What if I lied on my resume?

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Some recruiters say that as many as one in five job hunters lies on their resume.
Why isn’t this news plastered on the front page of The Wall Street Journal? Quite frankly, it’s because we all know businesspeople lie – the issue is how bad are the lies?

Some people make a distinction between the falsehoods that put us in a better light – even if it’s a light we don’t deserve to be in – and saying something that’s totally untrue. The latter, even on a resume, is morally wrong and emotionally exhausting. Not only do you have to remember the lie but you also have to live with knowing you built your career on it. Even more difficult is the stress of waiting to be caught.

Exhibit A is Ronald Zarella, the CEO of Bausch and Lomb. He was caught saying he had finished business school when he hadn’t. He did not get fired, though. While he volunteered to resign, the board kept him on, presumably because the other directors had told a lie or two in their lifetimes.

Clearly, as Mr. Zarella’s case indicates, not all lies are equal on resumes. To determine the varying degrees of lying terribleness, context matters. For example, murdering 50 people and then saying in court that you never killed anyone is a very bad lie. On the other hand, it’s pretty innocuous when married partners tell each other that they just had great sex when it wasn’t that great.

What should you do if you lied to get your job? If you’re a career veteran, plan to go straight. You’ll need to undo the lies you’ve told over the years to get jobs or promotions. However, don’t be quick to make a public confession that could kill your career.

First, determine if the lie is considered “bad”. Sometimes, this is pretty easy. For instance, who cares if a metal welder said he graduated from college when he didn’t? But a college professor who tells this lie should consider a career change, and perhaps a name change as well. In a recent speech, the president of Hamilton College quoted Amazon.com without attributing the quote. This lie cost him his job. Ronald Zarella should be thankful he’s not a university president.

Some situations are murkier. If you’re a high-profile executive at a big company who lied on a resume, you should get a lawyer because the shareholders are likely to create a fracas and you may get fired.. And if, like most senior executives, you have a clause that allows the company to fire you for cause, you could lose your severance. If your lawyer can’t save your job, she might at least be able to save your golden parachute.

If you are middle manager, pray that your company doesn’t invest a lot of money in double-checking resumes. For now, don’t mention the lie, but be truthful the next time you seek a job. Meanwhile, be an outstanding performer. You don’t want to provoke your boss into searching for legal ways to fire you, because he might check out your resume and see your falsehood.

If you lied about having a college degree when you don’t, consider finishing college. Not having a degree will eventually impede your career advancement – but you already know that because you wouldn’t have lied otherwise.

For those of you just starting out, heed the duress that lying causes those at the top, and figure out another way to get there. A career is something you should want to live with, and a lie isn’t. Choose your life partners wisely. Take action to bolster your experience with hard work so you don’t have to bolster your resume with lies.

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Don’t be a generalist — Typecast yourself

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During the Internet’s go-go days in the late 1990s, I thought the term generalist meant “she's doing two jobs and pays herself double.” Now it seems the word generalist means “good at nothing and unemployed.” In either case, generalist is the label for a career that will die.

Think cars: You never hear an advertiser say, “Buy my car, it's good for everything!” Volvos are safe. BMWs are fun. Saturns are easy to buy. Just as successfully branded products offer specific benefits, successfully branded careerists offer specific talents. You get to the top by being the best, and you can't be the best at everything.

Ezra Zuckerman, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, agrees — and has the research to prove it. In his study of typecasting in Hollywood entitled “Robust Identities or Nonentities,” Zuckerman found that specialization leads to longer, more productive careers. Contrary to conventional Hollywood wisdom, big bucks come most often to people who become known for a certain type of role. Zuckerman finds that typecasting, as this practice is called, is also a moneymaker in the business world, where the hiring system is set up to reward those who differentiate themselves. “Headhunters are specialized,” he says, “and they look for something they can package and sell.”

Generalist is a good moniker during the first few years of your career. For example, if you're a standout college grad, you may win a place in a general-management rotational training program, such as General Electric Co. and other well-known consumer products companies offer. But the point of such training programs is to figure out what you're good at and then seek an internal role in that department.

So take a gamble. Figure out what you're best at and start making your mark. Then hope for good timing — that someone needs that particular talent when you have become expert at it.

