Nobody really teaches you how to have a job.

You spend most of your life learning how to get one. You go to school, build a résumé, apply, interview, and eventually somebody hires you. Then you show up and realize getting the job and actually knowing how to have a career are two completely different things.

Suddenly, eight or nine hours of almost every weekday belong to work. You have a boss, coworkers, meetings, deadlines, Slack messages, performance reviews, office politics, and responsibilities that actually affect other people.

At the same time, you’re supposed to maintain friendships, date, work out, see your family, save money, clean your apartment, cook dinner, have hobbies, and occasionally sit on your couch without feeling guilty about it.

That adjustment is a huge part of your 20s, and I don’t think we talk about it enough.

So whether you’re starting your first job, getting back into work mode after summer, stepping into a new role, or realizing you want to take your career a little more seriously, think of this as your back-to-work guide.

Not for becoming obsessed with work. For getting better at having a career while still having a life.

Stop Expecting Yourself to Know Everything

One of the strangest things about starting your career is how quickly you go from feeling relatively competent to feeling like you know absolutely nothing.

You might have spent years being good at school. Then you get a job and suddenly everyone is talking about systems, clients, processes, and acronyms you’ve never heard before.

That can make you feel behind.

You’re not.

You’re learning an entirely new environment, and part of starting your career is accepting that you’re going to have questions. Indeed’s guide to succeeding in a new job recommends using the early weeks to get to know the people around you, understand expectations, and gradually take more ownership of your role.

Ask questions. Take notes. Pay attention to how people communicate and how decisions get made. Figure out who knows what and who you should go to when you need something.

You don’t need to prove that you already know how everything works. You need to prove that you can learn.

Figure Out What Actually Matters at Work

Being busy is incredibly easy.

Being useful is harder.

You can spend your entire day answering emails, sitting in meetings, responding to Slack messages, and completing random tasks. Then you get to 6 p.m. exhausted without being entirely sure what you actually accomplished.

That’s why prioritization matters so much.

“Prioritization, getting the shit done that you actually have to get done is one of the hardest things.”

At the beginning of the day, figure out what actually needs your attention. What is important to your boss? What matters to your team? What has the biggest consequence if it doesn’t get finished?

Then start there.

This is also why understanding the business matters. Learn how your company makes money, who its customers are, what leadership is focused on, and where your role fits into all of it.

The quicker you understand the bigger picture, the easier it becomes to recognize which work deserves your time.

Learn How to Work With Your Boss

Your boss can have an enormous impact on how you experience your job, especially early in your career.

One of the best things you can do is stop expecting them to magically manage you exactly how you want to be managed. Instead, learn how they work.

Do they want regular updates or only want to hear from you when something changes? Do they prefer Slack, email, or a conversation? What questions do they ask every time you present something? What do they expect you to bring to a one-on-one?

Start paying attention.

Eventually, you want to be able to anticipate what your boss is going to need before they ask for it. If they always ask about the timeline, have the timeline ready. If they want numbers, bring the numbers. If they care about a particular client or project, know what’s happening with it.

You’re making their job easier, but you’re also making your own job easier because you stop constantly guessing what they want from you.

Keep Track of What You’re Doing

Start a document.

Seriously.

Keep a running record of the projects you work on, responsibilities you take on, results you contribute to, problems you solve, positive feedback you receive, and anything else you might eventually want to remember.

“Having this running document will be incredibly helpful for you in everything you do at work.”

I go deeper into this in The Best Career Advice From the Internet, but this is one of the simplest habits you can build early in your career.

When your performance review comes around, you have receipts. When you want a raise, you can show what you’ve done. When you update your résumé, you aren’t trying to reconstruct the last two years of your life from memory.

It also helps you see your own progress. Sometimes you don’t realize how much you’ve learned until you look back at what you were doing six months ago.

Ask for Feedback Before You Need It

One of the biggest mistakes you can make early in your career is assuming no news is good news.

Maybe it is.

Or maybe there are things your boss wishes you would do differently and nobody has told you yet.

Ask.

You don’t need to turn every one-on-one into a performance review, but every once in a while, ask how you’re doing. Ask what you could improve. Ask whether there’s anything your boss would like you to do differently.

Then try not to immediately defend yourself when they answer.

“Take it seriously, not personally.”

Feedback can feel personal because your work feels personal. You spent time on something, tried to do it well, and now someone is telling you it could have been better.

That doesn’t mean they think you’re bad at your job.

Take the information, decide what you can learn from it, and get better.

Speak Up Even When You’re Nervous

There’s an easy pattern to fall into when you’re younger than most of the people in the room.

You assume everyone else knows more than you, so you stay quiet.

Sometimes listening is absolutely the right move. But you also don’t want to spend your first two years at a company waiting until you feel qualified enough to contribute.

You are there for a reason.

Ask the question. Share the idea. Add the context you have. You don’t need to dominate every meeting or have a groundbreaking insight every time you open your mouth.

One trick I like is going early. If you know you want to contribute during a meeting, say something relatively early instead of spending 45 minutes trying to construct the perfect comment in your head.

Once you’ve spoken once, the second time usually feels much easier.

Build Relationships Before You Need Them

Work is easier when you actually know the people you work with.

That sounds incredibly obvious, but it becomes especially easy in remote and hybrid jobs to interact with someone for months without knowing anything about them beyond the tiny profile picture next to their Slack messages.

Make an effort.

