Category Archives: Office Management

Apr8

What is the Secret to Becoming More Productive? It’s Not What You Think.

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What is the Secret to Becoming More Productive? It’s Not What You Think.

When we think about productivity, we think about the people who seem to get everything checked, done, and dusted off on an arbitrary ‘to do’ list. We think about the account manager who has more work, more clients, more logged hours. We think about the parent who gets the shopping list right, the kids bathed and off to school, the bake sale cookies made, the house spotlessly clean. We think about the student who get to all the classes on time, passes all the papers, does extra curricular activities, and even has time for a relationship. When it comes to productivity, we think that the people who do more are more productive.

While these examples seem like the perfectly put together life most of us dream of, it is also a recipe for burnout. The truth is, doing more is not a very sustainable way of living. When you get stuck in the mindset that you have to do more in order to be productive, you paint yourself into a corner and start a mindset of being busy for the sake of being busy. So, do you want to know the secret? The key to being more productive is to carve out time for self care.

Now you might be this person I’m talking about. The one who has all their meetings scheduled, their work deliverables in progress, and their social calendar packed with engagements. I salute you. Most of us though, need a breather. Most of us need to take time for self care.

Before you go and book a spa session, let me explain a bit further. Self care is more than just going to the spa or doing a face mask. It could be, but it is more than that. Self care is any deliberate action that you make time for in order to nurture your mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional wellbeing. At its very basic, self care is all about cultivating the relationship you have with yourself.

Take a step back. Do you like being the go to person for all things at work? Do you like having your social calendar filled to the brim? Do you like being able to take care of everyone, all the time? These are all things to aspire for but are outside of yourself. All of them are about other people. In order to be more productive, you have to invest in giving your whole self (mind, body, spirit) the care it needs in order to function and flourish at your highest level.

The science backs it up: people who invest in self care have better cognitive abilities. They have better focus and concentration and perform better over all. They don’t run themselves to the ground and they know when to take the time out to focus on themselves.

You are an investment, treat yourself as worthy.

Do you have self care tips that you want to share with us? Share them in the comments! Stay humble and hustle hard.

Written by Jaie O. The Help

Mar29

This is why you spend so much time looking for missing things

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This is why you spend so much time looking for missing things

Despite our best efforts of decluttering our work stations, the average office worker spends 13 minutes and 13 seconds every day searching for missing things on their desk – like paperwork, desktop files (yes, those explode into chaos, too), and stationery. How do our work stations explode into chaos when a fourth of the office budget is spent on filing systems and organizers?

A place for everything and everything in its place
It would be nice if we had a place for everything and if we could find everything at that place we left it. Sadly, that is not the case. And that is the reason why we spend too much time looking for missing things – be it computer files, staplers, or paper documents. We tend to think of our desks as a catch all for all things work related – and sometimes, even non work related things like our bags, makeup, and lunchboxes. So we leave them there to pile up and left to be sorted out for later.

Labels aren’t only for relationships
It is time to embrace labels. You don’t have to stick a bright neon sticker label to everything on your desk. You just have to make sure that you have good naming conventions. Yes naming conventions – like how you name your PC files very specifically (Feb 24 Meeting Minutes.docx) and save it in a very specific folder (saved to Organised Meeting Notes folder) Or, wait…do you botch that up too? (hello filename: Feb24mtgmin_draft1 saved to desktop to be organised later?)

Organizers
You don’t have to get fancy shmancy about organizers. They don’t have to be gold plated works of art in order to work well for you. You can buy organizers at a dollar store and use those.

For desks with drawers:
● Buy ice cube trays for smaller office supplies that tend to get lost underneath the carpet – ice cube trays can fit push pins, paper clips, and rubber bands and can fit in any desk drawer.
● Buy a plastic or rubber cutlery tray – you know, the ones that keep forks, spoons, and knives separated? You can use those for pens, whiteboard markers, and scissors. They usually come in 3 or 4 partitions.

