Hello and welcome to another episode of the Working Conversations podcast where we talk all things leadership, business, communication and the future of work. I'm your host, Dr. Janel Anderson.

When was the last time you set aside just 10 minutes in your day not to answer emails, not to crank through your to do list, but to look ahead at where your industry, your profession, your role, your organization is headed? Now, if you're like most busy professionals, your answer might be never. Here's the thing. Future proofing your career and your organization doesn't require a crystal ball or a major reinvention overnight. What it really takes is a series of small, intentional daily habits, tiny actions that compound over time to help you stay relevant, informed and ready for whatever is coming next. So in today's episode, I'm going to share five practical microhabits that you can weave together into your daily routine.

By the end of this episode, you will have a simple playbook for how to spend just a few minutes a day future proofing your career and being ready to lead your organization or your team in these tumultuous times. Ready? Let's dive in.

Now, why does this matter in the first place? Let's start with that. According to research from the World Economic Forum, the average half life of a learned skill today is about five years. Okay, so what exactly do we mean by half life? Well, let me break down the concept of a half life for you. The half life in this case related to workplace skills. The half life of a skill is the idea that a workplace's skills usefulness is going to diminish over time. Specifically, the term refers to the time it takes for the value of a learned skill to diminish by half due to changes in technology, market needs or other factors.

Now, it used to be the case, according to the World Economic Forum, that skills had a 30 year half life. So it would take 30 years for the value of that skill to diminish by half. Now, when you think of some basic workplace skills, say, knowing how to use word processing software like Microsoft Word or spreadsheet software like Excel, or even customer service skills, well, the half life again, used to be 30 years. And when you think of word processing, well, until AI showed up on the scene recently, word processing was word processing. Whether you used Google Docs or Ms. Word, the tool was the tool. And if you knew the skill, the skill was useful. And you could adapt from Microsoft Word to Google Docs and other word processing software relatively easily because you knew the skill.

So the skill was useful on average for about 30 years. As the diminishing return as so for about 30 years, the skill was useful. And over that 30 years, it shrunk. The usefulness shrunk by half. Now, again, highly generalized example here. Now, sure, new features get added all the time to word processing software, but if you have the skill, you can adapt to those feature changes pretty easily. Okay, but let's go back to this big change that is afoot now. The half life is reported to be more like five years.

So five years before, a skill's usefulness has been reduced by half 3. And for technical and digital skills, that half life can be even shorter. It can be closer to two or three years. So that's part of the big picture of why this is so important, because things are changing so rapidly. The skills that you had a few years ago are not necessarily the skills that you're going to need a few years from now. Now you might just be thinking, well, Janel, I can just learn what I need as I need it, just in time model. And sure, there's some truth to that, but here's another take on it.

By the time you realize you need that knowledge or those connections or whatever it is, it might already be too late. Because somebody else who's been thinking ahead and taking action on getting ahead has already taken the action, made the connections, and is in the place that you want to be. Well ahead of the time that you are in that place that you want to be. And that's what we're talking about right now. I want you to be reskilling and upskilling like it is part of. And that's why we're talking about this right now. I want you to be reskilling and upskilling like it is part of your job description, even if it isn't. Because for most of you, it isn't.

Because that's what's going to keep you relevant and ahead of the curve, whether you're managing your own career or managing a multimillion dollar budget with hundreds or thousands of people on the payroll. Okay, deep breath. The real power comes from being proactive, not reactive. It's about seeing the early signals before they become storms, something I talk about extensively in my keynote. Expect the unexpected. And the best part, you don't need to overhaul your life to do this. You don't need to overhaul your job to do this. You don't need to overhaul your organization to do this.

You just need a few daily habits. And by all means, you do not need a crystal ball. And even if you had one I don't think it would accurately predict the future for you. So let's talk about these five daily habits that I want you to put in place to help future proof your career, your organization, your life. All right, let's break them down. We'll start with the first one. Habit number one, be aware of what's happening broadly in your industry. So I want you to get in the regular habit.

