Do you often feel stressed out at work or when you come home from work? Do you sometimes feel unable to make the most of your time off because you worry too much about work? If you answered “yes” at least once, maybe it’s time to focus more on how you spend your time. Even simple and small changes can make a big difference to your daily life.
We’ve asked people around us to give us some interesting advice about how to develop good habits to help you get through all the events occurring in your daily professional life and activities.
Now that burnout, or more recently brown-out (lack of motivation at work), are becoming less and less unusual in our society, we thought we should share some simple but very meaningful insights!
Here are our top three pieces of advice to help you in your everyday life:
1. Dedicate some time off to de-stress from work
For the last decade, it seems that Urgency has become the motto when it comes to politics, economics, or even social life. People now believe they are lacking a few hours a day to do everything they would like to do.
You may feel the same, but is it unavoidable? Do you really need to suffer from this social pressure of urgency?
Some people around us have taken some inspiration from Asian cultures, and started meditating once or twice a week; others exercise to alleviate the pressure and stress they accumulate during work. Also, unlike what one might think, exercising in the morning (for example a 20-minute jogging session) does not make you more exhausted at work, but it helps you start the day with fresh ideas!
2. Tiny healthy habits
Back in 2011, professor BJ Fogg from Stanford University showed us that only three things can change a person’s long term behaviour: have an epiphany (not that common), change your social environment (quite hard to do, we confess) or take “baby steps” to gradually improve your behaviour the way you want it to.
An advocate of this method told us that he (for example) reads a few pages – no more than 5 or 10 – of a book every single night before going to bed. He estimates the results of that decision to about 1 more book every two months.
This whole tiny habit process is based on the combination of one new (healthy/productive) tiny habit and a behaviour you already have: after a while, this new tiny habit – the one you now do almost effortlessly – will help you change your global behaviour for the best.
Here’s one example if you, for example, want to eat healthier: eat a piece a fruit every day before leaving home; want to start exercising: do 5 push-ups every morning before you take a shower and gradually increase that amount; want to stop smoking: stop smoking that one last cigarette before going to bed (it’s pointless, you may agree?).
3. Remove all the (unnecessary) elements making you less productive
Have you ever got the impression that your clothes were not really helping you? We all remember that day when we were not feeling comfortable in our clothes and it was preventing us from truly feeling confident. For example, I personally hate it when I have to wear a tie all day.
Make sure you feel good in your suit, from the jacket (what other people will see) to your underwear (what other people will not see but what makes you feel comfortable). It can be as simple as wearing a T-shirt under your shirt if you suffer from perspiration.
Or, do you feel like some weeks you spend all your time in meetings and you are so busy at work that you do not have time to really do the job? It may be tough to make that decision beforehand but simply deciding that one day a week you will not plan any meetings can make you a lot more productive and keeps you focused on one task at a time. Urgent matters will come up anyway!
If you’d like to share some of your advice for a more productive lifestyle, feel free to comment!