My Moving Careers Experience
The story of 'When Moving carrers' : It has been over 6 months since I had started my transmission from Finance and IT industry to the world of Fashion. I had planned it from the beginning such that it is a smooth transition which will take place over a period of time as the progress will allow organically. Nevertheless, I had my share of challenges and this is post is about those challenges and the strategies I applied.
Where did all the time go?
No matter how early I wake up and how late I go to bed at night, I always felt as though the clock skips hours during the day and I always found myself running faster but not quite fast enough to catch up with time. If I make more time for my IT job that week, I would fall behind in my clothing line duties and vice versa. Addition to the extra workload, staying up late nights and doing early mornings made me quite stressful and tired in the long run.
Time Management is one of the key lessons I have learnt during the last 6 months. When I realised working through the night is neither an effective nor an enjoyable solution, I was pushed to look out for other strategies. Then I put together a weekly timetable for myself allowing myself to see the scale of what needs doing given a limited time frame. Every sunday, I would sit down and decide what are the tasks that needs to be done for my clothing line as well as for my office job. Then I would look at the details of each task and estimate how many days I need to allocate for one job and how many days I need to allocate for the other. I also made sure, no matter how long my to-do list, one day of the week will always be for myself and family and friends.
Of course, I may not have completed all the tasks possible. But I managed to get done the critical majority and overall felt more organised. Having a detailed timetable also meant that I knew exactly what I am doing and when and it stopped all the worrying and stress levels making me able to sleep better at night.
Priorities and Priorities…
This has been the greatest of challenges when choosing which tasks to be prioritise. While a new business can be quite exciting has a novelty on its own, it cannot be allowed to overtake the rationality of keeping the stability the old job. When my to-do lists were always growing in length by each day, I had no option but to order the tasks that needs doing in the order of priority.
I had realised, more from my experience in software world, every task is not a must. There are must-haves and may-haves. Though every task in the list may look like it should to be done in the first glance, it could always be analysed and filtered to realise what are better priorities and what is worth more of the time.
Am I doing the right thing?
This is a worry only now I can genuinely say I have defeated. When I was changing careers, it was a huge jump and I knew that. It was completely two different industries and two different types of careers. Moving away from a well-established career in Project Management in Finance to starting my own luxury fashion label was never thought as a simple move. I knew the risks involved and the drastic change in work as well as financial risks which were inevitable.
So the question I always used to ask myself is “Is this the right thing to do?” Because staying in the Project Management job, carrying on as I did for the last 6 years was obviously the easy option. To take a step away from that to follow my inner fire and constantly murmuring instincts to pursue a business in luxury fashion industry was definitely the more difficult option.
However I always knew If I follow the common advise, I will get the common result and if I want exceptional results, I need to take an exceptional path and that is not necessarily easy. Still, it took a lot of courage within myself, a very supportive family and plenty of planning to make sure the risks that I take are calculated and contingencies are prepared.
I think the devil was in the details of the planning as usual. Instead of making a sudden move from one job to another, I followed a very slow move from my full time job to the newly started business. In the early days I worked on my first job with no changes to my schedule and allocated the weekends and evenings to my new business.
Yes, it was hectic and challenging. Yet, the only way to find out whether I am doing the right thing is to actually start doing it. So I did!