Carly Fiorina, for example, is an outstanding marketer in the technology sector. She got to be chair and chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard by being the best — and having a little luck: the company badly needed marketing expertise when it was conducting a search for a CEO. If it had needed an engineering genius, Fiorina would not have been considered. By the same token, if a food-products company needed a marketing-oriented CEO, Fiorina would not have been a candidate because her background is in technology. People who define themselves clearly are clearly wrong for certain positions, but super-achievers take that risk.

Many professionals hesitate to define themselves because it limits where you can go. But top players must have clear definition. Most have enough confidence in their abilities to risk specialization. Very simply, they believe that adequate opportunities will be available as they progress up the ladder.

To specialize, think discipline (marketing, sales, operations, etc) and sector (media, technology, fashion, etc.) Become known for your extremes. If you aren’t extremely good at something, you won’t get to the top.

Still not convinced of the benefits of typecasting? Then consider the current job market. Hundreds of applicants vie for most jobs, and many are more than qualified. This means hiring managers can demand a perfect fit — and specialists rather than generalists typically offer a perfect fit.

Figure out what your strengths are and hone them. Sure, take varied positions in the company, and learn a range of skills, but make sure people know where your talents lie. People at the top need to see you as someone who is extremely good at something, and no one is extremely good at everything, so don’t sell yourself that way to upper management.

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Power lunch etiquette

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During my advertising agency days when I worked with Asian car companies, I had countless business meals with Asian men who had been schooled by experts in the art of American dining. Their training was evident; when faced with four forks at the first course of our meal, my companions were astute enough to know to take the second fork from the outside. (The rule, for dining idiots, is, when in doubt, use the utensil farthest from the plate, which in this case was the appetizer fork.) With every meal thereafter, I learned a little more about dining from them, and they learned a little more about server-side technology from me, until none of us needed each other anymore and a final “Check, please” was uttered.

Since then, I’ve gathered tips for business meals. I’m not perfect — in fact, I still don’t know why people use chopsticks for sushi when it seems like finger food — but I have learned a few things that can help keep meals moving smoothly. And I received a few e-mails last week suggesting that I write a column about table manners during business meals, so here goes.

Don’t dive for your food. I think the rule about not being the first to eat comes from the idea that you shouldn’t dis the Queen by eating the good stuff before her. Or something like that. Then, I think, this rule came to mean, Don’t look like you’re starving as if we were living in Depression-era times. Now, I think, it’s more about being interested in the people at — instead of the food that’s on — your table.

Don’t order soup. It splashes. It’s hard not to slurp. If your soup is hot and everyone else has a cold appetizer, they will have to wait while your soup cools. And in case your mom never told you this — when you tip the bowl to get the dregs of the soup, tip away from yourself, not toward. Also, spoon away from yourself, not toward, unless you want to drip-dry later.

Don’t sit facing a mirror. You will not be able to stop looking at yourself, which people might mistake for vanity or disinterest in the people around you. Both may be true, which would make things even worse. Don’t sit facing the sun. You will squint, which is never attractive. You will see your dining partner as a silhouette and you will miss facial expressions, which are crucial to reading moods.

Don’t cross your legs under the table. Sitting this way tilts your body a little bit. The tilt looks fine to those who can see your sheer stockings with a seam running up the back, but when your companions see no legs, just body, the tilt makes you look like you have either bad posture or no equilibrium.

In groups of more than five people, there is likely to be more than one conversation at a time. Sit near the person you want to talk to, but not next to her — it’s so much easier to talk across the table. That said, you must say a few words to those on either side of you. No matter how large the party, it is rude to talk only to the person on one side of you.

Drink. I’m not saying go wild, but if everyone else is drinking, unless you’re in a 12-step program, give in to peer pressure. It’s like wearing a suit when everyone else wears a suit. This goes for dessert also. I’m not saying you should initiate ordering the banana split flambe, because part of being a good executive is not being out of control, which means not being fat, which means not eating desserts. But if everyone else is getting one, don’t ruin the fun. How hard is it to take a bite in a show of camaraderie?

When in doubt, take your cue from those around you. For example, you probably don’t know how to use a finger bowl. I, in fact, do. But when my grandma trotted them out for my sweet-16 birthday party, my friends ate the floating carrot-fish out of the bowl. Are others ordering an appetizer? In what price range are their entrees? By the way, fingertips are dipped daintily into the finger bowl then patted dry with the napkin.

