WHAT DID YOU LEARN TODAY? – consciously learning from what work and life sends our way

By on October 31, 2016 in Blog, emotional intelligence, health+well being, Meta Org Blog, Reducing stress, Resourcing yourself, Working smarter

We may ask this question of children when they’re at school, but we rarely ask it of ourselves on a regular basis. And yet it is an essential aspect of being human: our continuing to learn and develop ourselves. Now when we’re at school, there is an expectation that we will learn new facts and new skills, and we are tested and judged on our ability to do so. As we grow older, there is not generally the same encouragement – or pressure! – to continue to develop our skills and capabilities. One of the things we seem to learn at school is that learning is about coming to grips with something new, and there is less necessity for that as we settle into our particular career and way of life.

However, learning is so much more than that! When we talk about learning from experience, we are talking about the real process of learning: it is the gradual refining of our awareness, our understanding, our skills, and applying them to enhance our lives. We do this by reflecting on what our experiences are like, then taking the parts that work best for us and looking for ways to improve things that don’t work so well.

You may not realise you do this, because it is a natural process – our brains are designed to help us to do it. It is what Darwin described as the survival of the fittest – the process of adapting and refining the way we live our lives, so as to fit into and thrive in our world. We can’t help but do it as we go through our experiences.

So the question is not whether we have learnt anything today, but what we have learnt. When we are not conscious of what we are doing, we can be learning things that seem useful to us, but are not really helping us to be the best we can be and live our lives well. We may have learnt that it’s a good idea to keep your opinions to yourself if you want the boss to approve of you; or that you always have to put others first and be useful to them if you want to be seen as a good person; or that suppressing your values of what’s right and wrong is necessary to fit in. Of course, you will also have learnt some more useful lessons that do help you to be more of who you really are, but for many of us, our continuing learning has diminished rather than enhanced our lives and the way we live them.

It’s important that we set time to reflect on our learning. It might be at the end of the week or perhaps at the end of a month. When we become conscious of this form of learning, we are constantly evolving ourselves, refining our approach to work and life to ensure it becomes better and easier for us. When we learn from our mistakes, and as importantly when we learn from what we do well, then work and life just works!

It’s easy to dismiss our personal development as something that is a ‘nice extra’ to our life and work, however if we don’t give it any importance or any time, then we can get the feeling that we are going round and round in circles, hitting the same blocks and making the same mistakes. It can be very disheartening.

As human beings we love to learn and grow and when we aren’t consciously learning we can feel that we are not moving forward, that we are in stasis. Organisations rarely have the funds these days to do much more than the most essential of technical training, and so our personal and professional development is often left down to us. So what will you do to ensure that you are consciously learning?

At Meta we are committed to identifying easy and useful ways in which people can develop and grow into being the best of themselves, and sharing those ways with as many as possible. We know it’s possible to learn in ways that transform your life into one of possibilities rather than constraints. Isn’t this what we’re really here on earth to do?

Our Journey to Mastery programme is one of the vehicles we have developed that helps you to identify ways of enhancing your life through conscious application of your natural learning process, and we are starting a new programme in January 2017.

So if you’d like to kick start your own personal development plan for 2017, why not consider joining us for this transformational programme?

For more information and some testimonials from those who have already done the programme check our events page – www.meta-org.com/events

And we are not just pushing our programme, we believe its time for everyone to start reviewing their own learning. This year? I’ve learnt so much (often through adversity!) and you know what? When I stopped recently to say ‘what did I learn from all my challenges this year?’ it really amazed me just how much I got from it, and it really made me feel better to know just how much I had learnt. I’m also sure that as a result that NEXT year will be far better as a result.

So why not put aside sometime in your work-diary to review what you have learnt this year, we think that if you do, it’ll give you plenty to think about and might just make you feel a lot better about the year you’ve had!

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STAYING WELL

By on October 7, 2016 in Meta Org Blog

Have you noticed how colds and unspecified viruses seem to have become illnesses that last for weeks, not days? When I was young, a cold was a nuisance for a few days, not something that keeps recurring over weeks, and if you did get flu, you stayed in bed for a few days until you felt better. Now we have undefined viruses that go on for ages, and that most people just keep going with.

I don’t believe that this is because there are more viruses: I think we are not taking care of ourselves like we used to. There are several factors in this.

  1. We don’t stop when we are feeling ill

We keep going and dose ourselves with tablets to relieve the worst of the symptoms. So we don’t give our bodies the chance to heal themselves. In fact, we add to the stress we put ourselves under by keeping going, which reduces the effectiveness of our immune system and means it takes longer to recover, and the virus can take a stronger hold.

