Tired of settling for “good enough” at work?
Ready to level-up your career and life and get into your “Zone?”
If you are, then you’re in for a treat because you’re going to learn how you can zero in on your “Zone” right now.
But first, let’s review what the “Zone” is.
The “Zone” is the place where the things that you love to do meet with the things you are awesome at doing. It’s the place where you get so into what you’re doing that time flies by, and you’d be happy to keep doing it even if you weren’t getting paid.
Have you ever had that feeling?
It’s my hope that you have. You should know that most people have had that feeling about something in their life, even if it wasn’t a part of their current career. Also, most people get stuck when they try to be specific about when that actually happened, they just know that it did. So don’t worry if that’s you. What I’ll show you in this exercise is how you can identify that exact place so you can focus your job search and land the ones that allow you to work in the “Zone.”
I call this exercise the Work Activity Tracker. 
Think of it as being similar to an exercise you would do if you were on a diet and asked to write down everything you ate during the day. This is basically the same idea, but instead of keeping track of what you’re eating, you are keeping track of how you’re spending your time throughout the day.
There are 5 steps.
Step 1:
As you move through your day, you’re going to record everything you do.
I don’t want you to just say you went to a meeting; I want you to be specific. For example, did you go to a meeting that you were leading? Perhaps you went to a meeting that you were an active contributor in. Or maybe you went to a meeting where you had no involvement whatsoever.
Do you see the level of specificity that I’m looking for?
Here’s another example: Did you spend 15 minutes responding to e-mails that were purely administrative in nature, or did you spend 15 minutes crafting an e-mail explaining your strategic plan for a project?
Try to be as specific as possible.
Step 2:
After you have recorded the specific activity you performed, the next thing you’ll do is rate your level of enjoyment/satisfaction/fulfillment from having done that activity on a scale of 0-10: with 0 on the scale being completely unsatisfactory, and 10 being totally satisfactory and fulfilling.
Step 3:
Rate the same activity for your skill level. Again, rate it on a scale of 0-10 with 0 being unskilled, and 10 being expert level.
Step4:
Record how long you spent doing the activity.
Step 5:
To put it all together, chart your results on a graph where the X-axis signifies your level of enjoyment and the Y-axis represents your skill level.
How to use the chart:
Once you have charted everything, focus your attention on the upper right-hand quadrant of the chart. That area, particularly anything that falls into the very far right-hand corner, are likely things that fall into your Zone of Genius; things that put you in the “Zone” at work.
Once you’ve identified these activities, go back and look at your list of the time spent doing these activities. If less than 80% of your time is being spent on activities in your “Zone,” you can see why you might not be happy in your career.
How to make it better:
Consider ways to increase the time you spend doing those activities within your current role. See if there are non-”Zone” things taking up a lot of your time that could be delegated to someone else, so you can free up more time to do the activities that do fall in your “Zone.”
If your current work is feeling completely misaligned, maybe spend a little bit of time pondering opportunities that might allow you to spend more time working in your “Zone.”
Click this link to download a guide that will walk you through this process.
As you work through this I’d love to hear any thoughts, comments or feedback you have about this exercise. Send me an e-mail at: [email protected]