These tips may not land an account or close a deal, but I’ve found they are extras I bring to the table.

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Being late is bad

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My column was late. Not to you, but to my editor. It is surprising, really, that my column was late, because the time zone difference is in my favor. But this week I would have needed my editor to be in another galaxy.

I will not tell you why I was late because the only thing worse than being late telling why you were late. I am not talking about being late because your family's house burned down. I am talking about being late because of slow traffic, a late babysitter, a presentation that ran too long. Upward mobility requires that people can depend on you to be on time.

If you are a person who is always late, you will get in trouble. People who are always late think they are only sometimes late, so if you think you are sometimes late, you are probably in trouble.

There is no need to give advice on how to be on time, because everyone knows how to be on time. (Here's the proof: If the President of the United States invited you to dinner would there be any risk that you'd be late? No.) But perhaps there is a need to show why *all* deadlines and appointments are as important as dinner with the President.

The basic problem with being late is that you reveal too much about yourself. In the end, being late reveals either disrespect or incompetence, both of which are important things to not have at work, and if you do have them, hide them by being on time, always.

If you are late to a meeting, for example, you are disrespectful to everyone in the room. If your boss is there, forget the promotion. If your direct reports are there, imagine ten years from now when everyone has new jobs at new companies, and your bonus depends on cutting a deal with someone who used to report to you, and that person remembers how disrespectful you were. No bonus.

Sometimes people are on time to the meeting but they don't have the report. Forget the excuses because everyone in the room will see you as incapable. There are shades of incapable. There is incapable of doing the report so you procrastinate. There is perceiving that you are incapable even though you are capable which makes you incapable with low self-esteem. There is overloaded and did not get to the report which really means you cannot set limits at work, which translates to low self-esteem, or worse yet, no knowledge of your own limits.

How can you fix the problem? Being honest with yourself goes a long way in the late arena. Once I was late to dinner and someone at the table said to me, “You must be a time optimist.” I had no idea what he was talking about. But then he explained that most people are late because they are too optimistic about how quickly they can do things — which is a nice way of saying that people are late because they are not honest with themselves about how long things really take. So if you really want to be on time, you will start being a better judge of how much time tasks really take — and you will add some time to each estimate.

I used to teach a college-level business class, and some days I would give a pop quiz during the first five minutes of class. The quiz would be easy but it would count for a significant percentage of a student's overall grade. Some students would approach me after class to tell me that they had an excuse for lateness and that my surly pop quizzes were ruining their chance of getting into law school. I told the students that the quiz was my way of emphasizing that it doesn't matter how much you know about business, if you're late, you will undermine your success.

Luckily, my editor does not quiz me, and luckily, I am not applying to law school.

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Listen to the voice of experience

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My friend Ann has a really deep voice. Not a sexy, deep voice like at a 1-900 service. It’s more like Oscar the Grouch with a sore throat, or maybe even like Darth Vader on Prozac. Her voice, the result of a birth complication, is a disability that she must deal with daily, and for the most part has overcome. I know that now, but I didn’t always see things that way.

I knew Ann in grade school where I confess to having had evil thoughts:

  1. Why is she first chair in saxophone and I am last chair in oboe? She has a weird mouth and I don’t. It’s not fair.
  2. Why is she class president and I am not even getting invited to boy-girl parties? How is someone with such an awful voice so much more popular than I am?

In high school, Ann and I were on the track team together and we became close friends. I spent so much time with her that I stopped noticing that her voice was different. It seemed normal to me.

But there were constant reminders: People in restaurants stared when they heard us talking. Often sales people did not understand her question at first because they were so stunned by her voice. Ann never lost patience, never looked uncomfortable. I never knew how she did it.

In the track world, you meet tons of kids from schools all over the state, and when Ann walked by, I heard lots of them say: “What’s wrong with her voice?”

When I asked Ann if she felt uncomfortable about how she sounded, she’d say no. “A deep voice sounds authoritative,” she’d tell me.

Ann flourished in college. She learned to be extra nice to people because they usually would be extra nice back. She became very loyal to friends who stuck by her because so many other acquaintances walked away after hearing her speak. Naturally, she knew she was different, so she concentrated hard in school since good grades would help her overcome prejudices.

