The peak of summer can end up being a fairly quiet period for a lot of professionals, and for accountants, it is usually no exception. With businesses running at a slower pace as staff and clients tend to be thin on the ground due to summer vacations, it is usually a good time to not only relax a little yourself, but also look at perhaps fitting into your working time some of those things you have been wanting to do, but not found the time.
A good case in point can be your own personal development – both professionally and in terms of your lifestyle as a whole. Most of us have at least a few things we would like to take some time to really work on improving, such as knowledge in a particular area or our own working habits, and the summer can be the perfect time to do this, thanks to there being less general pressure.
Here are three things you could apply some of your time to during summer 2018 that could make a huge difference to your overall professional performance:
Do Some Online Learning
Chances are you have some skills you would like to expand on or update. You may even be interested in working towards extra professional qualifications or further education. Check out what kind of courses and resources there are online. You may well find a very productive way to use some of your slower time this summer, and you may even gain some new things to put on your resume.
Work on Your Fitness
A lot of us find we don’t really have time to take the best care of ourselves during the busiest working periods but feeling out of shape can certainly stop you from performing at your best. Use the longer evenings and freer time of the summer to try and cultivate better habits when it comes to eating, sleeping, and exercising, and you should find you have more energy and good routines you can keep up even when things pick up again in the fall. You can find some good fitness and lifestyle advice for busy professionals at mantasticpursuits.com.
Work on Your Online Presence
Another good use of time could be to start building up your social networks and online presence. This can be extremely useful professionally, in terms of connections and your overall reputation as an authority in your field, but it can also be time-consuming. Consider starting a blog relevant to your own field, and start building up good content on it, as well as launching it on social media. If this seems like overkill for you, you could instead try posting content and answers on LinkedIn and working on establishing your professional network there.
As you can see, a slower rate of work in summer can be something you can use to turbo-charge your professional development, if you plan ahead and commit to using your time wisely.