  1. We take our illness into work

Not only are we less effective in our work when we do this, we are also giving all those we work with the opportunity to have the same illness! Viruses are contagious or air-borne, so they spread through being in the same space as others – and if those people are stressed, their immune systems are lowered, and they are more likely to be unable to fight it off.

  1. We live in a constant state of stress

We work longer hours, don’t take breaks, are busier than ever. This makes us more vulnerable to illness, because the constant adrenaline and cortisol we produce to deal with stress is at the cost of the health-giving hormones that support our immune system and the renewal of our organs.

So how do we stay well?

It’s obvious isn’t it!

Firstly, if you feel awful, have a day off, and doze your way through the day. Sleep allows our bodies to heal themselves and recover more quickly. One day out of work at the start of feeling bad is more productive that going in and struggling through, and eventually needing five days off! It’s also more considerate of your colleagues. And don’t say I can’t because of this meeting or that report – they can usually wait a day for you to be fit to do them properly.

And longer-term, find ways of reducing your stress, so that you have a stronger immune system, and can resist illness more easily. Take breaks in your day, give yourself relaxing activities outside work, let yourself have some breathing space!

There is little in life which is really either an emergency or a tragedy. Let’s ease up on the urgency, rush and anxiety, and allow ourselves to stay well.

(By the way, Meta is great at helping you find practical strategies for reducing your stress and caring for yourself better)

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ROLE MODELLING IN LEADERSHIP

By on August 11, 2016 in Meta Org Blog

When we are young, we are greatly influenced by our role models. As children, we learn to mimic our parents at a very young age and, in later years, whilst our role models may change, we continue to learn from those we admire. These will include our heroes, whether fictional or real, and those at school who may be brighter, better at sports than we are, or those who are the most popular.

Whilst our tastes may change, as we grow older, the desire to learn from and emulate others does not diminish. At work, we try and understand what makes people successful and recognise the behaviours of the most influential.   Our own leadership styles are more likely to reflect what we have picked up from others than what we may have learnt from our own experiences.

Before we notice, others are watching us closely and seeing what works and what they like. And if what we do does not seem to match what we say, we build suspicion, distrust and potentially lose others’ commitment to our leadership.

So I would like you to think about the behaviours that you demonstrate at work. Do these reflect the ways of working that you are trying to encourage or are there inconsistencies? For example, are you trying to encourage others to have a better work/life balance, but are the first to arrive and the last to leave? Or are you trying to improve team working within your department, whilst being openly proud of your independence and autonomy of decision-making?

We are often unaware of these inconsistencies between what we say and what we do, but they are glaringly apparent to others. So, ask yourself some key questions:

  1. What are the behaviours and ways of working that you are trying to promote within your team or department?
  2. How consistent are your own actions in demonstrating these changes?
  3. What improvements or changes in your leadership style do you need to make to ensure that there is greater consistency?

Finally, why not take the opportunity to explain to others the changes you are planning to make? This will demonstrate your commitment, show them that you believe in adapting your own style and so encourage them to take similar actions themselves. And isn’t that what being a good role model is all about?

At Meta we love helping leaders and leadership teams to be the  role model and create the culture in which everyone thrives. If you’d like to find out more about how we can help why not download our Leadership brochure from the link below:

Meta Leaders&Leadership Team development

 

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STRESS – THE SILENT KILLER – isn’t it time to admit we have a problem?

By on June 27, 2016 in Blog, health+well being, Meta Org Blog, Reducing stress, Working smarter

There is no doubt we are living in a speeded up world. We are working far harder and for longer hours, than we ever have. The increased demands of the workplace are causing many of us to become far too tolerant of stress. Right now all of us will know of someone (possibly even us if we’re honest?) who is suffering from stress.

Stress related illness is the number one cause of visits to UK GP’s so what are you doing to monitor your own stress levels? ~Do you know your own physical and mental signs that you’re under too much stress? Do you suffer from difficulty in sleeping? Waking up in the middle of the night? Waking up with butterflies in your stomach? Suffering from low-level anxiety? Making snap or bad decisions? Not able to get over a cold? Getting ill easily and then being ill for a long time before recovering? Not being able to stop yourself saying something before you’ve said it? Feeling out of control? Wired? Short tempered? Being snappy? Uptight? Being grumpy for no particular reason? Not being able to motivate yourself? Bad neck or back or shoulders? Stomach issues? Gut or digestion problems? Struggling to eat? Smoking or drinking too much? All of these symptoms can be signs of stress.