After college she went to a top advertising firm. I assume that her voice was not a problem during interviews, or at least that the interviewers believed Ann could overcome her voice impediment enough to impress potential clients.

But then she was assigned to a manager who hated her. He berated her intelligence, made sexually explicit comments in her presence and generally let her know he did not want her around. In truth, his actions amounted to harassment. But harassment is usually thought to occur when a man in power is attracted to a woman with less power. No one would have thought of anyone harassing Darth Vadar girl. Then, too, her harasser was powerful in the company, so Ann didn’t have much leverage.

Ann left the company. And once you leave a high-profile company without recommendations, you can forget going to another company in that industry. So she went back to where she flourished: school. She took programming classes and impressed a classmate so much that he got her a job. His software firm needed someone who knew advertising and someone who knew programming, and the company liked the idea of Ann wearing two hats.

The company went under in the tech meltdown of 2002, but Ann found that by switching gears, she had developed a new specialty in a very narrow niche that she dominates. She would not want me to say that in this column because she didn’t even want me to write the column in the first place. But the bottom line is that things are good for Ann. She weathered many storms and is successful despite her disability. Her tips for others who are struggling with some kind of impediment amount to good advice for any of us:

  1. Convince yourself you are great. Then convincing other people is so much easier.
  2. Don’t blame other people for your failures. Take responsibility for your life and move past people who don’t help you.
  3. Have patience with yourself if you don’t choose the right career on your first try. Trust that you will find a place that is right for you, and keep looking.
  4. Don’t make friends with a writer. They never stop using their friends’ lives as fodder.

Make your own luck

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To celebrate St. Patrick's Day, acknowledge that you are not a leprechaun and that you have to create your own luck. Sure, luck can make or break a career, but those who make their own luck can make their careers shine. St. Patrick's Day is a great day to assess where you stand in the lucky-person parade.

1. Being lucky is a way of looking at the world.

You can look back? on your life and see the luck in it or see the failure. But all good interviewers know that past performance is the best indicator of future performance. They want to know about your successes, so why doom yourself from the start? View yourself as having lead a charmed life, and you will find yourself becoming the recipient of more lucky charms. Optimists know this intuitively. Our lives unfold the way we see them. If you expect bad things to happen, they will. But if you expect good luck, it likely will come your way.

2. Know what luck looks like

The luckiest people knock on the door of opportunity and it opens. Throughout your life, though, you’ll knock on hundreds of these opportunity doors. Sure, this is a figurative statement, but put on your metaphorical walking shoes.

One caveat: You must be clear on what you want for this rule to work. Doors will open to you constantly, and unless you know what you want, you won't know if you have been lucky enough to get it.

To be a lucky person in this world you must have a vision of your life. Otherwise you will walk through any door, and whims, aimlessness and fate will direct your life. [I didn’t understand this last phrase]

3. Entourages make opportunities for luck

You’ll find more four-leafed clovers if everyone is hunting them for you, than if you're searching alone. So invest in yourself by hiring people to help you create luck. An assistant at work, a cleaning person at home — whatever you need to free up clover-hunting time. Examine every task you do that does not, in some way, allow you to knock on doors that might open to big-time luck. Delegate the luckless work so you can concentrate on your vision. Consider using the money you might spend on movies or lattes to pay an assistant. And every entourage should include trusted advisors – a mentor who will steer you to the good clover patches. Don't go picking without one.

4. Surround yourself with lucky people.

Successful people have successful friends. There is, of course, the chicken and egg question. For example, did Sam Waksal befriend Martha Stewart *because* she was rich and famous or because he liked her? You and I will never know, but they did hang out together — along with all their other rich, successful friends (whether either is truly lucky is debatable and probably depends on your personal value system). And that's where the odds come in. Don't worry about why or when lucky people find each other. Just play the odds, and make sure you are hanging out with lucky people now.

5. Don't tell other people they were lucky

We all want to believe that we have accomplished some great feat through personal skill and ability — not luck. If you say it was because of luck, then it seems as though we had nothing to do with making something happen. So don’t tell someone who’s just achieved an important goal that they are lucky. Maybe they are, but you should focus on the skill they used to make their luck Besides, showing respect and admiration for others — not to mention hanging around with a winner — makes you look good..

