Category Archives: Office Management

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

May14

More Productivity Hacks

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More Productivity Hacks

A few weeks ago, I ran a series of posts on finding efficient work strategies and discovering productivity hacks. You can read about them here, here, and here.

Here are a few more tips, but this time, the tips are all about mindfulness so that you can find the best hacks that work for you. Let’s proceed.

Find your objective:
Is your goal to reduce your stress while working? Is it to work efficiently within your work hours to avoid overtime? Is it to manage a 4 day work week? Find your goal and focus on that. Clear your mind so that you can find the answers to your questions and write them down. Once you have drilled down to what your main priority is, you can create a plan and tailor your productivity hacks around that.

Manage your energy:
You have to complete step no. 1 to get to this as you would have to be clear on what needs to get done before you can allocate your resources and energy to your tasks.

Focus:
In this day and age, there are hundreds of things that bid for our attention: phones, noise, social media, the smell (and promise of) food, etc. When you learn to control your attention and focus, you are ready for high performance and productivity. Avoid distractions and time wasters like the plague. Don’t multitask. Create an environment that you love and is conducive to focused work.

Have a system:
Figure out and craft a system that works for you. Start by clearing out your space and getting rid of clutter. I don’t mean just physical clutter like papers and trinkets. I also mean digital clutter. That would entail clearing out your desktop as well. Create organizing and filing systems based on how you work – for example, labelled digital folders, a desk organizer for paper files, cloud storage or portable hard drives for backup files, etc.

Use a calendar or planner to efficiently manage your time. List down no more than 1-3 priorities per week (list more and you’re just going back to square one). Then list down action steps you should take to get those priorities done. Here’s where your to-do list comes in. It’s best to map this out in a planner or calendar at the start of the week.

Stay on task:
There are productivity techniques listed on this blog that can help you stay on task:
● The Pomodoro technique
● The Get Things Done technique
● The Eat the Frog technique
● The Action Method
These are just a few of them. Find one that works for you and is the best fit for your productivity goals.

Avoid distractions:
There are a few apps that can help you avoid distractions on your PC, apps that can help you avoid getting lost in cat videos or stalking your ex. This can help you hit those deadlines or finish writing that report.

What productivity hacks work for you? Share them with us in the comments. Stay humble and hustle hard!

 

Written by Jaie O. The Help

Apr23

Stay Focused, Avoid Distractions

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Stay Focused, Avoid Distractions

You’re almost always on time. You take strictly one-hour lunch breaks. You come prepared. You sometimes stay overtime. Why do you feel like you’re always out of time and not getting things done?

Even if you log in the work hours, the complete 9 to 5, sometimes you feel it’s just not enough. The problem? Most of that time isn’t time spent working. More accurately, that time isn’t time spent productively.

A lot of things can happen that eat away at our productive time at the office. Too many meetings are one of them – but that’s a story for another time. You may not have control over some factors at play, but you can control the one thing that keeps any of us from accomplishing anything – distractions.

I don’t recommend NOT taking breaks, or NOT making small talk at the water cooler. Too much work will drive you crazy and you need a breather from time to time. Besides, The Pomodoro productivity technique advocates taking breaks after 25-minute intervals. And it’s also healthy to stretch your legs and get up from your desk to reduce backaches and eye strain.

Taking a break is a healthy method to boost your productivity. But you still have to stay focused and eliminate distractions. Here’s how:

Stop checking your phone!
You heard me. Put your phone down now. Keep it on vibrate mode. Make a conscious decision to just check your phone at certain times of the day. Like after every 2 hours – that wonderfully coincides with your breaks, if you’re taking 2-hour break intervals (2 coffee breaks and lunch in between). If it’s an important call, then your phone will keep vibrating. If it’s a Facebook notification, then it shouldn’t bother you and you can leave it for later.

Work in intervals.
Budget your time and work in intervals. Plan to work uninterrupted for a specific amount of time (I recommend 25 minutes) and concentrate, I mean really focus, on getting your work done. Then take a break afterwards. This technique is called The Pomodoro Technique and I’ve written about it here. It breaks up your time into chunks of highly focused work and every break feels like a reward. You can learn how to do it by reading the article.

Use a To-Do list.
I never write more than 3 priority tasks on my to-do list. If you write everything down as a priority (even those that feel like a priority even if they really aren’t), then you risk burning out. So, list your top 3 (at most – better if just one priority task) and get to work on checking them off the list.

Close the door.
The door is there for a reason. It signals to others you are not to be disturbed AND more importantly, it keeps out distractions like noise and visual distractions (people moving around, stacks of paper near the copier, brightly colored balloons for the months themed decor, etc.) So, close the door…. if you have one.

How do you avoid work distractions? Share your tips in the comments. Stay humble and hustle hard.