At Meta we have looked at the science behind stress. We look at how the stress hormones affect the body and mind and look at practical ways to recognise the signs of stress and combat stress in the workplace. With some simple tools you really can change your relationship to stress.

We believe its time to highlight this silent killer. Too many of our friends in senior leadership positions have suffered from the long-term effects of stress. We’ve seen what ignoring stress does. It’s not pretty and it’s not clever. We have to admit that as a working culture we have a problem. We have a problem that we are not paying enough attention to. With increased workloads comes increased pressure, with increased pressure comes increased stress levels, with increased stress levels comes mistakes, inefficiency, inability to problem solve, the death of creativity and innovation and more importantly – serious illness. This is something that businesses and leaders need to address. Not just for the health and well being of their staff but for the health and well being of their organisations!

We can’t change how much you have to do on your to-do list but we can help you to truly change the way you work so that you don’t suffer quite so much from stress. Its time to stop ignoring what is right in front of our faces. It’s time to do something about stress.

We have a 1-day workshop on precisely this topic, so why not use your next team away day to do something really useful for you and your team? And help reduce stress in your workplace?

I hope that at the very least this update will make you think about your own relationship to stress. Are you in denial? Are you more stressed than you think? If you tick more than one of the possible symptoms highlighted in your article, you might want to think about it some!

At Meta we believe that everyone should have access to what we’ve learned, so if you’d like to find out more about the ‘science behind stress’ and ways to tackle it, from the extensive research we’ve done, we’d love to help. So get in touch and we’ll see what we can do to help you and your team tackle this silent killer before it’s too late!

Have a great week everyone,

Jo xxx

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EVERY TEAM NEEDS SPACE TO GROW – WHY TEAM AWAY DAYS MATTER

By on May 12, 2016 in Blog, Collaboration, emotional intelligence, Excellent organisations, Leadership, Meta Org Blog, Team working, Working smarter

Everyone these days seems to be getting on with their list of things to do, in their own world of busyness. Yet on a personal level, most of us find that it makes a difference when we stop and consider before we just bash on, and even more of a difference when we talk things through with others.

Yes, there are lots of meetings to go to in most workplaces, but these are not generally for sharing or exploring ideas and possibilities, they are for information giving, reporting and dealing with immediate issues. This way of working results in several things:

People still tend to work in silos

Despite being in a team, most people still do their work primarily on their own, and don’t use the benefits of working together or develop the relationships with others that make that easier.

Urgent gets done rather than important

People deal with whatever seems most urgent, and often neglect the important things that would make a positive difference to the culture, their effectiveness, and help to reduce the number of immediate issues in the future.

No one has a wider perspective

If people are focussed on what needs to be done next, they lose their perspective on what they are trying to achieve overall, and the consequences of their actions for others who are involved in the process.

What’s the alternative?

Most teams have an away day at least once a year. Too often these are just a lengthier and more complex version of the meetings they have back in the workplace.

What if they were a time to reflect, together?

The benefits of space and time away from the office can be enormous:

  • The team can develop their relationships with each other in a relaxed environment
  • They can look at ways of enhancing their effectiveness in working together, so they get all that stuff done more easily
  • They can reflect on the bigger picture, what they’re trying to achieve overall, and develop ideas on how to do that more effectively
  • They feel valued enough to be given the space to think about something other than their immediate list of things to do
  • The team can make important decisions together, so that priorities do not get confused
  • They can explore how best to work together, in order to achieve their goals for the year
  • They can develop particular skills across the team that will enable them to deliver their departmental objectives more easily
  • These developed skills become a shared learning, a common language of development that all the team share, something that brings them together
  • They have the opportunity to look at things that perhaps they don’t have time for at the office, things that are important to the team as a whole, but just not important enough to make the top of individual to-do lists
  • They can come up with more innovative solutions to problems because they are away from the BAU (business as usual) tasks back at the office
  • Teams are a living system, a social network, being away from the office reminds everyone that they are not just their job titles or roles, but real human beings and reconnect as such

And ALL these elements make a difference to how they perform when they return to their everyday working.

