@Hannah_Museums

Time is fleeting and you find that you are already half way through that fixed term contract you’re sure you only started yesterday. You’re just finding your feet and you’re not ready to leave yet. What do you do?

Time passing quickly can be a sure sign that you are enjoying your job and that you probably should be looking for similar roles in the future. I personally see fixed-term contracts as a good way to try something new without the pressure of a permanent commitment, something which can particularly work well when you’re starting your career in any sector. However, it’s very easy to fall into the negative mindset that because something is only temporary, making it hard to settle and make the most out of the experience. But how can you stay motivated in a temporary job? I thought I’d share some tips and tricks that have helped me to get the most out of my time in various temporary roles.

5 Ideas:

1. Take some time in the first week to organise and set up your workspace in a way that makes you feel most comfortable and productive.

It can feel pointless setting up a work station when you’re in a temporary role because you feel that it’s only temporary, but it’s important that you feel comfortable and settled in your work environment no matter how long the contract.

2. Make the most of work place learning and development opportunities.
Quite often, we can be so focused on the destination that we forget to enjoy and reflect on the journey, which is actually one of the most important parts. Making the most of your time with an organisation can make a lot of difference, whether that’s attending a conference that your organisation has an unlimited ticket to (for example MuseumNext offers unlimited tickets for a whole organisation to have access to its virtual conferences from £240). Or also making the most of an institutional membership which gives you discounts on association and fed training. Use this time as an opportunity to develop your skills for what comes next.

3. Build and nurture relationships with colleagues which could lead to friendships, valuable advice, and even future work.
This seems rather self explanatory, but if you make a conscious decision to make connections, build relationships and leave a good impression (tip 5) you’ll find that you are more likely to be remembered by an organisation and should projects come up, you’ll be high on the list for potential work. This also works really well for if you consider yourself ever doing future freelance work, because a big part of that is the nurturing of professional relationships which make you the obvious point of call when it comes to work. It’s useful to build these connections and reputation along with your work profile in advance because this takes time and patience.

4. Learn from different organisations and think about what you can take forward into your next place of work which you enjoyed, as well as being clear about the things that you didn’t like as much.
Leading on from the previous point … working with multiple organisations can help you to build up your learning and work profile, you’ll get to see different ways of working along with things that work well and things that don’t work so well. You’ll also get a better understanding of what works best for you.

5. Strive to do well in your job, to leave a lasting impression and to take pride in your work.
When I come to the midway part of a project I like to reflect on what has gone well, share the victories (no matter how small) along with my learning. I share this with other sector colleagues, using mostly Twitter (which is my main channel) and I’ll then save the post to go back to, reflect on and add to at the end. I find this is a great way to feel accomplished and celebrate my achievements. I also make a point of reflecting on my learning, and what has been achieved with colleagues, talking openly about what has worked well and what we’ve learned. I’ve seen project roundup emails work really well for this too.

Bonus Tip: Take ideas with you!
I like to take note of any ideas which I haven’t used and write them down for future projects, this way they never feel like a missed opportunity, and they can be developed for something new. I’ll keep those ideas with ideas which have been used and evaluation notes.
You can never have enough ideas in the bank for future projects.

Thanks for stopping by for another chatty blog. To wrap up this post I wanted to discuss temporary jobs as they are a big reality of the cultural sector along with part-time work. This kind of work does is not for everyone as it lacks stability and can be overwhelming at times when trying to deliver work whilst thinking about your next job. It’s important to think about all kind of things before taking on this kind of work and to decide what you’re personally looking for and expect to get out of the opportunity.

Fixed-term/ temporary contracts could for example suit someone who is looking for more flexible work, or an early career professional looking to gain experience of multiple work organisations, or try new things. If you find yourself in this kind of work I hope that you’ll find this post useful for some ideas on making the most out of it.

I’d also highly recommend checking out Museum Association Englands Wellbeing Hub for some great resources. They’ve recently added a new resource on Burnout.

See you next time!
H