If you hate your acquaintance for being lucky, stifle that feeling until you get home and can curse and scream until you feel better. But remember that no one seems very lucky while jealously screaming about his or her neighbor. And don’t forget Rule No. 4. Stop screaming and go out hang out with this person.

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Consider the commute before you take a new job

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If you have a bad commute, you are probably not very happy. A bad commute spills over into all aspects of your life. Raymond Novaco, a psychologist and professor at the University of California, Irvine, found that bad traffic on the way home makes for a bad mood in the evening. This is true regardless of age, gender, income, and job satisfaction. In fact, your commute might even kill you, because an increase in driving distance relates directly to an increase in blood pressure.

Many people don't need to wonder if their commute is ruining their lives: It's obvious. When I commuted from Los Angeles to San Diego, I sure knew. Even though I made that drive ten years ago, the two hours I spent going each way was so bad that I still talk about it. I didn't eat well because I was driving during breakfast and dinner times. My love life suffered because the only thing that excited me was sleep. I called my friends from the car, and my repeated interruptions (“Hold it, I have to change lanes”) annoyed them so much they would use any excuse to get off the phone.

I justified the commute by telling myself that the job was great. In fact, the job *was* great, and when I later took positions at companies closer to my home, it probably helped me to make huge leaps up the corporate ladder. But that period in my life is a black hole — figuratively and literally — because I never traveled in daylight hours (too much traffic). When I left I was so relieved that I wished I had made the decision sooner.

If you're wondering how bad your commute is, try asking the people you come home to at night. If your roommate says you're a monster until you've had two beers, you know you're in trouble. If your roommate is a cat, you might not get such helpful feedback, but you can take a look at averages.

The average commute in the U.S. is about 25 minutes. The shortest commutes are in the 17-minute range for people living in the Great Plains states (Wichita, Kan.; Tulsa, Okla.; Omaha, Neb.) New Yorkers have the longest commute, clocking in at 38 minutes, six minutes longer than workers in the Windy City, who came in second.
I’ve heard many terrible suggestions for making a long commute seem shorter, or at least more pleasant. For example, learning a language. But really, who has ever learned a language this way? With luck, you may learn how to say, “How much does this cost?” or “Do you want a date?” Another favorite, talking on the phone while driving, is about as safe as driving drunk. The one I tried, listening to a book on CD, required very good listening skills. You don't realize how much you tune in and out of conversations until you spend an hour listening to a book and have no idea what happened. I realized that if I had good enough listening skills to follow an audio book, I could make enough money to have a chauffer drive me to work.

Which is really the best idea. Commuting seems less stressful if someone else drives. Take New Yorkers, for example. Many take the train or subway, so even though Big Apple employees have the longest commutes in the U.S., they’re stoic about it.

But 90 percent of U.S. workers go to and from work in a car. My experience tells me that once you’re in the car, there's not much you can do to make the commute tolerable. So the shorter the better. And the best way to get a short commute is to choose a job that’s closer to your home (or move closer to work, but who’s going to do that?).

Not convinced this is a valid job-selection criterion? It would be if you think about what that car time is worth to you. For instance, if you were earning $40,000 a year, would you accept a two-hour one-way commute (four hours round trip) to make an extra $100,000 a year in salary? In other words, would you work an extra four hours daily at a terrible second job — driving in traffic — to make $100,000 a year? Sure, it’s a lot of money if you have nothing else to do with your four hours a day. But if you have to miss seeing your kids every day, the money might not look so good to you.

Sure, I’m being dramatic; most peoples' commute choices are less black and white. But when you really think about what you’re getting — and what you’re losing — because of your miserable commute, you may decide you’re better off working as the night manager at your neighborhood McDonald's. Maybe you could even walk to work.

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Career lessons about grit (and nepotism) from Oscar-nominee Sofia Coppola

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When the Oscars run (probably overtime) on Sunday, I'll be rooting for “Lost in Translation” for best picture. Not that I have seen the other competitors, but I loved this particular movie. In fact, I was so impressed that I read up on Sofia Coppola. In the process, I learned more about career management by how she managed hers.

Of course, Sofia has had more advantages than most fledgling directors. Her dad, Francis Ford Coppola, provided her with a stunning apprenticeship, including giving her a part in “The Godfather: Part III,” screenwriter lessons and producing “Lost in Translation” for her.

