So you’ve landed your dream internship in Australia! Congratulations!

Now, the most challenging part of your program starts: gaining real world experience…in your field…in another country!

Even though excitement and enthusiasm takes over in the first days of your internship, now it is time to prove yourself and make the most out of this incredible experience, so we have a few tips to help you keep your productiveness at a high level in your workplace from day one!

Take Notes

As someone who is currently studying or have just finished University, you must be already an expert note-taker from classes, right? Make sure you always have a pen and paper with you and take notes of important information and tasks that are assigned to you, this way you won’t have to ask unnecessary questions and will have a point to refer to later if you forget anything.

Understand Work Processes

Learn and memorize processes for each new task you perform, as this will save you time and effort when your schedule is tight or if you have a big amount of work to complete. Ensure you get the processes right and ask a more experienced person if you are unsure on what is the best way to have a particular task completed.

Work on the important tasks when you’re most alert

Self-awareness will help you identify when is your peak of productivity. If you are a morning person for example, you should take advantage of that and do the most important tasks during that period. This will ensure that all hard work will be completed when you have more energy to spend.

Create lists

To-do-lists will help you prioritize and keep organised. Before you leave work for the day, make a list of the main goals that you would like to accomplish the following day. Be realistic about what you can complete in a day of work, and resist the urge of making a big list for the month or week as this can make you feel overwhelmed.

Don’t multitask

“Multitasking is not humanly possible,” (Earl K. Miller)

People tend to believe that if they juggle multiple tasks at the same time they will boost productivity. This couldn’t be more wrong! We have a limited amount of information that can be processed by our brain, so you are actually working extra hard when you try to handle multiple tasks at once. Doing one thing at a time will ensure you are not only more productive but more effective as well.