Are You a Morning Or Evening Person? Productivity Counts

It’s September 1st and I am sitting outside on a beautiful Thursday afternoon.   I find I don’t do this enough… just take my work outdoors and enjoy the day.  There is a slight breeze and the temperature is just right.   The day appears to be rather lazy, and yet I am powering through work that I have been trying to get to for weeks!  No distractions, no phones ringing (at least that I can hear) and no meetings to attend. A prefect day to concentrate on what needs to be done.

There is so much controversy on over where a person is most productive.  If they have 8-5 jobs that require them to be on location are they the most productive?  Are people with flexible work schedules more productive?  What about taking into consideration the person.  When is a person the most productive?  I know some people who are slow to start their day.  They are just not morning people so for them it is like walking in a trance until they get their coffee, had time to adjust to the day and feel that they are in full swing.  It make take them a few hours to find that they are firing on all cylinders.

If you want to know when someone is at their peak, ask them what time they would like to start a meeting.  An example would be when my Assistant says, I know you are not a morning person, but can we meet at 8:00 am?   I’d prefer 10:00 am.   Obviously, she knows that I am not at my peak early in the morning.  However, I am raring to go at later in the date and she is ready to call it quits.

The human brain can concentrate for only so long.  Some say no longer than 30 minutes before we begin to wander and have to force ourselves back on task.  We need to take breaks and when we don’t we will find that we lose concentration and have to refocus.  We are also not as productive.  Each of us can be classified into either a morning or a night person.  And we all know which type we are.

When it comes to work and work location, where are people most productive?  And why do people have to be on site if their job doesn’t require them to absolutely be there?  Companies can save money by allowing their employees to work from home and many companies have adopted this culture.  For those companies that still feel “butts in seats” so they can “see the work being done” should really take a closer look.  Just because you can physically see a person sitting at their desk, does not mean they are being productive.  Shouldn’t results speak volumes?  If the work isn’t getting done, then perhaps the wrong person is in the job!

Five Ways to Boost The Way Others View You

The way you perceive yourself is the way others will see you.  Think about that statement.   What is your perception of yourself?  Are you confident, are you in shape, and are you helpful, courteous and kind?  Are you self-assured in your knowledge, skills and abilities at work?   If you answered no to anyone of these questions, then you have some work to do.  If there is any aspect of your life – personal or professional that you do not feel good about, then you are projecting that image to others.

Your self-image is vital to the way people view you.  You can give your self-esteem a boost by changing your thinking.  Our minds are powerful and our thoughts have a direct correlation to how we behave.

Labels and titles play into our perceptions.  Perhaps you have heard of some of the altered titles given to the following professions.  The jobs haven’t changed, but the attitude of the people doing them has.

Transparency Enhancement Facilitator – Window Cleaner
Field Nourishment Consultant – Waitress

Garbage Man – Sanitary Engineer

Housewife -Domestic Engineer
Highway Environmental Hygienist -Road Sweeper
Sanitation Consultant – Toilet Cleaner

 I offer these five things for helping you to perceive yourself in a better light.

1.  Identify the area(s) that you find upsetting.  This will take self reflection and may make you uncomfortable.  You may be avoiding thinking or talking about this area of your life.
2. Identify  the thoughts you have when thinking about this area.  How many times do you think “what if”, “I can’t”, “It won’t happen” or other negative thoughts?  Notice any feelings or sensations you have while having the thoughts.
3. Notice any reactions you may have as a result of these thoughts.  Are you over eating, under eating, drinking too much, not sleeping, avoiding people. have a short fuse and become angry, etc.?
4. Challenge your thoughts.   If you have the “what if’s” play them out in your mind.   Negative thinking causes helplessness.   Recall also how many times you had “what if” scenarios in the past and how what you feared never happened.
5. Change your thinking – change your life.  Be kind to yourself and change negative words into positive ones.  Avoid the words “should and must”.  Treat yourself with kindness and be forgiving.  Be your own cheerleader.  If you don’t love yourself and believe in yourself, why should anyone else?

The Age of Happiness

Do you believe you are happier now than ever before in your life?  What age would you say you were the most happy?  The Economist recently printed an article, “The U-Bend in Life” (December 2010) which answers the question and you may find it surprising.

There are four main factors to happiness, gender, personality, external circumstances and age.    If you fall into these categories changes are better that you are a happy person:

1. women tend to be happier
2. those with extrovert tendencies and enjoy being in teams and with people are happier than those that sit behind a closed office door
3. married, higher education, children that have left the house and riches, people with money are happier than those without
4. you are in your mid 40′s and higher

“Arthur Stone, Joseph Schwartz and Joan Broderick of Stony Brook University, and Angus Deaton of Princeton, breaks well-being down into positive and negative feelings and looks at how the experience of those emotions varies through life. Enjoyment and happiness dip in middle age, then pick up; stress rises during the early 20s, then falls sharply; worry peaks in middle age, and falls sharply thereafter; anger declines throughout life; sadness rises slightly in middle age, and falls thereafter.”

 

Studies show that people who are happy recover faster from illness, are less likely to remain in conflict and better at handling misfortunes.   They are also less likely to take things personally instead take the adage “you can’t please everyone” and then let the punches roll.

If given the choice, wouldn’t you rather be happy?  Perhaps it is all about the lens we view life through.

Making Decisions and Problem Solving, Stress Relief

Problems, problems, problems.  We all have them and we all need to come up with solutions.  But how do you go about this task?  Do you rely on prior experience, make a pros and con list, procrastinate until the problem either takes care of itself because of your lack of action or do you pass the problem along to someone else and hope that they solve it for you?

The purpose of this entry is not to tell you things you already know, but to remind you of the tools that you have within your reach that you may have forgotten about.  When we were in school we learned all about the various problems solving methods, but somewhere along the way we fell into the habit of using the same method again and again. (let’s hope that method is not avoidance)

Stress is caused when we do not have a plan for solving the problems that enter into our lives.  Avoiding adds more stress.   Think of those things now that are nagging at you, keeping you up at night and what you are doing to take control.   It has been proven that the more stress we endure the less effective we are at solving our problems.   We can actually reinforce stress and thus make stress a habit.  Recall that a habit is “A recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition.” by not attending to the problem and reducing our stress we are making stress a habit in our lives.

There are numerous methods to solving problems.  Here are a few:

1. talk  with someone you trust
2. asking the five whys
3. making a pros and cons list
4. diagramming the problem,  i.e., -Venn , affinity, cause and effect
5. SWOT and PEST analysis
6. risk analysis
7. flow charts
8. appreciative inquiry

If you have forgotten any of these tools that are available to help you, you may just want to brush up on their concepts and add them to your own toolbox once again.

To a more peaceful life and better health, manage your stress!