This could take five minutes or less a day and scan industry headlines. Now you don't need to read all the articles that you've come across, but I want you to know what's generally happening across your career. So carve out those five minutes a day to skim headlines skills to get those updates in your field. Now, you might subscribe to one well curated newsletter in your field or your industry. You might scan industry blogs, you might listen to a short form daily podcast that covers what's happening in your industry for you. You might even use AI to help you stay on top of this. So you could set up either a Google alert or if you are reasonably well skilled at some of the newer AI tools, you could have one of those AI tools check the daily headlines for you and send you a single email once a day with the top headlines in your industry in it. And if you're wondering, oh, how would I go about doing that, you could just ask whichever your platform of choice, AI platform of choice is for the instructions on how to do that.

So you could just write a prompt that says something like, I would like the top headlines delivered to my inbox in a single email every day. And my industry is consumer finance, specifically credit unions. And then you would ask as part of your prompt, what other information do you need for me in order to set this up? And then you could basically be in dialogue with your AI tool on getting the, you know, the fine tuning of exactly what you want to show up in that in that email to your inbox every single day. You could also use, as I think I mentioned, Google Alerts, which is a little bit more of a low tech solution, or there are some news aggregators, there's a bunch of different ones out there. Feedly, for example, is one of them. And they will do some of this for you. They have some of this already built out, you just put in your industry and so forth. Now the goal here isn't to read everything in detail, it is to maintain a steady pulse on what's happening in your career.

Now my wish for you is that some of those Headlines are provocative enough and interesting enough that you are going to click through and read the actual article, because that's where some of the real power of this comes. But if you don't even know what's happening at a headline level, you don't know to click in and read the article. So we want to get you at headline level first and then again follow your curiosity where it takes you from those headlines and read occasionally and as time permits. All right, so that is habit number one, scanning your industry headlines five minutes a day.

Habit number two. I call this micro networking. So if you've heard me talk about networking before, and I do have a program that I do for organizations and a lot of times at conferences, I'll do this as a kickoff event where people will get a chance to get to know each other a little bit better and expand their networks. So if you've heard me talk about networking before, you know how important I think it is.

Here's where it gets interesting. Networking sometimes can feel like a dirty word or something that's, you know, just unpleasant to do or worse yet, superficial and manipulative. But that's not the way I see networking. I see networking as just growing your expansiveness of people that you can help now in turn, they're probably going to help you at some point. This is very much a pay it forward model that I take. But your network is only valuable if the people in it remember who you are. So I want you to just once a day reach out to somebody in your network. Either to just simply say hey, was thinking about you. You crossed my mind today. Just wanted to pop in your inbox and say hello. Or it could be in that industry scan of headlines you find an article that somebody else might appreciate. People love it when you send them something, especially when it is something that is useful to them. So read this article. Thought of you because this is so relevant to the work that you do. Just in case you hadn't seen it yet, here you go. So just dedicating a minute or two each single day to reach out to one person in your network.

And again, that could be as simple as sending a quick check in text or email to a former colleague or even a current colleague that you don't see that often, or somebody that you met at a networking event or an industry conference, commenting thoughtfully on somebody's LinkedIn post or maybe congratulating somebody on a career milestone. Now why does this matter? Well, again, if you've heard me speak on networking before, you probably know what my answer is. But one of the pieces of research that I love to talk about in my networking talk is Mark Granovetter's classic research on the strength of weak ties. And what sociologist Mark Granovetter tells us is that the people that we know best are perhaps the least useful in networking in terms of making new connections and learning new things. Because the people that we know best, by and large know the same things and the same people that we know. But it is our weak ties, those people that we don't know as well, who might be the most strategic pieces of our network. Because they know different people than we do and they know different things than we do. So when we're looking to learn something or meet somebody or get a connection somewhere, it is those people that we know the least who in fact might be of the most strategic value to us.

Now, again, because we don't want to come across as using people or as being manipulative, it's really important that we be proactive in nurturing that network so that when we do need something from somebody, it's not like we're just asking for things we've already been giving and giving and giving. Okay, so again, it's not your closest contacts that open up the most opportunities. It's those looser, more peripheral connections. Think about it is like your second degree connections on LinkedIn. Not the people that you know, but the people who know them. It's quite easy to get an introduction to somebody through someone who already knows that person. Now, keeping these kinds of connections alive makes you more plugged into emerging trends. Job openings.