 

Written by Jaie O. The Help

Apr16

Project Management Tools

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Project Management Tools

Technology makes it easier to get things done. It could also be argued that technology gave us the biggest time wasters (games, social media, cat videos) known to man. But most days, technology is our friend. It keeps us updated, helps us stay connected, and also help us get our work done (hopefully, you’re using it correctly).

I thought about organizing my home office over the long weekend and took one last satisfied look at my scrum board before wiping it clean. If you want to know what a scrum board is and how to use it, read this previous article.

To recap, a scrum board is used to track the progress of a sprint. A sprint is just a single work cycle inside of a larger project. It’s important for breaking down any project into more manageable parts, but those parts also need to be tracked and managed. We call these parts “stories.” Each story may be broken down further into different tasks. With scrum project management, it is vital that each of these tasks get addressed. This is where a scrum board comes in [1].

I do have a personal scrum board. But I’m finding (more often) that I have to “share” this board with teammates and project stakeholders. They too want to know the progress of the projects. AND…(kind of frustratingly for me) they too want me to add tasks that they’d like to track on MY board.

So how should I do this? How do I share updates and tasks with other people? I can’t take a picture of my board every time and send it to them, can I?

My solution is to find an online project management app that would do the same thing but for everyone involved in the projects. So, I’ve been tinkering around with online apps that can help me organize and manage projects, much like my scrum board. I found a couple of them. Here’s what I found:

Trello:
It is like a virtual board which you can customize with cards and add lists, labels, due dates, pictures, and attachments inside those cards. You can share your boards or projects with other people and send them quick notes and updates. It is available on desktop and mobile. Upgrading your account would give you “productivity power-ups” such as 3rd party integrations and a higher attachment limit.
Here’s mine: (other members removed for privacy)

Asana:
Works the same way as Trello but has a readily available list or calendar view. You can create tasks & conversations from email addresses associated with Asana. Like Trello, you can create workspaces (very much like boards) to organize your projects if you have different ones. It is available on desktop and mobile. Upgrading your account would give you advance options such as unlimited dashboards, advance search and reporting, and admin controls to name a few.
Here’s mine:

Plutio:
Another app to organize projects and task is Plutio. It has an integrated invoice and time tracking system that can prove helpful for freelancers and contractors. The interface is simple and easy to use. The design is basic – no fuss. It is available on desktop and mobile.

Others you can check out:
Redbooth
Podio
Zenkit

I’m still testing these apps out and have yet to stick to one that I (and others) can use. It’s an ongoing experiment. But I’ll let you know when I finally commit to one app. What project management apps are you using? Share those that work for you in the comments. Stay humble and hustle hard!

 

Written by Jaie O. The Help

References:
http://www.techno-pm.com/2017/05/scrum-board-example.html?m=1

Jan10

A Message to The Help Team

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A Message to The Help Team

Happy New Year!

As we say goodbye to 2014 and welcome 2015, I would like to take this, opportunity to reflect on our accomplishments, on the path we took to arrive to this moment, and on the plans we have for an exciting, fruitful future.

Let me start by telling you how much I appreciate each member of the The Help team! I’m aware we wouldn’t be here today without the contribution and hard work from each and every one.  Thank you!

2014 was a year of growth, change, and transition. We have grown in numbers as a team. We’ve worked lots of hours- weekends, late nights, and for some – putting in double shifts. Flexibility and resilience were tested and we came out better, wiser and more united.

As technology evolves, we have progressed as well. Learning new applications, programs, software, etc. is part of our work, the excitement that feeds our desire to achieve. We transition from one system to another, finding better ways to handle a virtual office efficiently and effectively.  As a front liner in the Virtual Admin Assistance industry, we continuously change and adapt to the ever-changing world of the Internet.

Thank you for bringing in your talents, skills, and fresh ideas to The Help. I see how we transform (large and small) challenges, 24/7, to learning opportunities resulting in excellent deliverables. It is very refreshing to see how supportive we are to each other. Nothing is too big or too small when we work together. Because of our outstanding service, projects, clients, and referrals came in. It is truly a humbling experience to see our clients thrive in their industry, that we assisted in achieving their growth and eventual success. Their success is our success too!

Due to the efforts of our exceptional team, we not only survived the 2014 down economy, we thrived!  We want 2015 to be even more successful for the company and for you.  It’s an incredible feeling to know that when I go out to clients – both existing and potential – the team’s performance speaks for itself. Absolutely no overselling the competency and commitment of my team!

Having worked and built an outstanding reputation for reliability and outstanding performance, The Help is a trusted partner to all our clients.  We want our reputation for excellence to spread in all corners of the world, our goal for 2015!

My door is always open to you.

Thank you for all you do.

   – Astrid S.-