Category Archives: Virtual Assistant

Jul23

Achieving Quietly

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Achieving Quietly

A famous and overused tip is to “follow your dreams” and a hundred other iterations of it. We’re all told to dream big and then do whatever it takes to achieve that goal. That tip is, more often than not, followed up by proclaiming your goal to the whole world. You know, to keep yourself accountable.

Don’t get me wrong. It is always a good idea to follow your dreams if only to see how far you can go and what you can endure. My beef is with telling anybody within earshot that you’re “gonna go get ‘em!” If that tip works for you, well and good. However, there are some science-backed reasons for trying to keep your goals on the down-low and not sharing them (just yet) to the whole wide world.

When we are inspired to achieve a goal, we get really excited about it and want to let other people know as soon as possible. The reasons for spilling the beans vary from: you want to be held accountable for reaching it to you want others to rally you on and share your enthusiasm.

Why announcements and pronouncements might be a bad idea:

Announcing a goal might garner you premature praises, thus making you less likely to follow through. Social media makes it easy (so very easy) nowadays to get validation. One click and you get instant recognition. One study concludes that a person might think that social recognition is enough reward and may result to that person feeling that they’ve already achieved their goal and reducing his/her efforts.

The kind of praise you receive also plays a big factor in whether you follow through with your goal. One study divides praise into 2 categories: person praise and process praise. The results concluded that it is absolutely better to give process praise – praise related to how you plan to achieve your goal (that’s a really good plan!), versus person praise – praise directed towards the individual (you are very talented!)

And then there’s the fact that, if you’re just starting out on this goal reaching endeavor, you might easily get demoralized by negative feedback. Say for example, your goal is to start a self-care website. So you decide to announce it in a small circle, starting with family and friends. But then, a close friend tells you “Don’t you at least have training in order to be credible?” That might be a big demoralizer for you – and might even be a reason for you to abandon your goals altogether.

Another variation of that is hearing about a lot of competition. If you’re a beginner, hearing about other people who have “been there, done that and will probably do a better job than you could ever do” could knock you off your stilts. Researchers explain this as kind of a win by not losing mentality. It is loss aversion – “When the perception of ability becomes a major concern, competition may motivate students to make a low effort – a strategy to win by not losing.”

Do you believe that plans should be kept under wraps or are you an advocate of friendly announcements? Let us know! Stay humble, hustle hard.

Jul16

Tired of Making Decisions?

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Tired of Making Decisions?

Ever wonder why you make bad food choices at the end of a tiresome day, why normally sound people snap at loved ones, or why it’s so hard to decide on where to have dinner with your group of friends?

Apparently, we have a finite store of mental energy for exerting self-control. People make bad food choices at the end of the day after trying to eat healthfully throughout breakfast and lunch. Parents snap at children after a long day of trying to get the household together. Office workers have a hard time deciding where to get dinner after long hours of making decisions at work. Willpower is a form of mental energy and it is not unlimited.

Decision fatigue is what happens when you’ve exhausted your mental energy on making decisions throughout the day. The more decisions you make, the easier it is to succumb to decision fatigue.

Yes, choosing a salad over a burger counts as a decision so does deciding what to wear in the morning, which shortcuts to take to avoid traffic, which room to hold a meeting in, and what kind of milk to get on your way home. The things you choose to ignore or pay attention to also count as decisions. Before the day ends, you have (on average) probably made about 35,000 decisions. So, how do you manage decision fatigue?

The easiest way is to establish routines.
Routines make our lives easier and help eliminate the need to make decisions. If you can do something automatically then that’s one less decision to make.

In the famous 2012 article in Vanity Fair, no less than US President Barack Obama has this to say: “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits, I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.”

The iconic Steve Jobs has the same principle – famously clad in a black turtleneck, jeans, and sneakers. So does Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, whose closet is reportedly filled with grey shirts. Singer and rock n’ roll legend Henry Rollins also has no time for fussing over what to wear as he sports a black shirt, dark pants uniform. So, there is merit in streamlining your wardrobe or having a work “uniform”.

Work in batches.
Assign certain days of the week dedicated to processes. For example, all creative work to be done on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Administrative work and/or meetings can be done on Mondays and Fridays.

Eat something.
There is truth to that Snickers chocolate bar commercial. We are all b*tchy monsters when we’re hungry – no one is exempt! Hunger is scientifically linked to making impulsive decisions, however, don’t just scarf down anything you get your hands on. Try a healthy granola bar or a fruit. The glucose can help stabilize your blood sugar levels and mitigate mental fatigue.

How do you combat decision fatigue? Share your stories with us! Stay humble, hustle hard.

Written by Jaie O. The Help

Jul9

Visualize Your Work Day

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Visualize Your Work Day

I use a large 36” x 24” whiteboard to keep track of all my work projects – I use the personal Kanban Method to manage this. Actually, the personal Kanban is a pattern – there is no set method and it is highly customizable.

It is simply a (highly organized and effective) management system to take care of your to-dos. The reason why it works so well for me is that it gives you a visual representation of your running tasks and your progress – kind of like a “tasks at a glance” system. It has its roots in the Kanban method used by lean manufacturing industries, specifically the auto manufacturing industry, which was developed by Taiichi Ohno, an industrial engineer at Toyota.