Even if you don't want the job opening, you might notice a job opening and you know somebody else who might be interested in that or might be a good fit. And then you're plugging those things together. And again, that's how I conceive of networking. So when you're taking this one or two minutes per day to reach out to a connection, always be thinking about how can I be of service? How can I be proactive in creating something for them? Because again, I'm a big fan of the idea that what comes around goes around. And when you put out the good juju in your network, it is likely to come back to you. Maybe not in the way you expected and maybe not in the timeframe that you expected. But when you can keep those network connections strong, it is going to position you much better for the future. All right, so that habit number two is micro networking. Just one connection a day. It only takes a couple of minutes to Just keep that connection strong.

All right, Habit number three, Reflect on what you've learned. And I think you can do this in two minutes a day. At the end of the workday, pause for just a moment or two and ask yourself, what surprised me today? What went differently than I expected today, and what did I learn today? Now, it doesn't have to be exactly those three questions, but just that moment of pausing and reflecting and really taking inventory of anything that surprised you. Because these mini reflections build what researchers call adaptive expertise, that is the ability to spot patterns and apply lessons flexibly. So this is what helps us be so well positioned for changes in the marketplace, in our careers and our industries, and in the world writ large. If we're not taking a moment to reflect, we're going to miss those changes and patterns.

We're going to miss those little disruptions, that little bit of noise that is happening in our world. We're just not going to catch it and we're not going to see the significance of it. So I highly recommend you keep whether if you're analog based and you like to have like a little notebook that you carry around, by all means, jot down your reflections in a little notebook. Or you might put them in a spreadsheet. You might just have a notes app on your phone that you use and you could even just voice record or voice to text, speech, you know, speech to text to record some of those observations just so you don't lose them. Because you know, if, if you don't take a moment to jot it down somewhere, it's not necessarily that. And it's hard to remember and put into use because you might make a reflection, let's say today, and then two or three weeks from now something else happens and you're like, oh, this feels like deja vu all over again. What? Didn't I reflect on something about this a couple of weeks ago? And then you can scroll through that file or flip through the pages in your notebook if you're writing it down analog and look to see what it was, because again, then you start to spot those trends.

And you know, our brains are so full of so much stuff these days where you just can't keep all of it, you know, top of mind. That's why it's so important and helpful to jot it down in a notes app, in a spreadsheet, on, you know, a good old fashioned paper notebook. Over time, again, you will start to see trends that you would have otherwise missed. And this only takes a couple minutes a day. So Again, habit number three, reflect on your learnings or surprises every single day.

Habit number four, consume something outside of your field. Now this one is my personal favorite. I want you to spend a few minutes each day learning things outside of your main area of expertise and looking at headlines outside of your industry.

This is so, so, so critical. Now maybe you're a marketer who reads about neuroscience, or an engineer who follows design blogs, or a manager who listens to podcasts on behavioral economics. Now this is something that I talk about in my keynote. Expect the unexpected. And every time I give that keynote, I pull a few headlines and include those headlines. I literally take like snippets of the newspaper, snippets of newspaper headlines or industry headlines and put them into my slide deck and I pull different headlines, headlines every time I give this. Now some of them are from their industry. Just like as in habit number one, I say it is so important to know, broadly speaking, what's going on in your industry.

Take the pulse of your industry on the regular, like daily. But then also I pull some headlines from way far afield, from what they are working on and put those headlines into my slide presentation. And then we start to make the connections about what they can learn from. This is interdisciplinary news and interdisciplinary work that's happening around the world and how it can help them see what's coming next, perhaps in their industry or apply lessons from other industries to their own work. I mean, the possibilities are endless. This is one of the reasons that I love reading paper journals and newspapers. When I read an online newspaper, I might scan the headlines and only click through articles that are of interest to me. Or if I have things, you know, Google alerts and the like set up to deliver certain types of industry news to my inbox.

That just gives me that if I'm reading the paper newspaper, I am much more inclined to read articles that would never have caught my interest had I been browsing online. Now I know this makes me sound like an old person that I occasionally read the newspaper. I also have various paper based journals that I read. I read the Harvard Business Review cover to cover every time it shows up in my paper mailbox. I also have the subscription to the online version as well. So I can always go use hbr.org to research any business topic that I want. But I'm always exposed to new ideas and things that would never have perhaps been of organic interest to me. Now they are of interest to me after I read them.