But before I launch into a celebration of Sofia Coppola, I need to say that the U.S. is not a meritocracy: Rich people are better connected, so they get better jobs. And rich people who are not well connected tend to get better jobs because they have an easier time envisioning themselves in a successful career than poorer people. An example: My younger brother, now 21, did almost no homework in high school, and he recently landed a job most college graduates would covet — investment banking in Europe.

He used connections and a lofty vision of himself to get it. He started on his career path in high school by getting a management job at a Blockbuster store? This was easy in the wealthy community where we were raised because no adults there wanted (or needed) this type of job. That left the entry-level management jobs to high school students. At my local Blockbuster store in sort-of-rough-and-tumble Brooklyn, the managers are in their thirties. So the first moment of inequality is that rich kids can get great jobs in high school.

Since he had been an actual manager before, I was able to give him a management job in my own company during the summer after his freshman year of college. And I concede he did an outstanding job. But only a sister would give a 18-year-old a management job in a software company.

The next year, my cousin, a high ranking guy at a big ad agency, gave my brother a summer internship even though my brother missed the deadline for applying and wasn’t in business school like all the other interns. And to be honest, my brother did a great job of mending fences with a basically estranged cousin. He also had a stellar resume written by yours truly.

So by the time my brother graduated from college, he had a great experience on his resume that helped him land his new job in Europe. I don’t begrudge him that. And I admit that with a lot of effort and even more luck, a poor kid could land the same positions as my brother. But it’s clear he had a million advantages that poor kids don't have, so he didn’t need as much luck.

Speaking of people who don't need luck, let's get back to Sofia. Tracing the career of a person who had every advantage in the book can make one a little peevish. So how do people act when they have every advantage? That’s the relevant question, because probably we should all act the same way.

People like my brother, who have relatively few advantages compared to someone like Sofia, ask for everything — just to see if they'll get it. He asked my parents to pay for him to attend an expensive college even though he didn’t do a lick of homework in high school. Even though he knew he wasn’t qualified, he asked my cousin for an internship. He could do this because he could envision himself getting it. Poor kids have to stretch to imagine having food on the table every night.

In Sofia’s world, though, you don't just ask for something — you operate as though you’ll definitely get it. The difference is that my brother and others like him still need to make contingency plans, whereas really well connected people don't. Thinking this way is what helps them to succeed.

So Sofia Coppola wrote “Lost in Translation” for Bill Murray before he said he'd make a movie with her. Once she finished the script it took her months to finally get it to him. Then she left messages on his 800-number for five months before he responded to the script.

We should all believe in ourselves so much. How many of us would spend months on a project that might not happen? It's her belief in herself that impresses me. It doesn't matter if your last name is Coppola; if your screenplay is terrible, Bill Murray won’t do it. In that sense, Sofia did, in fact, take a gamble, even though she wasn’t in danger of starving like some screenwriters are. And with the biggest risks come the biggest rewards.

Maybe rich people can afford to take more risks. But my point is that by believing in yourself, as Sofia Coppola did, you may be able to leap career hurdles you once thought were impossible. How can you not root for her on Sunday?

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List of ways to ruin a list

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The goals you have for your life are only as good as your daily to-do list. You can make all the grand plans you want, but if you don’t stay on track each day, you won’t reach those goals. To-do lists are for people who believe in their dreams and their ability to reach them. List makers create daily plans for success. In other words, everyone should have a daily to-do list.

If you aren’t careful, however, your list will become more of a procrastination aid than dream machine. Here are seven typical ways you can undermine your list:

1. Ignore it. This is my pet thing to do. If I can’t handle my life that day, I don’t look at my list. This allows me to think I don’t need to do anything. But then the rest of the week is hell because I’m compensating for stuff I ruined by ignoring it. It would have been easier to review my list, accomplish the most pressing items, and then go back to bed.

2. List vague tasks. Take, for example, “work on presentation”. When is this job finished? How many things need working on? Why would you start this chore if you have no plan for completing it? This item is like poison ivy — you see it and go another direction. Break down the items on your list into manageable parts. Besides crossing items off the list is fun, and the more to cross off the better.. I’ve been known to write “buy envelopes” as one of the tasks needed to send resumes. It’s an easy step in a hard process — makes me feel like I’m getting something done in my big-picture goal of landing a job.

