Author Archives: kate

Jun18

The Office Worker’s Infinite Playlist

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The Office Worker’s Infinite Playlist

Do you feel stuck today? Sitting in front of your computer, you look at your workload and scan a small notepad where you’ve written your to-do list that’s tacked off to the side of your monitor. The notepad says “send out event invitations”, “meeting at 1 pm”, and “create style guide” as your priority tasks for the day. You hunker down and start to get to work. You stare at the screen. You have a spill proof mug full of coffee and your tools open on your PC or laptop, but inspiration does not come.

You seem stuck and unable to start work. If only you had something that could jump-start you and get your brain running. How do you get into a productive mindset? Try putting on a playlist.

Music can help supercharge your productivity. But you can’t just listen to any kind of music – you have to listen to a playlist with productivity in mind. The right kind of playlist will help you get out of that slump. Here’s how:

Playlist: Pop Hits and Chart Toppers
First, take a look at your task list. For repetitive or mundane tasks, like sending out event invites, you could probably get away with listening to your favorite pop hits that you know the lyrics to. Repetitive tasks tend to be boring and monotonous, therefore, a challenge to finish. Music with lyrics can help by providing a relief from doing the same old work.

Listening to music while doing a repetitive task relieves stress, improves focus, and enhances performance resulting in faster performance and fewer errors.

Playlist: Classical or Ambient Music
So, for the first part of your day, you’ve been listening to your favorite hits while you do admin work. After lunch, you should switch to a different playlist for the next 2 tasks on your list. For tasks that require concentration or creativity, like a meeting or creating a style guide, it is best to listen to ambient music or classical music. Classical music increases mood and concentration on work while ambient music can enhance cognitive function and concentration.

Try playing a classical music playlist or an ambient music playlist in the background for your next team meeting. Keep the volume low enough to be slightly interesting and be able to accommodate different levels of listening attention but easily ignorable so that it doesn’t steal everyone’s concentration.

Playlist: Nature sounds or White noise
Bonus playlist: So you’re home and trying to relax. You’re now ready to get some shut-eye but your brain is still running a list of things to do for tomorrow. Try a playlist with nature sounds or instrumental music to calm you down and get yourself into a relaxed state of mind.

What kind of music do you listen to at work? Share them with us in the comments. Or better yet, share a link to your Spotify playlists. We’d love to listen to your jam. Stay humble and hustle hard.

 

Written by Jaie O. The Help

Jun11

Time Management Hacks

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Time Management Hacks

No matter how intent we are at trying to manage our productive time, there will always be a cause for a delay that is due to forces beyond our control. The possibility of delay can stem from various reasons, some of them are due to lack of foresight, some are due to bad time management, and some…just terrible luck.

Time management is one of the major challenges of freelancers, contractors, and entrepreneurs. Without a regimented clock in – clock out system to keep them accountable for their productive work hours, it’s very easy to get derailed off of important work tasks. Even office workers who have regular 9 to 5 schedules lose productive time on distractions and ad hoc tasks that seemingly need urgent attention.

The trick is to understand your most effective work schedule. If you are a freelancer or entrepreneur, you have more flexibility over your schedule. This means you can tailor your time to optimize your calendar into your most productive days. That could mean shifting your work schedule from a “standard” Monday to Friday, to a more practical Tuesday to Saturday. Let’s face it, it can be more practical for freelancers or entrepreneurs to shift workday schedules as there can be more business during the weekend – especially those who work events. For office workers who work set hours, carve out a time when you can hunker down and do your most productive work.

Here are other tips to create your most effective work schedule:
1. Carve Out Specific “Focus Time” – Avoid distractions and get into the mindset of focusing on your work. Have a target of when you’ll finish the task. You can use the Pomodoro technique to maximize your productivity.
2. Figure out When Your Brain Is at Its Best – When do you do your best work? Is it in the morning, afternoon, or late at night? I’ve written about Chronotypes here. It explains why some people are morning Larks and some people are Night Owls. So if you work early hours and your chronotype is not exactly that of a morning person, you might want to shift your best productive work to later in the day.
3. Experiment with Prioritization – Try listing just a few priority tasks on your to-do list. I find 3 to be the magic number. More and you risk getting distracted and not being able to complete the task.
4. Stop Going to Meetings – I’ve written about the biggest time waster at the office here. Unproductive meetings cost US big businesses $37 Billion. It’s not only big businesses that are affected. In the UK, SMEs lose an average of £63,700 per annum on meetings. Chew on those stats for a while.
5. Create a Routine – Figure out a system that works for you. Start by clearing your workspace and clearing your mind. Reduce clutter to a minimum

You can read more about these excellent tips here: How to Build the Most Effective Work Schedule

Got any time management hacks for us? Share them with us in the comments. Stay humble, hustle hard.