We at Meta have facilitated such days for teams in organisations over the past 20 years, and we know just how valuable they can be in helping to create sustainable success in the workplace. Time and time again we hear the same things – ‘it’s just so good to get away from the office together’, ‘I feel like this has really brought us together’, ‘I thought it was just me that thought like this, it’s nice to know we are all on the same page’, ‘its nice to have some space and time to think!’ ‘I can see how we can make this work if we work together on this’.

We all instinctively know that time away from the office together as a team isn’t a ‘jolly’ – (unless you decide that go-karting is the way to go!) – it isn’t a luxury, it’s an essential to the long-term success of the team. Without away days teams become fragmented and individualistic. It is no longer about the team and what the team needs to deliver but ‘how can I get what I have on my to-do lists so that I am in the clear’. That may sound harsh, but for many of us that is the truth.

At Meta want to change that story, we want to help you to create a team that grows and develops together. Having your away days facilitated by an independent, someone outside of the team dynamics, who is not involved with the organisation, has been shown to make a real difference to the effectiveness and longer-term success of a team away day. “Facilitate” means ‘to make things easy’ it’s our job to make it easy for you to work more effectively together, back in the difficult dynamics of your workplace.

So think about your team away day this year, would you like to get the most from that day away from the office? Would you like to develop the working practice of your team? Would you like your team away day to be fun, enjoyable, motivating, productive, inspiring and different? If the answer to these questions is ‘yes please!’ Then why not get in touch with us here at Meta?

At Meta we’ve been running staff and team away days for years. It’s what we call our ‘bread and butter’, because we’ve worked with teams at every level within organisations global to start up, from CEO’s and directors to people working on the shop floor. We know what works and over the years we’ve developed and refined our programmes so that they are practical and easily applicable back in the workplace, thus overcoming that traditional ‘that was a nice away day, and now we’re back in the office, we’ll revert back to the way we’ve always worked’. We love helping teams to realise their potential, and we don’t want your away day to be wasted. We want it to become a way for you to sustainably change the way your team works for the better. At Meta we truly believe that its time to utilise this opportunity away from the office to its fullest so that your team comes back raring to go and ready to give of their best.

So why not use YOUR away day this year to get more? Use YOUR team away day to motivate, develop and inspire your team, you’ll be really glad you did!

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WORK-LIFE BALANCE

By on April 8, 2016 in Meta Org Blog

The phrase work/life balance has been around for a long time now, yet we still don’t really pay it enough attention. For many people nowadays, it means trying to take their holiday entitlement and occasionally getting home at a reasonable hour. Yet it means so much more than this.

Yes, it does mean that working all the hours God sends is not good for your health and well-being – or your productivity! It is important to get away from work and take a break. Yet often we only use this time to do more ‘work’ – the household chores, ferrying children to and from activities, making sure we visit family. That is not balance, that is doing two or more jobs!

We find balance when our life outside work takes us out of work mode, so that we satisfy other aspects of who we are. If we do physical work at work, maybe we need something mentally stimulating in our life outside work. If work is very analytical or logical, maybe we need to do something with the creative part of our mind outside work. If work is stressful, we need things that relax us – the list goes on!

Many of us have an over-emphasis on one aspect of who we are through our work, and leave other aspects untapped and unused. Yet all of us are a mixture of characteristics, which need to be used for us to feel whole and satisfied. Research clearly shows that those who use a mixture of their characteristics are far more likely to stay physically and mentally healthy than those who are over-using one part of themselves.

And remember that being creative doesn’t have to be ‘artistic’: it could be cooking a different meal, or re-arranging a room in your house. Similarly, doing something physical doesn’t have to be exercise in the gym: it could be gardening or going for a walk in the park.

What does matter is that we engage in activities that use a different part of our mind and give us a different sense of satisfaction.

This isn’t about having to do yet more in your busy life, it’s about feeding your soul, growing into who you really are. However much we love our work, we all need to expand into a life beyond work, rather than just do what needs to be done and then get back to work.

So go on, bake that cake, arrange the lunch with friends, go for that walk, increase that balance in your life!

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COLLABORATION WORKS!

By on March 4, 2016 in Meta Org Blog

What are you good at? Most of us have some aspects of our work that we find easy and satisfying, that we do with some enthusiasm. Imagine if, most of the time, that is what was asked of you. If we really worked collaboratively, that is how it would look.

The word collaboration means working together to achieve an end goal. The implication of this is that we each bring our particular strengths to the task, so that we can achieve it more easily and effectively. We use this principle when we have different teams to design something, to implement the design, to test that it works properly, etc., but we often forget a vital element of collaboration: that they work together on it. If the end product is to be as intended, then all of them need to be involved in every stage of the process.