For desks with shelves:
● Buy bookends – you can lump all those folders together as long as they are labeled and separated by bookends. I keep my notebooks (yes, I have those because I tend to write notes on paper for online courses – because studies show that you retain information better when you write it down) for online courses separate from my client folders with generic bookends that I got from the dollar store. I have sturdy, metal ones that are heavy and rust proof -a set of two for only a dollar. Buy as many as you need to separate your files etc.

For plain desks:
● This is a tough one because plain, big old desks have space but no real organizers to separate work tools and supplies. So, shuffle your PC or laptop off to one side and then make room for organizers. Buy a reasonably sized basket and put in a cup or two to organize your writing implements. Then use the leftover space to put your folders or notebooks in.
● Buy adhesive hooks – get those strong ones from 3M or something similar and stick them to the side of your desk- this is where you will hang your bag so that it doesn’t take up valuable real estate on your desk.

How about you? How do you keep your desk organized? Share your trade secrets with us in the comments. Stay humble, hustle hard.

Written by Jaie O. The Help

Oct22

Do you need a break?

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Do you need a break?

How long ago have you taken a break? And I don’t mean for lunch or coffee. I mean a mental break where you relax and decompress without your work laptop present or your phone on call. I get it, you’re busy, you’re important, you’re indispensable at work. People rely on you. You can’t stop now. You’re a trooper.

Stress can slowly creep up on you if you’re not careful. I can cause you to age faster, remember less, get sick more often, and be less focused.

“But I feel fine”, you say. “I’m doing great”, you say. Do you recognize the signs of being stressed? And it’s not only a feeling, stress has physical signs as well. Ask yourself these questions to know if you need a break.

Do I have too much on my plate?
Are you one of the people who try to do too much? Do you find yourself saying ‘yes” a lot? Does work, friends, family, social obligations, errands, and classes have your schedule maxed out? Learn to say no and to prioritize. Stop trying to achieve work-life balance. It is a myth. Create a life that is yours to live and don’t get swayed by other people’s standards of what a balanced life looks like. Do 5 minutes of meditation, instead of 30. Buy the cupcakes for that PTA event, instead of baking them yourself. Make one night takeout night, instead of spending all night, every night cooking dinner. Don’t say yes to every co-worker’s request…for help on a project, for drinks after work, for their kid’s birthday party… Get your groceries delivered instead of risking a toddler meltdown at aisle 5. You get the idea…

Do I look ok?
First things first. You’re beautiful. You’re handsome. You’re all that. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I’m not talking about looks for the sake of vanity. I’m asking if you’re showing physical signs of stress. Things like:

● Do you have bags under your eyes?
● Is your skin blotchy or prone to breakouts?
● How’s your hair? All there or losing some (or a lot)?
● Are you prone to colds and other seasonal illnesses?
● Do you have trouble focusing or remembering things?
● Are you losing/gaining weight?

Stress can cause sleep deficiency, weight fluctuations, and a lower immunity. Look long and hard in the mirror.

Do I get to go out?
You know you need a night out, right? By yourself or with friends. You need it if your only form of “socialization” is getting on social media. You need a night out if the only “catch-up” you’re doing with friends is browsing and commenting on their Instagram pictures. You need it if your only friends right now are your cats and dogs. You need a night out if you’re done watching seven seasons of five different series and are thinking of starting 5 more. Make plans, right now!

How do you know when you need a break? Share your stress ‘tells’ with us in the comments. Stay humble, hustle hard.

Sep24

Easy PC Organizing

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Easy PC Organizing

Ah, Microsoft updates…don’t you just love them? They take up a chunk of time and you don’t always like what they have changed – this time around. But, it is prudent to always update your OS, not to mention your antivirus. Keeping your devices running smoothly takes a lot of work. You’d have to defrag, run updates, keep your files organized, have a competent Antivirus, etc. These things will ensure that your machine will keep working long after you shelled out a crazy amount of money to get that powerful workhorse. If you’re lazy about taking care of your devices, an OS update and anti-virus update is the very least amount of maintenance you can do for keeping your data and your machines safe.

But what about organization? If you’re too lazy to do software maintenance, you’re most likely too lazy (or inexperienced) to keep your files organized.