3. Create a wish list. A wish list is not a to-do list. It’s important to have life goals and it’s nice to be lofty, but no point in putting “buy a house” on your to-do list. If you really can buy a house, try listing an easier item like, “call mortgage broker” If you can’t get that far, make a list of things you’d like to have in 10 years. Include “buy a house” and post this list on your fridge. Then get back to your to-do list — every 10-year plan is the culmination of 3,650 daily to do lists.

4. Switching manically between types of tasks. E-mail, phone, errand, e-mail, phone, errand. This is not a productive day. A good day is e-mail,e-mail, e-mail, phone, phone, phone, errand, errand, errand. So organize your to-do list so that you do all your e-mails in one or two sittings.

5. List items you’d like to do but shouldn’t. These are fun things like learn 1000 words in Italian or knit an extra-large sweater. Most working professionals do not have time for these in a typical day. Unproductive adults indulge themselves in doing them anyway because it makes them feel productive. I know I do not have time to make cupcakes for my husband’s birthday and I should buy him a cake from the local bakery. But I put “making cupcakes” on my to-do list anyway, and then, when he comes home, I’m annoyed because making his cupcakes ruined my workday.

6. Lose sight of the big picture. How many people are unemployed but don’t have “get a job” on their list? If you’re among them, good for you — because “get a job” is too vague. But you should include job-search-related tasks, such as “Send out six resumes” or “make two networking calls”. So many people omit chores related to their most important goal because they seem obvious. But if you don’t put them on the list, they won’t happen.

7. Write a novel. A list is not a novel. It is one page.

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A Valentine for my husband

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In honor of Valentine’s Day, this is a love letter to my husband. But apparently, he is too busy to read my column, so he won’t see the letter.

The last time I complained about his disinterest, he said, “Okay, fine, read me your columns.”

So I read a column out loud to him. And in the middle of it, he fall asleep.

To test him, I said, “So, what do you think?”

He jerked his head up, like a college kid in an 8 am class, and he said, “Uh. It got slow after the first couple of paragraphs.”

Fortunately, my affection for my husband isn't based on his listening skills. I love him for other reasons, including his fearlessness when it comes to changing careers. He isn't afraid to reinvent himself professionally so that he always does something he finds interesting. His excitement about his work makes our life together more fun.

My husband's first job was as a composer. When he was ten. For most kids this wouldn't be a job, but his parents couldn't afford a private school in Los Angeles, so my husband got a scholarship to a top-tier school for his musical talents.

In college, he decided that to be a great composer you need to have something very new to say, and he did not have something that new to say about music. So he quit music.

He went to film school and earned spending money by editing soft-core porn: “The Magic Blanket Bikini.” (He says it was very, very, soft because the star announced midway through filming that she wouldn't take her clothes off.) He made video art for his master's thesis, and his work became so well known that it is part of the curricula at UCLA's film school.

But he grew tired of the film industry after one too many Magic Blankets. So when he graduated, he took a job designing video games. He learned to say Ka-pow! and Ouch! in four languages, and he got to wheel and deal with big budgets from major gaming companies.

I married a game designer with a penchant for piano and a portfolio of films that featured ex-girlfriends being constrained. (“The director,” he explained, “always dates the actress.”)

On September 11, my husband found himself looking over me, dust-covered and shaken in a hospital bed. Suddenly, he wanted to save the world. He became an unpaid volunteer for nonprofits until one hired him. Now he helps prisoners establish safe, fulfilling lives when their sentence is up. His job would stretch my patience (admittedly, thin) to its limits.

My husband drives his parents nuts: “We drove to all those music lessons and then you go to film school! We paid for five years of film school and you make video games!” He drives my parents nuts, too: “What is his job? Video is not a job! Volunteering is not a job!” But my husband’s approach to work makes me excited; Members of my family picked a career and stuck with it forever, even when they stopped being fun.

Our careers are not who we are. But what we choose to do with our days reflects our values. I picked a partner who tolerate being bored or uninspired, and his standards for life encourage me to raise my own. His career choices also reveal a bigger heart than I saw when I married him — except when it comes to reading my columns.

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