I’m sure you can think of your own examples of where this clearly hasn’t happened: the user guide written in language that the layman doesn’t understand; the chair that looks beautiful but is uncomfortable to sit on; the monitoring process that takes longer than the task it is monitoring.

How do we enhance collaboration?

Collaboration is a mind-set. It is about clarifying what we really want to achieve right at the start of something, and then identifying what each of us can contribute to make that happen. It requires that we let go of the drive to prove ourselves to be ‘the one’, and instead use what we’re good at to make something happen well. What we bring may be a technical skill or it may be a personal quality: how would we manage without the one who lightens the mood, the one who encourages everyone else, the quiet one who spots the way through the discussion to useful action!

Collaboration begins with seeing everyone else involved as a potential ally in achieving an effective outcome. For this to happen, we need two main areas to be built on:

  1. Building relationships in the team as a whole
  2. The ways we communicate with one another

If we don’t really know the other people in the team, then we won’t know what they can contribute, other than their technical skills, and we won’t build the trust that underlies collaboration, and enables us to know who to call on for help, or what they can bring.

And we need to communicate effectively with others, to build and reinforce relationships, and to maintain the feeling of working together. Emails being sent across the office simply don’t cut it!

It is natural to us to collaborate. We are a living model of how to do that well: our bodies are a brilliant example of collaboration, each part contributing to the whole by working together and communicating with each other to maintain the balance required for our health. We could learn from ourselves, and achieve miracles if we chose to!

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WORKING SMARTER PART TWO

By on February 5, 2016 in Meta Org Blog

Last month I looked at ways of helping yourself to work more in the flow of how you work best. This month I want to look at some of those things that stop us from applying those principles.

Let’s start with the problems we cause ourselves! We often don’t allow ourselves a realistic amount of time to be able to think about what we’re doing.

Weekly Planning

Taking a bit of time to plan your week can pay off enormously. I don’t mean that long list of things to do; I mean getting clear in your own mind where the different things to do fit in to your week. There are a couple of things to bear in mind when doing this:

  1. Where possible, put different things in slots that match with the type of thing it is, and the best times (see last month)
  2. Keep it realistic. Are you really going to feel like writing that report after 4 back-to-back meetings? Can you really do those 6 things in the hour you allotted to them?

Making an overall plan for the week helps you to build in some of those things that do matter, but often drop off the list: starting something before the deadline looms; preparing properly for an important meeting; spending a bit of time with a colleague that isn’t driven by an urgent request. It also helps your mind-set for the week, by giving you a clear intention rather than ‘just getting it all done’.

Daily Planning

Applying the same principle on a daily basis also helps. Just take 5 minutes at the end of the day to check out where you are up to. Don’t forget to be pleased with yourself for what you have achieved or made progress on – that gives you a bit of a boost!

Then assess what didn’t get done, and whether it is possible to fit it in to the next day, or if you need to reassign the tasks for that day. By taking a moment to do this, you set yourself up to be ready to go the next day.

Moving

During the day, we often spend the majority of our time sitting – and even worse, in front of a computer! I talked last time about knowing when to stop because you’re no longer being effective. We are not designed to just sit all day, so when you ‘run out’, move. There is a lot of research that suggests that most of us don’t move enough, and that it adversely affects our health, and it is a good way to help yourself to recover your flow. When the body moves, the mind tends to ‘unstick’ itself as well. If you feel you need a reason to get up from your desk, go for a pee or to rinse your face, make a cuppa, pick up some papers and walk briskly through the office – it all helps!

Interruptions

Those are all the things we can do something about, but what about those interruptions that disrupt our train of thought or our concentration?

  1. If you operate an ‘open door’ policy, remember that it doesn’t have to be ‘open all hours’! You can allocate times when it’s OK to interrupt in a day, and make that clear to others.
  2. You can move away from your usual space to do work that requires concentration for an hour or two to the café, a meeting room, or work from home.
  3. You can ask the person if their query could wait for 30 minutes, so you can pay them proper attention.
  4. And turn the ‘ping’ off that signals emails or texts arriving!

Applying the principles of working smarter

It can be hard to be the one who isn’t rushing, busy, stressed, if that’s the general environment you’re in. You feel guilty for being less ‘busy’ than the others. So experiment with introducing just a few more of these ideas into your day; change it a bit at a time. And notice the positive effect on you, and on others. I guarantee you will feel better, and others will benefit from you being more present when you’re with them.