 

Written by Jaie O. The Help

Reference:
https://www.clicktime.com/blog/how-to-build-the-most-effective-work-schedule/

Jun4

Stress and the Workplace

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Stress and the Workplace

Our bodies have a pre-programmed response to stress. It has a built-in safety system that, in the olden days, was meant to protect us against predators and life-threatening situations, such as bushfires and tornadoes. This is our fight or flight response, and it is a natural and healthy response to any perceived threat.

Under stress, our bodies produce the hormone adrenaline to increase our heart rate and elevate our blood pressure. This makes sure we have enough energy supply. Cortisol is also produced to increase blood sugar and shut down deemed non-essential bodily functions that will hinder our reaction time, such as suppressing our immune system, reproductive system, and digestive system.

Times are different now. We don’t have to worry about bushfires or wolves trying to eat us. What we have now is a different kind of stress altogether. And it is just as dangerous.

Our stress response usually shuts down and returns to normal after the perceived stress is over. So, bodily functions go back to normal once that small kitchen fire is put out, or when you finally find that phone you thought you lost.

However, when you are constantly being bombarded by stressors your fight or flight response is always turned on, stress hormones are constantly being produced, and your bodily processes become disrupted. Your body thinks it is under attack and puts you in a prolonged fight or flight mode.

An example of constant stress is stress in the workplace. We spend ⅓ of our adult lives at work. That, (for most people) is 8 hours of each day at the office. It is like a second home, and so it would make much sense to try to keep the workplace a safe zone for everyone.

Situations happen when the workplace no longer feels like a safe zone for an employee. Some situations that can be deemed stressful and can be considered a cause excessive stress are: an employee being “exposed to a traumatic event in the workplace if the employee experiences violence, harassment, or bullying while at work, and unreasonable expectations from the employee.”

Excessive workplace stress is one major culprit of anxiety and depression. It can have serious repercussions on an employees health and wellbeing. If you are experiencing serious excessive workplace stress, talk to your HR or a trusted manager. If you feel like you have to explore other alternatives, you can read about other options here.

I’ve written about how to manage stress, here, and here. Stress is always present but it need not be chronic. Otherwise, your health will suffer. Prolonged stress compromises your immune system and makes you prone to a host of problems like anxiety, headaches, obesity, heart disease, and memory impairment, among others. It is always best to keep stress to a minimum and learn how to manage it.

How do you handle stress at the workplace? Share your best tips with us in the comments. Stay humble and hustle hard.

References:
https://www.hoganinjury.com/excessive-workplace-stress/
https://thehelpbyastrids.com/stress-be-gone/
https://thehelpbyastrids.com/a-mind-full-of-light/

 

Written by Jaie O. The Help

May28

Where Does the Time Go?

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Where Does the Time Go?

Do you know what the biggest time waster at work is? No, it’s not checking your social media updates. Take another guess.

It’s meetings. A few years back, emails were the biggest time wasters at work. Sending and replying to emails takes the top spot of biggest time waster at 57%. But if you factor in the amount of time spent on preparing for, attending, and extending the meetings, that takes up a much larger chunk of time compared to reading, writing, and replying to emails.

Here are a few more cringe-worthy stats:
● On the average, employee attends 62 meetings in a month and half of those are considered as time wasted.
● 31 hours are spent on average in unproductive meetings in a month

In an average meeting, an employee has at one time or another:
● Missed it (96%)
● Daydreamed (91%)
● Did other work (73%)
● Complained (47%)
● Felt overwhelmed (45%)
● Slept (39%)

Unproductive meetings cost US big businesses $37 Billion. It’s not only big businesses that are affected. In the UK, SMEs lose an average of £63,700 per annum on meetings. With that amount of money going down the drain, something needs to change.

