The 7 What?

Over the next few weeks, I've decided to take a new approach to blogging. If anyone has ever read or seen Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, you know that he discusses seven habits that allow you to achieve your personal and professional best. The habits are:

1. Be Proactive: Principles of Personal Vision
2. Begin with the End in Mind: Principles of Personal Leadership
3. Put First Things First: Principles of Personal Management
4. Think Win/Win: Principles of Interpersonal Leadership
5. Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
6. Synergize Principles of Creative Communication
7. Sharpen the Saw: Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal

Last week, I realized the challenge of an extended internship: it requires you to push and expect more of yourself. A somewhat obvious fact: your workload and tasks will be different than they were six or seven months ago. So will your challenges, and so should your goals. With all of these things set in place, it's a piece of cake right? Not exactly. So what is an intern to do? Hit the books and be a problem solver.

I'm now reading the book for the second time and thought it would be great to track how I incorporate these laws into my internship at Eisbrenner PR. I'm calling it: "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Interns." Although it takes longer than 7 days to make something a habit (they say that magic number is 21), I hope it'll serve as an 'insider's view' of what I do daily on my quest to be a better intern =)

They Were Right, Just Do It.

Just Do It.

Yes, that's Nike's slogan. People see the swoosh and think, "Just Do It." I also think of sports, sweat and soccer. I think of Michael Jordan circa mid 90's and that squeaky sound shoes make when players shuffle around on the court.

Trust me, I am going somewhere with this.

Until now, I don't think I've ever thought of applying the phrase to something so simple as writing. It's probably the best advice I've ever gotten from any of my professors: Just write. I'm pretty sure that I've overcome my initial challenges with writing press releases, bios and such at Eisbrenner. The problem I've run into right now, and in the past few weeks, has been knowing where to begin.

We all know that staring at a blank computer screen will not help you write about the benefits of a new technology. It will not make journalists call you, wanting to know more, it just won't. Instead, I've taken what I call the "Just Do It" approach. Organize your facts, make sure you have the basic information, and put pen to paper...or in this case, fingers to keyboard. I've found that although this challenge has not ceased to exist, its become a whole lot easier because I continue to work at it. Who knew some west coast slogan could inspire interns everywhere?
I should end this entry by explaining this approach is just the beginning of the writing process. I usually print what I've written out, and take a red pen to it. Like my professors used to do.