Archive for the Productivity Category
Why Companies Should Allow Their Employees to Work from Home
Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Evita of Evolving Beings
It seems that as technology expands forward, it is allowing more and more people the freedom to not be tied to a desk at their office any longer.
More and more people are either being approached by their company with an option to work remotely, such as from home, or are themselves suggesting the option to their company.
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Unleash Employees’ Inner Creative Marketing Talents – Rehumanize Business Part 2
You may have read that title and thought, “What does my company’s marketing have to do with work happiness?”
A lot.
70% of business is transacted because your friend told you about a product or service. You probably own an iPod because your friends wouldn’t stop raving about their iPod. You trust your friends to recommend good stuff.
Zappos let’s their employees Twitter on the job. They trust their people to connect with the customer.
I love Zappos, not because they have every kind of shoe on the planet, but because they ship for free, have a 360 day return policy and pay for shipping back to the company if you want to return a purchase. Now that’s worth spreading.
People want to share stuff that makes them happy. It’s up to companies to encourage their people to share their story.
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What I Learned from Working on My Habits
As I’m looking over January’s theme “Relaxing with my work”, I’m beginning to really see how hard I am on myself. I expect myself to master concepts that only great writers, CEO’s, and Zen masters fully understand.
Just because I tell myself to breathe all nice and deep and relaxed over the next week when I’m feeling stressed out doesn’t mean it will happen right away.
Maybe that should be a theme of the month. Stop being a big bully to myself.
I wanted to publish this review of my theme two weeks ago, but I felt like I was still processing my information. Now that I’m ready, let’s begin the review…
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10 Ways to Unclutter Your Mind
The clutter in our minds can prevent us from feeling good. We can’t focus. We feel like we are just spinning our wheels.
I know that when the clutter covers my brain like a fog, I feel like just giving in and surfing YouTube. After countless times of just giving in, I decided to create a plan.
So how does a person unclutter their mind?
I have some tools you can use on a daily basis that will help you obtain clearer thinking. The more you use these tools, the easier it will be to maintain a clear mind.
1. Eliminate noise
I know I have a hard time focusing when there is a lot of noise around me. You probably are easily distracted by noise too. So, try using noise canceling headphones or ear plugs to eliminate the noises that can pull you away from your work.
2. Find a way to laugh
A laugh releases endorphins. These endorphins are like dead cell sweepers. They increase the blood flow and push away the clutter. Try going to a secluded spot, thinking about a recently funny moment and chuckling to yourself. Once you get that laughter going, you’ll notice the lighter feeling. This may feel strange at first, but I promise it helps.
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Hard, Fun and Beautiful – Don’t Want to Go Inside Edition
Where we are free to talk about the hard, the fun, and the beautiful of our work week.
This week was a lot of fun because I’ve been building on my strengths. I’ve been doing the soft sell on my teleseminar How to Kick Butt at Work and Be Happy Too. It’s hard to find the balance between encouraging people to buy a good product and begging.
I want 10,000 people to sign up for this amazing teleseminar, but I know that won’t happen. It’s all about baby steps.
Each day is exciting, especially when someone new signs up. I know my marketing is working.
I do have to work on letting my upset feelings go on the days when nobody signs up
Let’s begin…
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Hard, Fun and Beautiful – Creative Pen Edition
(Can’t see the video? Then try watching it at Work Happy Now – Hard, Fun and Beautiful – Creative Pen Edition)
Where we are free to talk about the hard, the fun, and the beautiful of our work week.
Ahhhh, my cold has subsided and I can function again. What a relief to be healthy again. It’s funny how quickly we adapt to situations and forget the beauty in being healthy.
I can exercise again. I miss it so much. All my stress builds up without some good cardio, strength training, and stretching (AKA Yoga).
When we don’t have something that we once had (and enjoyed), it’s so easy to see the beauty that we don’t hold any longer. We need to remind ourselves of what life was like when we were feeling bad. Help us put our working lives into perspective every now and again.
Alright. It’s time.
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Work Happiness Tip – Tag Your Co-Worker
I posted on Twitter about the importance of rewarding your co-workers. I love Twitter, by the way. The ability to connect with fun, smart and quirky people is brilliant.
A friend on Twitter told me that she likes to create tags for her co-workers.
I asked her what she meant and she explained that she likes to give out random acts of kindness to the people she works with. She draws beautiful pictures on pricing tags. She sent me these photos so I could share them with you.
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January Theme of the Month – Relaxing With My Work
Two weeks ago I did a theme of the week: “More Listening, Less Talking.” It forced me to really listen to what people are saying to me instead of interrupting people before they are done.
My main weakness during that week was that I really wanted to help people finish their sentences because I knew the word that they were trying to use, but couldn’t quite get out.
It was actually a little painful.
I decided to let people have their say and I was amazed by the experience. I tried to open up to each word. It became a meditation. There were a couple of times when I was talking to my Uncle and a friend that I zoned out and I was doing a little too much feeling and not enough listening, but I quickly snapped back so they didn’t even notice.
I realize that the theme of the week is nice, but a couple of readers suggested that I do a monthly theme and break it into focused weeks. So that’s what I’m doing.
Here’s the outline that I’m using…
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Theme of the Week – More Listening Less Talking
I’m changing up my Monday post to see if we can’t shake things up a little bit.
I’ve been struggling with 30 day challenges. They work well on tangible things like no sugar for thirty days, but when dealing with social aspects of work and our emotions, 30 days is just too long to focus. Especially for me. My ADD just kicks in and after a week I’m back to my normal routine.
So I’ve attempted a method that seems to work better for me. I have had a theme of the week for the past few weeks and it has worked well. My last theme was “relaxing my muscles at work.”
I wrote 3 sticky notes with that message and applied it in 3 locations:
1. My bathroom mirror.
2. Inside of my wallet.
3. My office desk.
That way there was always a reminder nearby.
This week my theme of the week is to do more listening instead of talking. I feel like lately I’ve been waiting for people to stop talking so that I can start talking.
Very bad habit.
So this week I’m doing more listening. I mean really listening with my ear drums, eyes, and thoughts. We’ll see how it goes.
I want it to be a more sensory experience instead of just trying to catch all the words and move on.
I’ll update you in the Hard, Fun and Beautiful post.
What about you? Have you ever thought about having a theme of the week?
Let me know in the comments section, what would be a good theme (personal or career development) that could help you become happier at work?
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How to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed
So you’re stressed out and you have too much to complete. What do you do?
Usually someone does the opposite of what they should really do. They try to rush through to get as much done as possible without being aware of their body signals.
This is actually funny to me. I have often seen co-workers making calls, writing an email and planning their night all at the same time they’re rushing to get all their work done and then they complain about feeling stressed out.
Instead of looking at the root cause, they apply topical solutions to the problem. I’ll explain as this article continues.
I’ve actually tried talking to these stressed out people about their habits and all I get are grumpy stares. I’m sure they are addicted to the rush of rushing around. We all love to feel important, making sure our ego gets that daily dose of “oh yeah, that’s why I’m on Earth.”
The problem is that our hearts, minds, and stomachs can’t handle the pressure. No wonder we eat for comfort. We are constantly on the edge trying to bring ourselves back to solid ground.
We need to find other ways to relax with the work that we do without feeling overwhelmed. It’s a mental game that we must all solve for ourselves.
I use 3 techniques that I’ve combined to help me deal with my frustration, plus a bonus idea that has worked well for me:
- Slow your movements for a specified amount of time
- Increase speed slowly
- Be 100% there
* Bonus
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