1. How to Strive for Excellence
You won't turn in an A+ effort on every project, but when it's time to, you should be able to. Learn how to focus in on something and turn in results that are far beyond the bare minimum and you'll gain the respect of your coworkers and supervisors. We all know people who are famous for doing the minimum necessary. Don't be that person.
2. How to Dress for the Occasion
This skill goes for the office just as much as for your personal life. Your twenties is the time when you can start slowly putting away all those t-shirts and let yourself be seen out in public casually in collared shirts. Your wardrobe should be ready for anything from a formal dinner to a night out, and you need to know social dress code cues. In the office, don't be afraid to dress a notch nicer than your peers. It'll set you apart.
3. How to Write Well When You Need To
When you're texting your friends, use whatever grammar you like. But when you need to, you'd better be able to compose a well-thought-out email or letter with impeccable grammar and spelling. This helps people take you seriously.
4. How to Teach Yourself a New Skill
No matter what job you find yourself in, you're doing to be asked to do something that you don't know how to do. Rather than sitting back and waiting for someone to show you how, go out and gain the knowledge yourself. Today with the Internet and YouTube, you can teach yourself to do just about anything imaginable if you're dedicated to it.
5. How to Follow Even When You Disagree
Everybody falls somewhere in a chain of authority, whether you're looking at your boss or thinking about a legal structure. And everyone regularly has the opportunity to obey a supervisor's instruction that they dislike or comply with a policy or law with which they disagree. There are times for speaking out, and there are times for putting your head down and getting done what you're asked to do without question.
Excel is the under-appreciated workhorse of offices worldwide. It's the program that is approachable to just about anyone on a very rudimentary level, but can stretch to handle unbelievable complex systems and functions. If you're a pro at Excel, not only will you be able to do things your coworkers only dream of, but you'll be able to manage your household finances successfully.
7. How to Manage Your Schedule Effectively
We all have that friend or coworker who always seems to double-book themselves or forget about meetings. Having and keeping a calendar is mandatory. Smartphones and online calendars make it ridiculously easy to manage your own calendar and even share it with your spouse or family. Everything goes in there. For bonus points, schedule your own time too - looking ahead even one week to think about what you'll want to accomplish will make you far more productive and effective and give you more time to relax fully, knowing you aren't forgetting things.
8. How to Organize Your Work Systems
Be known as the coworker who never lets things slip through the cracks. Be knowledgeable of your own systems and how they work. Everybody's is different, but everybody needs to have some kind of system for at least their to-do list and for their email. Don't lose emails without taking care of them, and don't miss deadlines because you forgot about a project.
9. How to Take Ownership of a Project
Unless you forever want to be a peon in the workplace, learn how to take a task or project over. Supervisors are always looking for people who can be trusted to take care of something fully without needing to be micromanaged. Be able to take something from concept to completion without excess supervision.
On a piece of notebook paper, the margins give you space if your word goes a little longer than you planned. In your life, margins work the same way. Don't schedule yourself down to the minute unless you want to be perpetually late. Allow extra time for unexpected things. The same goes for managing your capacity - don't run yourself to exhaustion every day or forever try to do an inhuman amount. Just like living without savings for emergencies, if you don't have margins, even small unexpected things can completely derail you.
11. How to Focus on Other People
The art of conversation and networking is all about focusing on the other person. Strive to talk about yourself as little as possible and ask good questions. You'll find yourself the center of attention and the leader in the room without even trying.
12. Know Your Mentors
It takes a village to raise a child, but this doesn't end when you hit 18. We all need mentoring relationships until the end of our lives, and they go in all 3 directions: up, out, and down. Find people who can teach you things, find peers who can journey along with you, and find people you can pour into. There may be professional, spiritual, intellectual, or other types of mentoring relationships.
13. How to Prioritize
Life is really just a series of decisions about priorities. Anything along the lines of "I don't have time" is simply a cover for "It's not a priority for me right now." Know your big-picture priorities, how to prioritize projects, and then know how to be honest about them with people.