Say hi. Ask someone how their weekend was. Grab coffee with a coworker. Introduce yourself to someone on another team. If someone mentions a vacation, ask them about it when they get back.

You don’t need to become best friends with everyone at work. You’re just building actual relationships instead of only appearing in someone’s inbox when you need something.

Those relationships can help you do your current job better, and they can also follow you throughout your career. The people you work with today will eventually go to other companies, start businesses, get promoted, hire people, and hear about opportunities.

Don’t wait until you need something to suddenly remember they exist.

Stop Trying to Multitask Through Your Entire Day

You’re in a meeting while answering Slack while checking your email while looking at your phone.

It feels productive because technically you’re doing four things.

You’re probably doing all four worse.

Research summarized by the Psychology Today explains that repeatedly switching between tasks carries cognitive costs and can make complex work less efficient.

Try actually being in the meeting.

Put your phone away. Close the unrelated tabs. Turn on Do Not Disturb when you’re trying to finish something important.

This matters even more early in your career because you’re constantly absorbing information without realizing it. You’re learning how your company communicates, how decisions get made, what your boss cares about, and who actually has influence.

You miss a lot when you’re only half paying attention.

Accept That Work Changes the Rest of Your Life

This might be the hardest adjustment.

When you start working full time, your life changes.

You don’t have the flexibility you had in college. Your friends might live across the city instead of down the hall. Going to the gym requires more planning. Dating takes up an entire evening. Even doing your laundry suddenly feels like an event you have to schedule.

That can make it feel like there isn’t enough time for everything.

There probably isn’t.

I wrote about this in How Do You Balance Work, Friends, Dating, and the Gym? because I think one of the biggest mistakes we make in our 20s is believing balance means fitting everything into every day.

It doesn’t.

Maybe Monday is work and the gym. Tuesday you go on a date. Wednesday you work late. Thursday you see your friends. Friday you go out. Saturday you do absolutely nothing until 2 p.m.

No individual day looks particularly balanced.

Zoom out over the entire week and it might be.

Build a Routine That Actually Fits Your Life

A full-time job takes up a huge part of your schedule, which means the rest of your life needs a little more intention than it used to.

Figure out when you’re going to work out. Decide when you’re going grocery shopping. Leave some nights open. Try to get enough sleep. Find the parts of your routine that make your week feel easier.

The important part is that your routine should fit your actual life, not some imaginary version of yourself who wakes up at 5 a.m., meditates, runs six miles, meal preps, reads 50 pages, works nine hours, goes on a date, and is asleep by 10.

You need something you can maintain.

And your routine is allowed to change. What works during your first month at a job might not work six months later. What works when you’re single might change when you start dating someone.

The goal isn’t to create the perfect routine.

It’s to create enough structure that your life doesn’t feel like something that only happens around work.

Remember That Your First Job Is Not Your Entire Career

There can be so much pressure in your 20s to make the right career decisions immediately.

You pick a job and start wondering whether you chose the right industry. You see a friend get promoted and wonder if you’re behind. Someone else makes more money than you and suddenly you start questioning every decision you’ve made since graduation.

You have time.

Your first job teaches you things. So does your second. You’re going to learn what you’re good at, what you hate doing, what kind of boss you work well with, what kind of environment you like, and what you want your life to look like outside of work.

That’s a huge part of Early Career Questions, Answered. Your first job is a starting point, not a decision that locks you into one career forever.

You’re allowed to change your mind.

You’re allowed to realize you want something different.

You’re allowed to take a job, learn from it, and eventually move on.

Your career is going to be built through a lot of decisions, not one perfect decision you somehow need to make at 22.

And Here’s The Thing

Your 20s are probably going to be the first time you’re figuring out your career and your adult life at the same time.

You’re learning how to work with a boss, communicate professionally, handle feedback, speak up, manage your time, and become good at something. At the same time, you’re figuring out friendships, dating, money, health, where you want to live, and what you actually want your life to look like.

Of course it feels like a lot sometimes.

You don’t need to become the perfect employee. You don’t need to have your entire career figured out. And you definitely don’t need to sacrifice every other part of your life to prove that you care about your job.

Learn how the company works. Figure out what matters. Do good work. Keep track of it. Ask for feedback. Build relationships. Take your career seriously without treating every decision like it determines the rest of your life.

You’re building a career.

You’re also building a life.

Give yourself enough room to do both.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I adjust to working full time in my 20s?

Give yourself time to adjust to the structure of a full-time schedule. Build routines around work, prioritize the parts of your life you don’t want to lose, and accept that you probably won’t fit work, friends, dating, exercise, errands, and downtime into every single day.

How can I stand out at work early in my career?

Focus on being reliable, understanding what matters to your team, communicating clearly, asking thoughtful questions, and following through. You don’t need to constantly try to impress people to become someone they trust.

How do I balance work and my personal life in my 20s?

Think about balance across a week or month rather than expecting every day to be perfectly balanced. Different priorities will require more attention at different times, but make sure work isn’t permanently pushing everything else out of your life.

How often should I ask my boss for feedback?

There isn’t one perfect schedule, but feedback should happen more often than your annual performance review. Check in periodically so you understand what you’re doing well and what you can improve while you still have time to act on it.

Is it normal to not know what I want to do with my career in my 20s?

Yes. Your early jobs are partly how you figure that out. Pay attention to what you enjoy, what you’re good at, what you want more of, and what you never want to do again, then use that information to make your next decision.