What? I have four areas of work?
Four areas of work knowledge. There’s two that everybody knows about. There’s the one Cal Newport talks about. And then there’s the one I talk about. That makes four areas in which you want to be as good as you can. This will put you in a position to have a better career, have better workdays, have better work weeks.
The first – work skills
The first is what are best called basic skills of work. How to use a computer; how to use a phone; you know how to talk to people; you’re not lazy, you’re willing to be where you need to be when you need to be there. This kind of thing that you probably practiced in school. The knowledge you need is pretty easily identified. And any lack of knowledge is reasonably easy to correct. You might want to expand some of these skills, but many fall into the ‘good enough’ category.
The second – career skills
The second is technical knowledge about your specialty – career skill. This is depth in your specialty, your career. This knowledge is usually identified in college. Again, any lack of knowledge is reasonably easy to correct with professional associations and peers in your specialty. You might want to expand some of these skills, but there are benefits and risks.
The third – Cal Newport and career management
The third is knowledge about how to advance in your career – career Management. Cal Newport has a program called ‘Top Performer’ in which he coaches these skills. This is understanding your field more deeply from a management perspective. This is figuring out how successful people in your field got successful. Cal makes the point that it is easy to assume you understand how to do this, but many people fool themselves by chasing additional technical specialization. You’ll want to gain at least a basic knowledge of what he’s talking about.
The fourth – work management (what I talk about)
The fourth is how to structure and maintain your work – work management. This is my specialty and I have a program called Attention Compass in which I coach these skills. This is understanding your work processes more deeply. We used to allow our bosses to deal with this, but we need to take in on for ourselves. I share some ideas about what kinds of questions we try to answer with work management.
Similarities, differences, and interactions in the four areas
Career management governs career skills – what skills are most valuable and how to we go about identifying and acquiring them
Work management governs work skills – how do we utilize work skills to get our work done
Work skills and career skills overlap in learning how to use tools. Your career tools are probably more specialized than typical work tools. However, work tools are necessary to communicate and be generally proficient at work.
Work management and career management overlap in managing the tasks that involve acquiring career management skills.
All four knowledge areas are systematized. Work skills are developed (more or less) in our earlier years at home and in school. College and professional certification are typical career skill development systems. Cal teaches a career management system. I teach a work management system, along with a tool for task and attention management.
The case for work management knowledge
Previously we relied on our company or boss to manage both our work and our career. The rise of knowledge work and the gig economy are undermining others’ ability to manage any of the four areas of our work for us, but particularly work management and career management.
The field of Project Management represents a fairly well-known work management system and its history shows how work management systems are developed. So, it is not strange to investigate a personal work management system. I suggest my Attention Compass program.
I make an argument that work management is the most important of the four, by a little. Work management is how we manage our time and attention so we can do the work to identify and acquire needed skills in all four areas. That’s pretty fundamental.