Are you guilty of reaching for your phone first thing in the morning? Do you lose hours surreptitiously checking your social feeds? Does your phone hijack most of your time? Don’t feel too bad – it happens to the best of us. Social media is designed to be addictive and deliver instant dopamine hits with every click or tap. It is meant to capture and hold our attention for as long as possible. So much so that we end up wasting a lot of time that could have been used towards other, more productive endeavors.

Social media is not all that terrible. There are good sides to social media too.  We get to see inspiration and beauty. We learn new things. We get to reconnect with friends and family. We discover new things. As long as we use it deliberately and keep our intentions focused on the benefits of social media, we are not reduced to being just a passive observer. There’s so much we can learn and so much inspiration we can get online. But if we use social media to waste time or distract ourselves from more important issues, it’s not really beneficial nor rejuvenating.

To avoid the social media mindless scrolling, time wasting trap, here are some tips to be more deliberate with the time you spend on social media.

Question your intentions

When you succumb to the lure of turning to a social media app, here are 2 things to ask yourself:

1. What can I learn? – define the lesson/s you want to take from this interaction. Did you want to learn a recipe? Do you want to see the origin of “king cakes”? Did you want to see images of gift wrapping to inspire new ideas?
2. Is this important? If it’s not – it can wait. Bookmark the page or save the post if you plan on reviewing the information.

Avoid the pitfalls

1. Disable your notifications – it’s easy. Go to your phone settings > notifications > manage all
2. Reduce the number of accounts you follow or subscribe to – don’t follow all the celebrities, product pages, online stores, etc. Really think about who you want to see on your feed. Me? I limit myself to following only “real people”, since my intention is to keep abreast on how my friends are doing.
3. Enable your pop-up blockers
4. Check out social media blocker apps to help you stay focused and productive

Set boundaries

Determine how much time you’ll spend browsing social media apps

Determine how many platforms you’ll visit. Don’t just mindlessly cycle through all of your social media apps hoping for a thing that will catch your attention. 

Step away from social media

We all need a social media detox from time to time. Take a vacation from Facebook for one full day. Stop scrolling through Twitter for a full week. Limit your Instagram uploads to a theme (vacation pictures, food, pets, etc.) Take the time to reconnect with others in person when you disconnect from social media.

What are your tried and tested social media detox tips? Share them with us in the comments. Remember to work smart and be a blessing to someone today. Stay safe and healthy!

Written by Jaie O. TheHelp

Happy Halloween everyone! It’s that time of the year once again when we gather ‘round the campfire and tell urban legends and ghost stories that will make your hair stand on end and your blood rush. But that’ll be for later tonight…

Today, you’re in for a different kind of horror story. These scary tales also fall under the category ‘things you wish won’t happen to you.’ We’ll tell you horrific tales about personal experiences that really happened to us here at The Help. What follows are dark comedies, comedic tragedies, or borderline horrific experiences that we’ve actually had around the workplace. We hope they tickle your funny bone and make you cringe. 

Office hours are 9 to 5

Josh was excited to get to his new job as Corporate Communications Manager. He was up at 4 AM and couldn’t go back to sleep so he thought he’d just go to work early and enjoy the view from his new office. The office complex was a sprawling 8-acre compound with parks and benches. After a hearty breakfast at the cafe, he hung around for a bit to kill time and clocked in at exactly 9 AM. As he sat down to make himself comfortable, he was promptly called to a surprise meeting along with 20-ish other employees. Alas! They were getting laid off. He looked at his watch – it said 9:05 AM. He lasted all of 5 mins in his new role. This gave a whole new meaning to the term 9 to 5.

The case of the missing lunches

Annika’s husband can cook. He is a chef after all. He works for a fusion cuisine bistro and most nights brings food or special menu items home for Annika which she promptly packs to take for lunch the next day. One time, she brought chocolate infused chili con carne to work and shared it with her colleagues. Her lunches are always the talk of the workplace. Even the simple salads and sandwiches she packs for lunch are gourmet.

