Tag Archives: work
How To Stay Motivated With Uni Work During Lockdown
On the face of it being stuck at home under lockdown circumstances may appear to give you the ideal time to get your head down and focus on you uni work. With this being said however feeling motivated to keep working hard is far more difficult than it seems. Melbourne uni students in particular have been discussing recently the challenges which they have found in keeping their motivation levels high during lockdown.
Whilst many students were able to go back home, a lot of international students were unable to do this. In terms of student accommodation Melbourne has seen a great number remain here, and that is down to the challenges for international students. With this being said, there are some hints and tips which may help you to keep your motivation levels high, so that you can focus on your work.
Dedicated Study Area
Our homes are usually where we go to relax after a tough day of studying, and trying to relax and work in the same space can blur the lines. This is certainly something which negatively impacts motivation. With this in mind it makes a great deal of sense to try and separate the space in the home where you would relax and where you would study. This will help with focus and ensure that you don’t get sick of the same four walls.
Minimizing Distractions
Another factor which can affect motivation is the number of distractions which we have in our homes. It is simply too easy to grab our phones or to switch on the television when we should be studying. For this reason ensure that your study area is as free from distractions as you can make it. In reality you should be looking to strip out everything but your study resources, so that you can stay motivated and focused.
Using Timers
A timer can sometimes be a great way for you to stay on track with your studying, and the Pomodoro technique is a proven approach to increasing motivation. This timer runs in 25 minutes segments with a 5 minute break in-between. There are 8 of these 25 minute segments in total, before having a 30 minute break and starting again. Studying in bursts of 25 minutes is excellent for motivation and you’ll find that the clock almost becomes your authority to keep pushing you to study.
Setting Times
Another great idea is to set the times within which you will study. No matter if this is 9 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon, or 9 at night until 5 in the morning. You have absolute flexibility in terms of when you study, but the key will be that you structure your time within the day. If you don’t do this then you can easily lose the discipline which you need, as well as the motivation to study what you need to. The more days that you do this, the easier it will become and the more motivated you will be.
These are challenging times but with some discipline and some hard work, you will be able to find that motivation again.
Making a Difference: How to Choose Meaningful Work
When you’re working one of the most important things is motivation. If you’re insufficiently motivated, you’ll find yourself dragging your lumpen carcass out of bed on a Monday morning, resenting every minute of your commute and sleepwalking through your day, ending up with no energy to pursue personal projects or relaxation in your leisure time.
The best motivation comes from choosing work that’s meaningful to you. Work that makes a difference, so that at the end of every day, you know the effort you’ve put in is linked to very real results – people working in medicine, in social work, in substance misuse jobs deal with people every day and despite being frequently stretched for resources and under stress, get to make genuine differences to people lives every day (for the better, crucially).
If you don’t have the skills or, in fairness, inclination to pursue a job like this you need to either reframe your attitude to your existing job to emphasise how you’re making a difference, or find an alternative career to move into that lets you feel that you’re contributing in a meaningful way. You don’t need to be an ambulance driver or brain surgeon, just find a job that you feel is worthwhile or take a fresh look at your existing role to understand your real worth within the organisation.
If you’re in a position to change your job, think before you leap. If you’re dissatisfied and leap into a new position before you’ve really thought it through, you might find yourself just as dissatisfied and needing to sit in your new job for months or years before you can change again.
Be honest with yourself, and make sure you’re reorienting yourself towards a career that you find important and meaningful, not what is, on average, expected to be. There’s no point pursuing a career as a social worker to impress your friends with your social responsibility when you simply don’t have the motivation. If your strength is in administration, then you can put that towards a meaningful job in local government. If you’re into sales at heart, becoming an estate agent allows you to put your skills into finding people homes, and while estate and lettings agents can get a bad rap, if you deal fairly with people you’ll impress them and they’ll never forget you!
If you’re not able to change your job, talk to your manager about shadowing people in other departments. This gives you an insight into how your input is valued across the company and a new commitment it.
How to Start a Career as an Oil & Gas Landman
A landman is a well-paid and rewarding position within the oil and gas industry. However, getting your foot in the door after you meet the initial qualifications is not a clear-cut process. Most landmen started their career in oil and gas in different ways. That’s why it’s best to implement a multi-faceted approach to becoming a landman. How do you accomplish this approach? By following the steps below: make sure you possess the necessary prerequisites, then gain real-world experience by volunteering, enrolling in a program, taking a course or simply working your way up the corporate ladder.
