Your Personal Working Style

Everyone has their own working style, hence why it’s called a personal working style. When this becomes an issue is when you’re working together with other people, collaborating or as a team, and you have different working styles. We’re going to teach you how to understand your own working style, and how to use it to your advantage and cultivate the perfect productive environment!

Before you even consider trying to identify someone else’s, you first need to understand what your working style is. Do you like music in the background? Do you like to work in complete silence? Are you someone who can’t for the life of you, work at home? Do you thrive working from your couch?

We’re going to unpack these questions and more using something that all, if not most, of us should be familiar with by now.

The five senses.

Who

Who do you like working with? Are you someone that likes to work alone, or do you find that working in teams is better for you because you have a buddy to tackle the project together?

If you’re someone who thrives working alone, this is okay! You can still work in a team, but what you need to do is identify what work can be done alone. If there isn’t anything jumping out at you right away, don’t be afraid to speak up! Tell your teammates that you are someone that works better alone, and brainstorm how you can achieve the task on your own, yet still collaborate together. Whether this means you both work on it and have a set date each part needs to be done by, or just working in separate rooms but having a chat box or messenger open.

What

What type of work do you like doing? If you specialize in one particular field, but you’ve been given a project that is something totally different, how do you approach this?

Understanding what you like to work on and what type of work you aren’t a fan of, is a good starting point, especially if you’re on the job hunt. This way you can tell employers what you’re best at and what type of work you’re looking for, instead of taking a job and finding out later that you actually don’t like the types of projects you’ve been given.

If you know ahead of time what work you enjoy doing, you can let your supervisor or boss know. They might be able to accommodate your request and give you projects that suit your personal working style. Beware though, you aren’t always going to be able to work on just one type of project, and sometimes accommodations based on preferences aren’t attainable. Being flexible and able to adapt to work demands is a strong skill and one that takes quite a bit of patience to achieve.

When

Are you a morning person? Do you prefer to sleep in and work during the night? If you’re starting a new job, or if you’re joining a team at work, it’s a good idea to let your team know when you are most productive during the day. This way if you need to have any meetings or if there are specific deadlines, your teammates or your boss knows that they don’t need to stress out when the work isn’t done during that afternoon because you’ll likely get to it that night.

What’s important to consider is if you’re actually productive during these times or if you just don’t want to miss out on sleeping in (night owl) or your 6pm spin class (morning person). If you’re using this as a way to avoid changing your lifestyle to fit your work, this job or career might not be suitable for you. At this time, you should re-evaluate your goals and what’s most important to you.

Where

Where do you find yourself the most productive? Is it at home, at a cafe, or in your office? Knowing where you are able to work the most efficiently is a great way to understand your personal working style. If you prefer to work in a cafe and watch people go by as you complete projects, maybe you’re someone who prefers to work with background noise and with others.

If you are put on a team, or work in an environment where you have to work alongside other professionals, knowing where you work best is a good way to set up meeting times, collaborate effectively and get work done.

Why/ How

Why do you do a certain type of work? Understanding and analyzing your goals is important to gain motivation and continue working. If you lose motivation or lose the energy to get certain things done, you can always come back to this again. Sometimes people just need to set new goals or be reminded why they’re in a certain industry, and this gives them all the motivation they need to get the job done.

For how, this is something that sort of blankets what we’ve been talking about this whole time. Knowing how you operate best in a work environment is crucial for establishing relationships, propelling your career and becoming as productive as possible