One day, her lunch went missing. Her beautiful thermal lunch bag was still in the communal fridge but her lunch wasn’t in it. She resorted to buying food from the canteen. The next day, the same thing happened. Her colleagues’ lunches were intact but her lunch was once again missing. On the third day that her lunch went missing, she decided to tell her supervisor. Was someone stealing her lunch? They checked the CCTVs to find out. It turned out that one (hungry) newbie heard about the legendary lunches and decided to try them out for himself. The newbie seemed to enjoy Annika’s lunch and was stealing them for 3 days in a row! Suffice to say, the newbie didn’t last long in that job.

Press record

Joe did systems training as part of the onboarding process. He liked to record his sessions so that newbies have a personalized copy to go back to in case they wanted to revisit a process. There was one particularly special training session for a new system that Joe wanted to capture on record. The session went seamlessly and Joe was pretty happy with how it went. When he went back to review the recording, he couldn’t hear a sound. It turns out, the screen recorder was using the camera mic instead of the headphone that Joe was using. The camera mic was extremely efficient in noise canceling that it canceled ALL of the sound it picked up during the training. What was left was akin to a silent movie.

Do you have any workplace “horror” stories to share with us? Share them with us in the comments. Remember to work smart and be a blessing to someone today. Stay safe and healthy!

Written by Jaie O. TheHelp

I’m notorious for leaving meetings that run over time. In my opinion, anything that is important should be discussed within the agreed upon timeframe. We spend far too much time, scheduling, being in, and following up meetings. It’s not just me, there are a lot of us who share the same train of thought – many of us who are not a fan of settings that should have been an email.

Here are some interesting statistics for you from booqed.com:

• The majority (around 83%) of employees will spend up to 33% of their workweek in meetings!
• There are around 55 million meetings held each week in the United States. That’s at least 11 million per day and over 1 billion per year.
• The average employee spends at least 3 hours a week in meetings. 30% of workers report that they spend over 5 hours per week in meetings.
• Time spent in meetings has been rising by 8% to 10% every year since 2000.
• Organizations spend around 15% of their time in meetings. Surveys show that 71% of those meetings are unproductive.
• Unproductive meetings cause around $37 billion to be lost per year.

If those statistics don’t force you to think twice about scheduling yet another meeting, I don’t know what would. However, don’t throw in the towel and completely do away with ALL meetings just yet. Meetings are important. They make sure that you and your team are all on the same page and accountable for your part in the bigger task or project. You can make sure that meetings are useful and productive for all parties involved if you follow these three rules:

1. Quality Over Quantity
What points in the task or project are extremely critical to you and your team? If you said the beginning or the end, then you are correct. These points in a task or project lifecycle are usually the points when meeting with the team are important. Other milestones or decision points also make it worth getting together. The rest, you can probably send as an email.

2. Flexibility
Canceling, postponing or moving up a meeting should all be options to keep in mind as the task or project evolves. Meetings are important because you all want to get from point A to point B and be as aligned as you can along the way. However, the frequency of your meetings should not be carved in stone. If you can keep updates via a project board, chat thread, email, or internal wiki – then by all means, do that.

3. Compromise
The most important aspect to teamwork is compromise. With regard to meetings, distributed and remote teams have it harder than in-house teams. Asynchronous global organizations spend much time trying to figure out a convenient time to talk. This is part of the digital, flexible, work from anywhere reality. So there will always be a part of the team that has to compromise – and it can’t be the same group each time.

What are some of your hard and fast meeting rules? Share them with us in the comments. Remember to work smart and be a blessing to someone today. Stay safe and healthy!

Written by Jaie O. TheHelp

It’s Mental Health Month and our timelines are filled with tips on how to take care of our mental health. For some, good mental health is equal to happiness. However, that isn’t always the case. We keep running after happiness like it’s a destination and not the journey. The thinking “I’ll be happy when…” does more harm than good. Still being happy most of the time wouldn’t hurt. Wouldn’t it be so easy if we all knew the secret to happiness and did just that? But what if we already knew the secret to happiness but just didn’t practice it enough?

A 75-year old Harvard study advises the secret to happiness and we find that it is actually no secret: “Personal connection creates mental and emotional stimulation, which are automatic mood boosters, while isolation is a mood buster.” In short, good relationships keep us happier and healthier.

Good mental health is not a spectator sport. It takes a lot of hard work, perseverance, and positivity in order for us to thrive. It also involves having a great group to guide you along the way. These people who are as invested in your well-being as you are known as your ‘thrive tribe.’ They will help you with any inquiry, help you define goals, and offer assistance, advice, and support along the way, and can make your journey to thriving an easier and richer experience.

