Episode 61: B3 Breaks: 3 Tips To Stay Productive While Working From Home
With all the demands on us between our personal life, remote meetings, and trying to get our own work done, life can feel overwhelming at times. Therefore, working from home can sometimes be more tedious rather than comfortable. How can you make sure that even at the four corners of your home, you're still in control of your outputs and daily lifestyle? In today's B3 Break, take five minutes to step back from your day and think about how you can implement these three simple ways to reduce stress and be more productive remotely!
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B3 Breaks: 3 Tips To Stay Productive While Working From Home
This series is all about getting honest with ourselves and noticing the things that we carry with us. We each have our own life experiences to go from. Sometimes it's hard to truly understand what it's like to be someone else. What we can do to create change is to start with us. If each of us took one action each day in our own lives, we can collectively change the world around us, but what does it take? It takes work and practice. We have to be honest with ourselves. As we get there to do that, we have these B3 Breaks to pause and assess our thoughts before we speak, to take an honest look at our interactions in our day and the energy that we may be creating around us.
We ask other people questions and learn their stories and experiences. We create positive energy with the people around us and find peaceful ways to show our support to our friends, family and acquaintances. We observe all of this without judgment. We are present with the people we are with and we show up in love. What can we do? We start with the little things. This series is all about short practices that you can put into your day, practice this for 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes or whatever it takes, so that you can observe your energy and be intentional with the energy you create around you. If you believe you can, you will.
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For our B3 Break, we're going to talk about how to better prioritize our day so we can reduce the amount of stress and tension that we might be carrying in our bodies. I know for a lot of conversations that I've had, this whole new world of working remotely and also having kids home if you have them, the demands that they're having, with putting schoolwork on top of our already busy workload, can create more tension, anxiety and a feeling of we're out of control of our own lives and the things that we need to get done for ourselves. It's important to figure out how you're going to prioritize your day, especially for those of us that have kids and have the new prioritization of making sure they get their schoolwork done during the day, if they virtually chime in to their classes or having those assignments that as the parent at home is responsible for making sure that they get that done, which that might be new to many of us.
Working From Home: By setting your intentions for the day, you can avoid the feeling that the day took over and you just don't know what you accomplished.
Secondly, we have our own work demands where we are on meetings remotely, and maybe you aren't used to being in a remote situation and having meetings after meetings. Third, we have our own work that we need to get done as well and finding time to get that work done, that's dedicated where no one's coming at you asking you for something or knocking at your door. It's important for us to make sure that we prioritize our own work as well. What it takes is not allowing ourselves to feel the world is controlling us, instead of taking a hold of it and figuring out how to prioritize our day better.
Make A List
Now that we've been through this for a while, stepping back and making a list of all the new things that we need to do in our work life. One is making sure that we write a list of our own work, whether it's professionally or personally, the things that we know we have to get done in order to get it off of our list. Once we make that list, it's important each day to identify one to three things that we are going to get done, not try to tackle the whole list. Set an intention for the day of the three most important things you need to get done. At the end of the day, you know that you accomplish something and you're not feeling like the day took over and you're not sure what you did, you just know that you were busy. Dedicate time on your calendar to make sure those things are getting done.
Reach Out For Support
Secondly, we have schoolwork that if you have kids, that you're trying to help your kids get through and focus during their day, and the demands that are put on parents that are with that as well. What you can do here is make sure that you're reaching out for support. It's important for us to ask for help when we need it. A lot of times, we think people know what the demands are on us instead of speaking up and asking for what we need. Talk to the people you work for, talk to your coworkers and see where you can balance times where you need to block off to maybe work with your kids and their schoolwork, and let them know that you've got their back when they need to do that as well. It's always a give and take, and that's always the best way to go.
Working From Home: Set meetings based on your energy level so that your optimum self is coming at that meeting and you can be present for what is happening with the people around you.
Avoid Over Meeting
The third important thing is figuring out how to not over meet with the people at your job. It's really easy to keep setting meetings right now, but then we can't get our own work done. Be vigilant about your calendar and ask for agendas, “What is this meeting about? Why are we having this meeting?” to make sure that everyone is prepared for what that meeting is. Keep that meeting down to the right amount of time, so you can dedicate other time to get the work done that you need or to take personal time for yourself as well. Make sure that you're setting meetings as well based on your energy level, so that your optimum energy is coming at that meeting and you can be present for what is happening with the people around you and still paying attention, rather than being stressed out, going meeting to meeting that you're still thinking about the last meeting and the current meeting you're at.
Take these three things. One is to make sure that you make a list and prioritize one to three things max, that you want to get done in the day. Secondly, carve out time and ask for help between your coworkers and your boss to make sure that you can get your family demands done. Thirdly, make sure that you set meetings with agendas and ensure that they're meaningful meetings and you don't over meet during the day as well. I hope that these tips will help you and make sure that you are optimum energy for yourself and the people around you during your workday.
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Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read the show. I hope you will take a moment to pause before entering back into your day to reflect on this show and note 1 to 2 actions you are inspired to do from this conversation that you could incorporate into your life. For daily inspiration, follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, @AmyVetterCPA. I hope that you will choose to like this and subscribe to this show on iTunes, Spotify and more, so that you can join us for more inspiration on our next episode.
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