Some of them of course aren't, but it just exposes me to a much broader scope of ideas. Now, this cross disciplinary kind of work, just insights. These cross disciplinary insights fuel our innovation. It gives us ideas, it sparks our curiosity, it pulls together ideas in ways that we would have never organically done had we been, you know, had we not been exposing ourselves to ideas outside of our industry. So some of the best ideas come when we step outside of our own echo chambers and borrow from other fields. And that's why that is just literally, of these five, that one is my favorite. Okay, again, number four, consume things outside your field. Spend just five minutes a day looking at industry headlines from other industries and other places.

All right, and let me close off with habit number five. Experiment with one small change each week. So this is not one you need to do daily. Just do this once a week. Once a week. Deliberately try something new. Maybe it's testing a new software tool. Maybe it's rethinking how you run a meeting or changing up some normative behavior that maybe hasn't been working that great.

Maybe it is changing the order of your workflow or changing up something in your morning routine. It could even be outside of work. Maybe your commute, you drive home a different way. Maybe on the weekends or the evenings you go for a bike ride or a walk down a path or a street that you've never been on before. Maybe you prepare a new food or a new recipe, or you read something that is way outside of your usual range. Maybe a different genre entirely. So maybe if you read a lot of science fiction, you're going to read some poetry. Or if you read a lot of poetry, maybe you're going to read a historical novel.

Okay, so just, that's just another way to cut into this by taking on something that's just very, very different from what you would usually do. Now, these mini experiments with doing something new keep your brain nimble and they help you stay adaptable. And these are skills that are crucial as we live in a world where the pace of change continues to accelerate. All right, now let's get real for a moment. You might be thinking, Janel, I do not have time for one thing in my day. Not today or any day. Now here's the reframe for you on that. These aren't extra tasks.

These are micro swaps. Instead of doom scrolling on your phone for five minutes, skim headlines. Instead of zoning out at lunch, listen to a cross disciplinary podcast. Instead of dashing through your day, pause for just a couple of moments to reflect especially at the end of the day now. And if you haven't already heard me talk about the strategic power of white space on your calendar, which is a little bit different than what we've been talking about today, but also related, I want you to go back and listen to episode 210 called White Space in your Calendar and we'll link that up in the show notes for you from this episode, which you can find at janelanderson.com/217 for episode 217. Now remember, consistency beats intensity. I don't want you to drop everything and take on a new one hour routine a day. To do this, you don't need to overhaul your calendar.

You just need to show up for these small habits regularly. So let me recap the five habits that I covered in this episode. Number one, scan industry headlines in your own industry so that you are broadly aware of what's happening in your own world. Number two, micro network, that is one connection per day. Somebody that you thought of, Somebody that you could share an article with. Don't make this harder than it needs to be, okay? It's just about keeping one single network connection strong per day. Number three, reflect daily on what surprised you or what you learned at the end of each workday. Number four, my personal favorite, consume something outside of your field.

Be scanning the headlines, be looking at what's going on in other industries and thinking about how you could use that strategically in your own work. And then number five, which is the most fun one, Perhaps experiment with one small change each week. All right, here is my challenge to you. Pick one of these habits and start today. Just one. And it only needs to be a couple minutes that it adds to your daily or weekly schedule. And then tell me about it. I'd love to hear what you're trying.

You can tag me on LinkedIn or mention the show. I always enjoy hearing from listeners who are taking action. You can also tag me on any of the other social medias or send me a DM on the social medias and you can find my social media connections over on the show notes page, which I will mention again here in just a second. Now if you have found this episode helpful, know that it ties directly into the themes from my keynote, Expect the Unexpected. I work with teams and leaders to build these kinds of future ready habits into their organizational culture and into their leadership styles. So feel free to reach out if you want to bring this conversation into your workplace or if this would be a good fit at your next convention or conference. Now remember, you do not need to predict the future, you just need to practice staying ready.

As always, stay curious, stay informed, and stay ahead of the curve. And tune in next week for another insightful exploration of the trends shaping our professional world. If you learned something or you simply enjoy this content, please subscribe to my channel on YouTube, subscribe to the podcast on your podcast platform of choice, and follow me over on social media. These are all excellent no cost ways for you to support my work and learn something along the way. You'll find links to my social media over on the show notes page @janelanderson.com/217 for episode 217. Thanks for joining me today on Working Conversations and I will see you next time. And until then, keep thriving and working toward the future of work that we all want and deserve. Be well, my friends.