How to Advance Your Career When You Don’t Have a Lot of Time

If there’s one thing that’s consistent about the lives of the people I coach, it’s that they’re “busy.”

I’m sure your life is busy, too.

I’ve read a lot in the productivity world about the overuse of the word busy and its status as a misguided badge of honor. Whether busy is a reasonable term to use or not, it’s the word most of my clients think of first to describe their lives. Their calendars are booked solid, important projects with deadlines are looming, and personal and family commitments are neverending.

You get the picture. If you’re reading this, you’re probably living this picture. 

And when someone like me suggests that you should be focusing on your career advancement amid all that busyness, you probably nod your head but secretly think, “This guy doesn’t have a clue.” 

Let’s agree that ‘career advancement’ doesn’t fit into a busy life and schedule

As a coach, if I suggest that clients make room in their busy lives and schedules for professional development and career advancement, that seemingly reasonable suggestion is usually met with raised eyebrows, laughter, and more than the occasional sigh.

I’m not surprised. I’ve come to expect it.

Deep down, my coaching clients — and you — know that dedicating even a modest amount of focused time to professional development and career advancement is critical if you want to achieve your other important life goals. Goals like attaining a particular title and level of responsibility in your industry or achieving a certain level of income to support your financial security. 

You know that spending time on professional development and career advancement is worth it. It just doesn’t seem possible to fit it into your already packed schedule.

I’ve learned that it’s hard for my coaching clients to make time for a goal like career advancement because it’s so conceptual and open-ended. Advancing a career is something that happens over a lifetime, after all. You couldn’t possibly achieve the goal of advancing your career by simply blocking an hour or two on your calendar. 

So why bother? At least this week, anyway. 

Focus on a related problem instead

Instead of figuring out what you should be doing to achieve something as grand as career advancement, which could take a lifetime to achieve, a better and saner approach might be to identify a single problem that’s preventing you from advancing your career. 

Let’s consider an example I often encounter.

Many of the people I coach don’t have a strong and engaged network. As a result, they don’t benefit from the relationships and knowledge that come from having a strong network. Without those benefits, they might be missing out on opportunities, which keeps them from advancing in their careers as quickly as they might. That, in turn, slows them down when it comes to achieving more meaningful life goals like financial security and professional recognition and respect.

Simply put — a problem preventing their career advancement is that they need to build a stronger network.

Building a robust professional network is, of course, a more focused concept than advancing a career, but it’s still relatively broad and ambiguous. And it could take years to accomplish.

And what does having a strong network even mean? The answer to that could itself be a whole series of blog posts. That alone should indicate that it’s too big a problem to tackle when you’re already starting from a place where you feel like you don’t have any time. 

Then create a project that helps solve the problem

One of the reasons many people I work with need to build a stronger network is that they don’t know enough about an industry they hope to join or that they hope to move up in. Lack of industry knowledge is a much narrower and more approachable problem to solve than building a solid network or advancing a career. 

It’s also a problem that might be solved in a few days or weeks as opposed to a few years or over the course of a lifetime. In other words — it’s a project.

I hope you’re starting to see where this is going. We’ve transitioned from the relatively unapproachable life goal of advancing your career to the arguably more approachable problem of building a strong professional network to the more manageable project of arranging a few conversations so you can learn more about your current or intended industry. 

Instead of focusing on a goal that might take a lifetime to achieve, ask yourself what problem you need to start solving now in order to achieve that goal. Then create a project to help solve that problem.

The industry knowledge you gain through those conversations will help you target and pursue opportunities that will ultimately help you advance your career. And you’ll be building a more robust network in the process. You’re still pursuing career advancement and building a stronger network but in a way that seems achievable given the relatively little time you currently have available. 

Conclusion

When you’re pressed for time and the thought of doing something as far-reaching as advancing your career makes you want to laugh — or even cry — try not to think so far into the future or so broadly.

Instead of focusing on a goal like career advancement that could take a lifetime to fully achieve, ask yourself what problem you need to start solving in order to achieve the goal. Maybe it’s building a stronger network. Even that could take years. So identify a project you might take on that would help you solve the problem. In this case, it would be starting to build a stronger professional network. Maybe it’s setting up a few calls to learn more about an industry or company that you hope to join. That might just take a week or two (or three) to accomplish, and that’s potentially achievable — even with a packed schedule.

So when you’re pressed for time and you have that nagging feeling that you should be doing something to advance your career, try focusing on a smaller project that solves a problem related to your career advancement.

You’ll still be making progress. And you’ll still be advancing your career.