Prerequisites
You must possess four prerequisites before you can start working in some capacity as a landman: a Bachelor’s degree from a four-year university in science or business; outstanding interpersonal and communication skills; a high level of analytical skills and attention to detail; and experience in real estate, or preferably, the oil and gas industry itself. If you do not have all of these prerequisites, you may be able to land a job if you are particularly ambitious and show great potential, but most likely you need to fill the gaps in the value you provide any oil and gas company as a landman.
Gain Additional Experience
Once you have the prerequisites to get started working, it’s time to find an outlet. This does not mean you will find a job right away — perhaps you need more specialized education, or maybe you even need to volunteer your time to get real-world experience. Yes, education can be considered additional experience if it consists of a landman course or a petroleum land management program from an accredited university.
- Landman Course: These courses provide a fast track to the landman profession, available conveniently in person or online. Only pay for a course that is AAPL certified. As a side note, it may be crucial for you to get certified by the American Association of Petroleum Landmen.
- Petroleum Land Management Program: Obtaining a degree in petroleum land management is highly desired by oil and gas companies, even if you already have a degree.
- Volunteering: If you can’t get experience any other way, consider volunteering for an established landman. Though it may be hard to find one that needs help, when you do you will make many important connections that can help you establish your career.
- Climbing the Corporate Ladder: It might sound basic, but working as a leasing agent or analyst, land tech or title analyst is one of the most common ways to advance to a full landman position, or before that, an Associate Landman position.
Best Majors For Making Money Right Out of College!
There’s no doubt about it: college will likely provide some of the best times of your life. While the next four years of relative time freedom should be savored, don’t forget why you are in school in the first place – to get a degree that will help you get a position that will pay a generous salary. Such an accomplishment is becoming tougher in today’s economy, where jobs for certain degrees are evaporating due to outsourcing and automation.
As such, much greater care must be taken when it comes to selecting a degree and a major, as it will make the difference between playing in an optimal position, and being forced to take your shots from behind the proverbial 8 ball. Now that we have your attention, may we suggest five degree paths that grant their recipients a higher percentage chance of landing a good job in their field?
We can? Great! Let’s begin with…
1) Information Technology
From managing networks to programming in various computer languages, the demand for people to help continue the unprecedented expansion of the internet continues to grow. While things aren’t quite as crazy as they were in the gold rush days of the 1990’s, the need for creators, analysts and developers in this field is still strong.
For a web app developer, who pulls in $80,000 on a median basis, to IT managers at bigger firms, who comfortably earn six figures on average, the prospects for a good living are still here. The computer-intensive nature of much of this work also lends itself well to mobility, meaning that freelancers can earn a living doing what they do best from a beach side bar in Thailand if they choose to do so!
2) Engineering
The world will always need problem solvers, and as this is at the core of what an engineer does, the demand for these professionals will always be steady and strong. Specialties run the gamut from chemical, civil, and electrical engineering to fields as far flung as human factors engineering (aka ergonomics). Median salaries range from $75,000 to $90,000 depending on the field, but in parts of the world where labor shortages are active, these earnings can spike considerably.
3) Marketing
The core of business, forever and always, is getting people to check out your stuff, then getting in there and closing the sale. This is what the motivated marketing graduate is innately good at, and the best promoters and closers get paid very, very well for the services they provide. The median earnings of many marketing managers is perpetually close to $100,000 per year for most regions, and with performance bonuses tied in, most killers finish with considerably more than that in their bank account come Christmas.
4) Geology
At this point in history, the oil industry is in its twilight years. The day where clean energy rules the roost will likely be here within the next generation or two. Until then, a crapload of money stands ready to be made in this field, as easy oil finds don’t exist anymore, and finding more supply to prop up our oil-dependent civilization requires the ingenuity of petroleum geologists (i.e. you).
These specialists can be making $96,000 on average straight out of school, with low to mid six figures per year possible as you progress through your career. The best part is this: it doesn’t include the many performance bonuses that exist at many workplaces, so the potential to make even more depends solely on your work ethic.
What about the day when oil is over? The world will continue to need to dig gold, iron ore, and rare earth elements (used in smartphones and other electronics) out of the ground, so if you plan ahead, simply transition over when the ship begins to sink and with any luck, you’ll be in a new position with minimal disruption!
5) Pharmacology
That dude that fills prescriptions behind the counter at your local drug store? He isn’t a chump. Not even close. Despite the tendency to stereotype anybody that works in a retail environment as a low wage earner, pharmacists stand out from the pack, making a cool $80,000 per year on a median basis to ensure that your grandmother gets the right pills for her condition, and not something that will, you know … kill her!
After shouldering this enormous responsibility, having the certainty of steady hours and a plush wage make this sterile-appearing career seem positively appealing in today’s economic landscape, especially when you consider how old the boomers are getting. Excuse us while get our lab coat…