Tell me…does your downloads folder look like it is in need of its own dewey decimal system? Is it filled with old files that you have downloaded since 2015? Is your desktop stacked with icons and app shortcuts and folders for saving off temporary files? Can you even see your wallpaper? Does your start menu fill up the bottom bar of your screen? Is there even space to add more? Does your photo library have old photos? Bad photos? 10 photos of the same thing? (Yes, I’m talking about those selfies where you have the same shirt on but just different poses)

I’m sure you get my point. Our rooms, our houses, our lives need a little bit of spring cleaning from time to time – so do your work machines – PCs, laptops, and phones.

If you can’t be bothered or don’t know how to – here are three organizers that can automate the job for you:

Adobe Lightroom – this powerful tool can organize your photos for you. If you work in the creative industry or dabble in some photography – you’re going to need a tool to organize your growing photo collection. Here’s how to use it to organize your photos.

DigiKam – digiKam is an advanced open-source digital photo management application that runs on Linux, Windows, and MacOS. The application provides a comprehensive set of tools for importing, managing, editing, and sharing photos and raw files. As you’ve read, it is a free and open source tool – but if you love their work, you can give them a donation to support their projects.

Aerosnap – this nifty tool lets you send your active window to any part your screen You can minimize, open shrink to fill a quarter or half of your display, and bounce off your primary display entirely (if you have a multi-monitor setup). Just hit the Window key + one of the arrow keys to start snapping. This feature has been made available since Win7. Here are instructions on how to turn the feature on and off on Win10.

Do you know of other organizing tools that can automate file organization for you? We’d be happy to learn about them, share them with us in the comments! Stay humble, hustle hard.

 

Written by Jaie O. The Help

Sep17

A Story of Remote Work

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A Story of Remote Work

A survey done by Gallup in 2015, reports that 37% of the US labor force is working remotely…and that number is rising. The option to do remote work is one of the perks that is being made available to employees today. It certainly is one of the perks that millennials look for when job hunting. Offices are now equipped to provide a remote work option to their employees. And there are many tools to enable this: powerful laptops, video conferencing software, collaboration tools, instant messaging, and cloud syncing to enable employees to work from anywhere. These are just a few of the tools. But many myths and misconceptions surround this way of working.

Why aren’t we all still adopting this way of working when technology has enabled an easier way to do remote work. This is probably due to the stigma surrounding remote work – with remote work meaning you can work from anywhere outside the office setting (co-working spaces, coffee shops, work from home, etc.).

One prevailing myth is that productivity decreases when you work from home. This is because of the three temptations: the fridge, the bed, and the TV. But one study from Harvard Business Review notes that a worker’s productivity increases by 13.5% if he/she is permitted to do remote work. This could be due having fewer distractions like office chatter, white noise, pointless meetings, and the infamous breakroom effect where you get pulled away to socialize, have coffee, or eat cake with co-workers.

Some office traditionalists wonder if remote workers are as committed to their work as workers in an office setting. One question is if they even get out of their pajamas for work. The underlying fear is that if they don’t even bother to get dressed, they can’t care that much. But many remote workers do get dressed – they go through the morning routines of taking a shower, preparing breakfast, and seeing the kids off to school before hunkering down to work. The only difference is that they avoid the long commute/drive through horrible traffic. That is a major win for everyone if you ask me. More remote workers mean fewer vehicles on the street.

And then there’s the myth about poor communication – that somehow remote workers are harder to get a hold of than office workers. This belief can easily be addressed by communication software. Meetings via teleconferencing through Skype, Google Hangouts, Zoom, or other tech is just as or dare I say, even more, effective than face to face office meetings. It eliminates delays because there’s no need for running around to find a meeting room, invitees can join in at any time, and participants can join in from anywhere in the world and at any time zone.

A remote workers workload doesn’t change, they still have to finish the task that they have to attend to even if they’re outside of the office setting. This means they tend to overcompensate by having more structure in place since they more time and more autonomy over their schedules.

Are you a remote worker? How is it working for you so far? Share your experiences with us in the comments. Stay humble, hustle hard.

 

Written by Jaie O. The Help