Hello, this is Laura Lee Rose – author of the books TimePeace: Making peace with time – and the Book of Answers: 105 Career Critical Situations.   I am a business and efficiency coach that specializes in professional development, career management, time management, and work-life balance strategies.

Everyone is busy. But if you don’t make the time to manage your career, your career will manage you. Today’s topic is how to find time for professional development.

Most people find comfort in the idea that they:

• Don’t have time for professional or career development
• Too busy with daily work to focus on future paths
• Company doesn’t provide the time or funds for career development
• Not interested in staying at this company
• Company doesn’t have any growth opportunity for me

Whether these statements are true or not, they are irrelevant.

• Your career and professional development is not your company or manager’s responsibility.
• Your work ‘happiness’ is not your company or manager’s responsibility.
• The company is not responsible for helping you keep your job.
• You are in total control of your own career, your own time management strategies, your own personal and professional development.

Both personal and professional development can be accomplished with 10 minutes a day.  Audio tapes, short articles, online programs, discussion groups, pod-casts, as well as various mobile devices make it possible for you to study:

• On the way to work
• At your desk during a 10 minute break
• Over lunch either with friends or alone
• During your workout
• Through a walking meditation
• A 15 minutes distraction from television or video games
• Standing in any type of line

Everyone has 10 minutes a day for things that are important to themselves.

Also, identify things you can blend into what you are already doing.  Some examples:

• At meetings, search for possible mentors, learning and even promotion opportunities
• Invite mentors, coaches and possible new employers to lunch or outside event
• Take notes and gather data during your normal tasks with the goal of writing and submit a white paper to a conference.  While at the conference, you can participate in an abundance of other learning sessions.
• Take notes at conferences so that you can easily turn them into reference materials.  Share them with your team and sibling departments through lunch-bag presentations or webinars.

If you incorporate these things as you go along (with the goal of continuous learning and developing), it doesn’t really add any time to your day.

Once you clarify your professional development goals, opportunities will automatically appear.  This isn’t because they magically appear out of nowhere.  It’s because your vision is now clear enough to see what was always there.

But – how is the best way to recognize opportunities

Quick Tips

• Event that repeats …there an opportunity there.
  • Boss asks the same questions over and over again
  • Clients make the same mistakes or asks the same questions
  • A mistake is made – there’s a problem to solve – which means an opportunity
  • Whenever you are frustrated or overwhelmed – there’s an opportunity
  • Whenever you are disappointed … there is an opportunity

When you know what to look for – there are opportunities everywhere. This may bring an immediate feeling of overwhelm-ment and stagnant of indecision.   Jot your opportunities down as they occur (the IT Professional Development Toolkit calls this the Parking Lot Method).  Jotting them down will avoid being overwhelmed. Realize that this is merely a smorgasbord; you simply have to pick and choose.

Conclusion: Use your scheduled 10 minutes a day to fill your pipeline of knowledge.

Use your scheduled 10 minutes a day to shift and sort the opportunities that start appearing. Think about how which event can help you the most; which event you are most ready for; which event you can implement right now.

But all these things start with the desire and commitment to start.  Pause for 10 minutes a day and devote that to your professional, personal and career development.

The IT Professional Development Toolkit is covers a comprehensive set of development tools and techniques in less than 10 minutes per practice.  It contains audios, videos, articles, webinars, presentations and practice exercises designed to be less than 5-8 minutes in length.  It can be used as a reference platform or a 12 week course program.

The IT Professional Development Toolkit, goes into the who, what, where, when, why and how to accomplish all of the above.  The toolkit comes in two forms:  DVD and online eLearning program.

For more information about the toolkit, click on the above buttons or please go to my website at www.lauraleerose.com

Or sign up for my weekly Time and Career Management Newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/cZ9_-/