, oh my gosh, I wish I had known this earlier. This is making my job easier.
And I'm just sharing that to prove the point that we don't ever stop learning and the skill of knowing how to learn things of how to take things that are outside of our brain and put them inside of our brain in a way that we can apply that knowledge. That is a valuable, valuable skill that will make you a critical employee.
And we'll help you perform your best in school.
If you are interested in SchoolHabits University, my online course, you can go to schoolhabitsuniversity.com.
I'm re-opening a limited-time re-enrollment period starting on March 7th. Okay. So depending when you are listening to this episode, if you go to schoolhabitsuniversity.com, you'll either be able to join the waitlist and I will notify you when the course does open again, like I said, the first week of March. Or if you were listening to this episode between March 7th and March 19th or [00:13:00] 18th will be my, uh, the end of my enrollment.
Then you can learn more there are enroll directly from schoolhabitsuniversity.com.
Okay, moving on to the fifth skill with the greatest impact.
Information management.
Okay. What does this mean? So in our school experience, in our work experience, in our very human experience that we call life, we are constantly bombarded with information. Some of it is useless and we don't need to retain it. Some of it is very important and it's critical to us doing our job in school, in the office, or as a human being, as we relate to others.
Okay. The ability to assess information for its value, to say, yes, I need to keep this. Or I don't need to keep this handy to do something with this. And the ability to have a practical way to store that information where you can access it easily later when you need it, that is a superpower. And that is what I mean by information management.
So when you receive [00:14:00] information, let's say from an email, from a conversation, from a teacher, from a colleague, from a phone call. Okay, where does that information go?
What do we do with information from emails?
Where do we store important things that relate to our, our car and our home and the people in our lives and, and our job and, and in our school.
Where do we store information that we need to remember about people? Right? Because information management in terms of people is related to the relationships that we have.
Right. And remembering somebody's birthday, remembering, um, that somebody has an important surgery coming up or, you know, remembering the name of someone's dog, or maybe knowing that someone's pet passed away and then getting their address to mail them a card.
Remembering to follow up with someone on a conversation that you had with them earlier. All of this is information that comes at us in our day to day, and we need the ability to assess: is it worth keeping and if so, where are you going to store it?
Also, this would be like [00:15:00] reference materials for school and work things that you don't need, you know, to have on your fingertips every single day.
But, um, this is a really basic example and this probably isn't relevant to like anyone listening to this episode, maybe. I don't know, but like, Let's say you're a scientist. This is a really basic example. But like your periodic table, that would be like a reference material that you don't need to look at every single day. But you should probably have one and you should probably know where it is for when you need it.
Okay. So what is your equivalent of the periodic table?
Digital organization. Do you have a naming convention, for organizing and storing your digital files? Do you have any system for storing your digital files? What about paper? What about things at home? Do you have a paper management system?
When you get a piece of paper in your hands, do you know where it goes? Do you have a place for it? When you say to yourself, oh, I need that piece of paper that's related to whatever or digital file or whatever. Do you know where to go to access it?
Okay, this is all part of being able to manage information and it's an essential skill if you're a [00:16:00] student or a working professional.
Now in episode three, it's called what's an admin block and why you need one for your productivity, I do talk more about information management and a system for keeping track of it, and for making sure that like your life administration, which involves, you know, information management to making sure that those tasks, if it's not just information, but if there's tasks related to the information, right, making sure that that gets done. So again, I will leave all the links in the show notes and in the description box.
Okay, so the final skill that has the most dramatic highest impact. If we have this skill locked in place. And it's the last one in the list, number six, but it's by no means the least important. It is communication.
Now the ability to communicate clearly and effectively is important in all areas of life.
Good communication involves the ability to speak and write concisely so that other people understand us.
It also involves the ability to actively listen to what other people are saying [00:17:00] while monitoring our own comprehension of what it is that they're saying.
And lastly, good communication involves knowing how to work with others and knowing how to tactfully agree and disagree in group discussions and in meetings.
Now good communication is essential in school and work because it connects you to others, it enables cooperation. And it is a primary means of self-advocacy.
If you can't express yourself clearly, how will other people know what we need? Right.
So here are some ideas of what these are just examples, but of what good communication could look like.
Writing clear and concise emails that deliver information or ask specific questions.
Also responding to emails on time. Being able to ask for help when you're confused and being able to be really specific in phrasing your questions so that you get the exact specific help that we need.
Delivering presentations either to a class or to a meeting, clearly [00:18:00] slowly with the right tone, with the right volume.
Producing written material that gets your message across whether that's a work proposal, a work report, an essay. And then being responsive to key figures.
So that would be, um, bosses, teachers, colleagues, peers, advisors counselors, mentors. Okay. So being responsive, whether that is through verbal communication or through written communication.
Being able to make a phone call and be clear on the other end of the line. Okay. So these are just examples of what good communication could look like in the workforce or in school.
Now a quick recap of the six skills that I just listed.
Okay. Are resourcefulness or the ability to figure things out. Time management. Number three was task management. Number four was how to learn things or how to study. Number five: information management and number six, [00:19:00] communication. Now these are by no means the only six skills required to be successful.
Okay. I'm going to guess you know that. Now I have a few others that didn't make the cut on my list cause I wanted to keep this episode relatively reasonable in length. Okay. But also on my list, if I could make this list go forever would be emotional intelligence. Stress management. Executive functions. Concentration and focus.
Yes. That can be a skill that can be improved. Even if you have ADHD. Concentration and focus can be improved. Self-awareness. And then healthy habits, like the ability to care for your mind and your body. I would say those are, I mean, if you're not healthy physically or mentally, how are you going to be a good employee? How are you going to show up to class? Right? So all of these things together make a constellation of a healthy, productive, highly efficient human who can do their job.
Now remember all of the links that I've mentioned in the show today are in the show notes, or they're also in the description box if you were watching this on YouTube. That [00:20:00] includes a link to SchoolHabitsUniversity.com, where you can learn more about my online course that teaches all of this stuff. And more.
And again, that's opening for a limited time in early March.
Also remember you can submit your questions for me to answer on my monthly Q and A episodes at LearnAndWorkSmarter.Com, which is the website for this podcast. There's a form on the home page. You can submit a question there and I will answer your question on a future Q and A episode.
And then of course, lastly, remember the most important thing is to never stop learning