39% of staff fall asleep during meetings and the company can’t really do anything about that aside from providing free coffee. But a shocking 63% of meetings don’t even have a prepared agenda, and that’s where major improvement can come in.

Having a clear agenda before calling a meeting can help the host and all the attendees immensely. Going into a meeting with a vague idea of what you want to get out of it rarely ends on a productive note. So, start with identifying the objective of the meeting. Ask yourself what you want to get out of it and once you’ve set a purpose and a goal, you can start building the agenda from there.

Having an agenda will keep the discussions on track. Write down some focus points and discussion topics – keep those detailed to lessen the chances of veering off course.

Share the agenda with attendees before the meeting, at the very least, the day before so that they too can prepare their questions and suggestions. And ruthlessly cull out anybody who doesn’t need to be there. Most meetings are designed to make decisions and not just share information. If they can be just copied into an email that details the results of the meeting, then don’t invite them anymore.

Don’t be late. Attendees are expected to arrive on time. Meeting hosts are expected to arrive well before the meeting time.

Consider stand up meetings for agendas that have only a few focus points. People are more engaged during stand-up meetings and the time limit is more often followed. Obviously, this won’t work for longer meetings or planning sessions but works great for 1-3 discussion point meetings.

Stick to the agenda. It’s best to provide a timed agenda, if possible. Assign roles and have an idea parking lot which acts as a “repository” for focus points that would need more information or more time to decide on. Don’t forget to follow those up!

What are your teams meeting habits? Are they productive? What areas can you improve on? Let us know in the comments below. Stay humble and hustle hard!

 

Written by Jaie O. The Help

May21

Workday Snacks For Better Performance

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Workday Snacks For Better Performance

We all have days when we feel depleted and unproductive, as if all our energy and life force has been drained and, like a battery, needs to be recharged. We feel slow, sluggish, and our brain power may not be up to certain tasks.

There are a lot of ways to recharge when you feel a little low and unproductive, these could range from taking a quick break to going on a full-on vacation. While it is highly advisable to take a much-needed rest when you feel exhausted, there are things you could do every day that can help you with your depleted energy levels that won’t cost an arm, a leg, and several vacation leaves.

What can you do to improve your energy and performance? Watch what you eat!

Certain foods deplete our energy and make it way harder to concentrate on work. Foods that are high in fat will make you feel sleepy and sluggish while foods that are high in sugar can make you feel both tired and forgetful – not good if you have a job that requires concentration, energy, or involves high mental performance. What you snack on at work will set the tone for how you perform throughout the day. So, stay away from chips and those free doughnuts in the pantry. Eat food that can help increase your productivity and give you an energy boost.

Eat these instead:

Berries: these are rich in antioxidants and can help improve memory. Their antioxidant components boost cognitive functions and increase productivity. They’re even known to prevent Parkinson’s and Alzheimer. Stay away from cherries though, they are filled with tryptophan and would be better suited for bedtime rather than as a midday snack.

Nuts: Nuts help increase memory and brain performance and are naturally high in protein and good fats. Nuts are also filled with antioxidants, Vit. E, and amino acids. They’re also very handy. So instead of reaching for a bag of chips, why not reach for a small bag of nuts? Almonds and walnuts are your best bet for brain power boosts.

Dark Chocolate: Did you know that cacao (unprocessed, raw chocolate) is said to be the most nutritious food source on earth? This is why the darker the chocolate is, which means it is closer to its unprocessed form, the better it is for your health. Cacao trumps all other food as far as antioxidant points are concerned. It has antidepressant qualities due to a high serotonin content. This is why eating chocolate makes you happy!

Bananas: One medium-sized banana has the complete requirement of glucose to keep you energized for the whole day. Getting your glucose fix from a banana is better compared to other sources of sugars like muffins, cookies, and other baked goods that come in a wrapper as they can lead to a sugar high followed by the dreaded sugar crash. The same thing goes for other sugar-filled treats, especially those that are chock full of artificial sweeteners (diet sodas, anyone?)

What are your go-to snacks in the workplace? Share them with us in the comments. Stay humble, hustle hard!

 

Written by Jaie O. The Help