Let me show you how to do it:
First of all, you need a place to layout and arrange your tasks. You can use a wall, a window, a board, anything that you can quickly refer to. Keep in mind that this has to be in a spot you can easily see and access.

Then you divide the board into “actions”. A basic board has three actions: To-do, Doing, Done. You can get creative on the titles…here are some suggestions:

● To-Do: Backlogs, plans, to execute etc.
● Doing: In-progress, on-going, etc.
● Done: Finished, Ended, Completed

To-Do:
These are the set of tasks that you aren’t currently working on but need to get done at some point. Move them to the doing list once you start on them.

Doing:
These are the tasks you are actively and currently working on. If you want to level up your personal Kanban skills, you can color code them according to project or according to priority. When you finish a task, you have the satisfaction of moving them to your done list.

Done:
This is obviously where you move your completed tasks to. Seeing how much you’ve accomplished is the most gratifying part of the personal Kanban method. I use a color-coded post-it system and it gives me great fulfillment to see how many cards I was able to move in a given time frame.

Two “rules”
The personal Kanban method is highly customizable but there is a framework to it – rules if you might say.

1. Visualise your work – this is why I highly recommend that your personal kanban space be a space you can easily see and access. My board hangs on a wall right beside my office desk. Post-its, magnets, and whiteboard markers are easily accessible in an organizer right beside it so that I can easily write down important points like notes, deadlines, and other needed assets.

2. Limit your work in progress (WIP) – Don’t try to do too many things all at once. The personal Kanban is all about prioritization. If everything is a priority, then nothing is…you get me?

You can set up a personal Kanban manually by using whiteboards and other surfaces (walls, windows, cork boards, etc) or you can use web apps (Trello, ZenKit, Asana, Plutio, etc.)

If you want to implement the personal Kanban, here are some further readings to check out:

● The Personal Kanban Blog
● Personal Kanban 101
● Personal Kanban on Facebook
● Personal Kanban In a Nutshell by Jurgen de Smet and Erik Talboom
● Udemy: Getting Started with Personal Kanban
● The Evils of Multi-Tasking and How Personal Kanban Can Help you
● Personal Kanban Gallery

Do you use this method? Care to share your success story using the personal Kanban method? Stay humble, hustle hard!

Written by Jaie O. The Help

Jun25

How to be more productive by taking up a hobby

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How to be more productive by taking up a hobby

Working while on vacation has become the norm. But it is still wise to use your vacation leaves in order to recharge and make sure you increase your productivity when you get back to work. According to this survey from Wrike, 40% of men and 30% of women plan to work while on vacation.

So you’re back from break for a while but still feel that you aren’t achieving as much as you like at work. At this point, you can’t go on another 2 week vacation – but you really need to get your work mojo back. It might be time to try a different strategy. It’s time to pick up a new hobby.

Why pick up a hobby?
A study by Kevin Eschleman, lead author and assistant Psychology professor at San Francisco State University says that “the more you’re engaged people in an extracurricular hobby, the better you’ll do at work. Eschleman’s research concluded that you won’t do just a little bit better, your performance will improve from between 15% and 30% better!” Studies also reinforce the idea that we’ve known all along – the most productive and successful people we know often have a hobby that they enjoy outside of the workplace.

Having an interest in things outside of work can motivate employees to work on their interests making them more engaged and more positive when they’re at work. Having a hobby also makes for great conversation around water coolers. Hobbies also greatly reduce stress – which automatically improves the well being of an employee.

The science behind getting a hobby.
The thing about hobbies is that they help you relax and take your mind of some of the most pressing issues in your life. Just like meditation, immersing yourself into a hobby takes you to a place where your mind is still somewhat active but not actively thinking about stressful concerns. Now let’s break down your hobbies into 2 categories. There is such a thing as “active relaxation” and “passive relaxation”.

Active relaxation involves doing activities that you find enjoyable. Most exercises fall under this category. So if your hobby is running, doing yoga, hiking or going on nature walks – that falls under the active relaxation category.

Passive relaxation involves a less strenuous activity list. Reading, watching movies, gardening, going out for coffee, are all hobbies that fall under the passive relaxation category. They require less energy but are just as enjoyable.

Both forms of relaxation ease tension and put you in a more peaceful mental state. All of them are hobbies that you can enjoy outside of work and require a bit of time investment.

Make a list.
Here’s an assignment for you. Come up with 5 ideas for hobbies that involve passive relaxation. Some examples are: cooking, gardening, coloring (yes, those adult coloring books that were the rave sometime ago), painting, creating playlists. You get the idea.

Now, do the same for hobbies that involve active relaxation. Some examples are: biking, swimming, rock climbing, surfing, or diving.

Keep this list handy and refer to it from time to time. Pick one that you want to try out – or if you’ve already started – pick one to master and get really good at it!

What hobbies are you into? Share them with us in the comments. Stay humble, hustle hard.

 

Written by Jaie O. The Help

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