Go on, work a bit smarter – you deserve it!

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WORKING SMARTER PART ONE

By on January 8, 2016 in Meta Org Blog

Happy New Year! So, after a break over Christmas, have you come back to work or normal life and just resumed your usual patterns, or are you going to work smarter this year?

By working smarter, I mean working with your own nature, rather than forcing yourself on, and wearing yourself out – it seems like a good idea to me!

Knowing your own way of working

We have all developed habits of working harder not smarter: we infect each other with busyness, and become used to being stressed and pushing ourselves beyond our natural limits. Yet this set of patterns is unhealthy longer-term, for us as individuals and for the organisations we work for. We are setting ourselves up for chronic exhaustion and stress-related illness, and the organisation doesn’t get us at our most productive.

We can do something about it, if we choose to, by recognising ways in which we can help ourselves to be less stressed and more effective. We may not be able to control how our time is used fully – we have meetings that others arrange, tasks we have to get done urgently, etc. – but we all have some level of control. By stopping to think about how you would prefer to work, you can begin to slightly re-arrange the way you tackle what you have to do, so as to make it a bit easier on yourself.

Here are a few areas to look at, to start you off.

Knowing your ‘peak time’

All of us have a ‘best’ time of day, or probably several! For example, I find I write most easily in the morning before I do anything else; I am at my most creative before I clutter my mind with the routines of the day and the demands of others on my time. Yet I am more social and good at interaction in the afternoon, once I have cleared my own thoughts and important tasks. Routines and tedious tasks fit well towards the end of the day for me – I get stuff done without needing to use my mind much.

So what’s your preferred pattern? When are you most focussed, most creative, most sociable? We’re all different, and we can work smarter by organising our days to fit our preferences whenever possible. If you have a list of things to do, you can identify which of these require you to be at your most productive, your most creative, and arrange them to suit. And if you have to attend an important meeting at a time when you’d prefer to be getting on with clearing some stuff, then at least allow yourself ten minutes of ‘prep’ time beforehand – have a cup of tea, get yourself in the right frame of mind.

One thing at a time or several?

No, I don’t mean multi-tasking – no-one does this very well: just watch the car in front of you when the person driving is also on the phone! I mean do you prefer to take one task to completion at a time, or to do a chunk of one thing and then a chunk of another, so they all gradually get done. Again, if you can match your own preferences, you will reduce the level of stress you feel.

Knowing when to stop

How long can you be effective for? Research suggests that all of us have a natural ebb and flow and no-one stays effective for more than an hour and a half at a time. If we take a short break, we can often extend that effective time, although we will still begin to fade out more quickly.

You know when you’ve pushed yourself too far: you lose concentration, get fidgety, or just don’t take in what you’re hearing or reading. It isn’t productive to push yourself on- everything is more difficult and takes longer when we are in this state.

So stop, take 5 minutes, make a cuppa, go and talk to someone, go and splash your face with water, breathe, turn your chair away from the computer – anything to allow yourself to regain your flow.

 

Next month we will look at a few more ways you can help yourself to work smarter. In the meantime, experiment with discovering your peak time, with working out whether you prefer to be single-focussed or a ‘butterfly’, and with stopping for a short break – and make your life a little easier!

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TAKE A BREAK!

By on December 8, 2015 in Meta Org Blog

It’s December, almost Christmas – do you remember how exciting that was when you were a child? And now how do we react to it? For most of us it means extra stress in our busy lives: shopping, planning, preparing, visiting or arranging for others to visit – it’s exhausting!

And we’re doing all this when the days are shorter, the weather is often unpleasant, on top of our normal busyness. It’s no wonder that we creak under the strain!

So we have a recommendation for you: plan in one day of your time off as a real day off. Decide now that one of those days is for you to do just what you feel like doing, and choose a day which could work, like the day after Boxing Day or the day after New Year’s Day – days that are often quiet anyway.

You have worked hard all year and you deserve something to really look forward to. You could have a duvet day, read a good book, watch a whole box set, go for a pleasant walk, indulge yourself in a relaxing way for the day.

If your reaction to this is: ‘ I can’t. There’s the family, my partner etc. to consider’, then you definitely need to do it! By deciding now, you can plan to swap kids with friends for a day, so you both get a break, and suggest to your partner that they plan a day off as well.

We all need to have a bit of time to ourselves before we launch back in to our normal busy lives, and it is important for our health and balance. Give yourself a lovely Christmas present this year – take a break!!

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