Summer is finally here!  I’ve been working on my tan one limb at a time, and I’m pleased to say that my right leg and left arm are really starting to get some color.  I’ve also filled my bathtub with salt water and seeded it with jellyfish, just so I can relive those special days of my childhood when the whole family would go down to Pensacola so I could get stung to death for an entire week.  All I’m missing is some kind of freak lawn-mowing accident and I’ll be able to put this one in the record books as another successful summer!

But I’m guessing you want your summer to be more constructive than the one I just described to you.  It’s easy to get lazy when it’s beautiful outside.  And I hope you spend at least a little time being lazy and sipping cocktails and playing on a Slip-n-Slide.  (Those things are awesome, and can be placed in series to make them even longer and more awesome.)  However, on the off-chance that you want to use this summer to work on your professional development, here are a few things you might consider:

Become a mentor

There’s probably someone you work with who’s less-experienced than you are, and there’s really no better way to learn about your own job than trying to explain it to others.  So do both of you a favor and take a newbie under your wing.  You’ll almost certainly learn to look at your own job in ways you haven’t yet done, and they’ll definitely appreciate the attention.  They’ll probably even try to repay you by buying you lunch or something, and you should totally let them.  Free lunch!

Work during the weekends

Why would you do such a crazy and stupid thing?  Because everybody goes to the pool on the weekends, which means the lines for all the waterslides are way too long.  But if you can swing it where you can work on Saturday and then get Monday off, you’ll be able to go when everyone else is at work.  Your kids are off of school anyway, so they can go on Mondays too.  Then you won’t have to wait in line at all.  Plus you’ll probably get a lot more work done on Saturday because nobody else will be around to bother you or call you or whatever.  So you’ll impress your boss and get more waterslide time.  Win-win!

Analyze your marketing

Marketing is a big deal (see the second article if you want some killer ideas about how you can use it to your advantage).  But marketing is also evil and annoying because it requires constant attention and optimizing.  We’re constantly working on our own marketing, and we’re expecting to be finally finished with it just before we all plan on dying.  So consider a few tweaks to what you’re currently doing.  Collectively, those small changes will add up to something significant.  And if you don’t believe me, go look at a beach sometime.  All that sand used to be rocks and shells and things.  Who would have thought a billion tiny little waves could do that much?

And that’ll do it for today!  I hope your summer is a long and glorious and productive one.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to work on my right arm a little bit.  Because right now I look like a box of Neapolitan ice cream, and that isn’t a good thing for anybody.