To build a thrive tribe, find people who:

1. Want to see you succeed
As the saying goes: “our circle should want you to win. Your circle should clap the loudest when you have good news. If they don’t, get a new circle.” They must want to level-up and wish for you to do the same. They inspire you to become better than you were yesterday, and you inspire them to do the same.

2. Share your values
Nurture relationships with people who share your values. Shared values are instant connectors. Make sure they see as important those things you also hold dear. Conflict can arise from differences in opinions, but that’s not always a deal breaker. Differences in opinions can lead to healthier relationships and a wider perspective. However, a difference in values takes longer to get over and can result in cracks in the relationship overtime.

3. Value respect
Your thrive tribe must have respect for one another, for you, and more importantly, for themselves. They see you as someone worthy of respect and you see them as someone worthy of respect. Healthy relationships put a premium on respect for one another.

4. Appreciate differences
You share the same values but have different talents, backgrounds and opinions – does that still make you a thrive tribe? Yes. Your differences make you unique. Uniqueness is healthy and differences in perspectives are healthy. Diversity means you have more talents, perspectives, passions, and strengths. These round out your weaknesses.

5. Give and receive love
Make sure your thrive tribe is a circle of people who are comfortable giving and receiving love. At times, people find themselves not worthy of receiving love, and it will be up to you to remind them that they are worthy just as you are worthy. No one lasts in relationships that are one-sided. There always has to be a healthy balance of getting and giving.

What is your happiness tip? Share them with us in the comments. Remember to work smart and be a blessing to someone today. Stay safe and healthy!

Written by Jaie O. TheHelp

Today, October 10, is World Mental Health Day. It was first celebrated in 1992 at the initiative of the World Federation for Mental Health, a global mental health organization with members and contacts in more than 150 countries. The theme of 2022’s World Mental Health Day, set by the World Federation for Mental Health, is ‘Make mental health and wellbeing for all a global priority.

Last week, we talked about why it is important to have hobbies in order to thrive and have good mental health. On World Mental Health Day, let’s talk about how we can look after our mental health.

1. Do something you’re good at:
There are certain activities that get us “in the zone” or what positive psychology calls “state of flow.” Why is ‘doing something you’re good at’ essential for good mental health?
a.) It involves some aspect of mastery (knowledge or skill in the subject) and purpose (a reason, intention, or objective). If you do something you’re good at, it probably is a self-esteem booster.
b.) It helps you beat stress. Doing something you’re good at helps you stay focused and committed to seeing the end result.
c.) It livens up your mood. Nobody has a hobby they hate, right? You do it because you love it, like gardening or solving puzzles. It makes you happy. It’s a surefire way to boost your mood.

2. Be active and eat well:
Being active releases chemicals in our brain that boost our mood and help increase cognitive functions. It is no wonder regular exercise gives us more energy, helps us sleep better, and feel better. Eating well does the same thing to our brain. Plus, good food fortifies us with nutrients that are not only essential for mood boosting and increasing cognitive functions, but also essential for facilitating bodily processes, preventing chronic diseases, and boosting our immunity.

3. Connect and engage:
Having a ‘thrive tribe’ or a circle of friends and family that are as invested in your wellbeing as you are, not only helps you combat depression and anxiety but also has a huge impact on your mental health. The quality of your relationships is the most significant determinant of your level of happiness. The stronger your connections, the happier you are. So engage and connect. Work on the relationships you truly value and make you feel valued and loved.

4. Care for others:
One of the best ways to improve your mental health is to do something nice for others. If you feel like your mood is dipping or if you’re starting to feel depressed or anxious – do something good for someone else. Send your friends a carefully curated care package. Ask your elderly neighbor if he needs help with gardening. Call your mother.

5. Ask for help:
We’re human and can’t be perfect. We get tired, frustrated, or overwhelmed. If things are getting too much for you and you feel you can’t cope, ask for help. You don’t even have to wait for things to go awry before asking for help. Prevention is key.

What are your best mental health tips? Share them with us in the comments. Remember to work smart and be a blessing to someone today. Stay safe and healthy!

Written by Jaie O. TheHelp