Nine minutes is optimal time spent on daily career management, says LinkedIn

Together with professional social network LinkedIn, personal branding expert William Arruda has identified nine minutes as the optimal time needed to manage your career every single day without added stress or pressure.

The length of time was picked because it gives people “complete focus, and educators to psychologists agree that the ability to focus one’s attention on a task is crucial for the achievement of one’s goals.”

Singaporeans, however, overestimate the optimal time needed to be spent on this task.

Over 81 percent of Singaporean professionals believe the ideal amount of daily time spent on progressing their careers should be over 30 minutes, according to a research by IPSOS Mori and Catalyst, which surveyed 3,200 working professionals globally, including 400 in Singapore.

Interestingly, the study also discovered that a gender divide exists where 42% of the population think that men are better than women at networking, versus only 9% believing women were better.

Here’s a suggestion of activities suggested by LinkedIn that constitute career management. It applies to entrepreneurs too:

1. Build your network – building and maintaining relationships are a major component of a successful career.
2. Maintain relationships by recommending and congratulating others in their careers.
3. Request recommendations from your network as credibility is critical.
4. Document achievements and wins on your LinkedIn profile to stay current and relevant.
5. Update your status every day and make sure your profile and photo is current.
6. Expand on your thought leadership; lead a discussion on social networks; publish an article; start a blog; speak publicly or recommend books.
7. Use the power of video and create a video bio of yourself.
8. Source staff – one of a manager’s hardest jobs. If you build your brand community, you’ll create fans who want to work for you.
9. Research — Make an effort to get to know more about your clients or partners and competitors.

For more findings on Singaporeans’ work attitudes, check out this infographic: