Struggling with Stress: How to Have More Fun at Work

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According to an Everest College Survey, 83% of US workers are suffering from stress at work, which is often related to a low salary, too many tasks, a lack of job security, a poor work-life balance, or a lack of professional developments.

Unfortunately, stress at work can eat into a worker’s personal life, as they may feel defined by their chosen career. Fortunately, there are numerous ways you can combat stress in your job. Find out how to have more fun at work.

Go for a Walk

Whenever your job becomes a little stressful, take a walk to clear your mind and distance yourself from the tasks. The small break will not only help to clear your mind, but it can reportedly increase creativity. You’ll return to work with more passion and determination for a project, so you’ll feel happier in the job role.

Play a Game

Games have been proven to alleviate anxiety and stress both inside and outside the workplace. It can, therefore, be a fun and helpful activity during a lunch or coffee break. So, play a video game in the office breakout room, or enjoy a Unibet game to relax your mind and have a little fun. It could potentially lift your mood, which will make the working day seem less of a chore.

Personalize Your Workspace

Do you have your own office, cubicle, or desk? Put your own stamp on it with a little personalization. Create a fun space you are proud to call your own. For example, you can add stress balls, family photographs, decorative accessories, or you can decorate it with postcards or cards. It will be your own mini home away from home, and it’s bound to capture the attention of other colleagues – so it could be a good way to make new friends at work.

Don’t Be Afraid to Have Fun

While it is important to maintain professionalism at work, nothing is stopping you from having a little fun with your colleagues, too. So, stop being afraid to have fun and simply crack a joke, laugh with others, share funny articles, or smile at your colleagues. You will help to create a happier workplace – and you’ll feel happier as a result, too.

Compliment a Colleague

A compliment could potentially make a person’s day, so don’t be afraid to give a colleague some positive feedback each day. For example, genuinely compliment them on their presentation, or ask where they bought their clothing. It will make others feel good, and it will, in turn, make you feel good. They’ll also be more likely to compliment you in the future, too, so you can help to create a more positive working environment for everyone. You’ll be surprised by how something so small can make such a big difference to both yours and another person’s day.

Do you have any helpful tips on how to have more fun at work? Please write a comment below.

8 Tips for Organizing Your Busy Office

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With a large in-house team, it’s inevitable that your office will get into a bit of a mess every once in a while. We know as much as anyone that in the midst of a busy project, paper will get strewn around, files will end up stacked on every available desk space and tables will become buried under office stationery junk.

There are plenty of solutions to this problem which will ensure your office stays a calm haven during busy periods rather than a chaotic heap. Check out these fun and functional office organization ideas that will keep everything in its place and stress levels low.

1. Organized Storage

Storage is key – and effective storage at that. Label all drawers and cabinets for easy location when you need to find things. Explain the new system to all employees so that they know where everything should go.

The more storage you can get that fixes to the wall, like shelving units, rather than standing on the floor, means you have more floor space and gives the illusion of a larger area (plus makes it easier for people to get around).

Draft in more filing cabinets and in-and-out trays for mail if you need to have physical files – the most efficient way is always to look into digital filing solutions and give up all paper where possible, to keep your office completely free of unnecessary clutter. There’s nothing that can’t be computerized these days.

2. Combine Your Appliances

Check out companies like CDS for their Complete Document Solutions, offering office appliances at the best prices. Xerox machines that combine printing, copying, scanning, paper storage, print-from and scan-to USB capabilities and more, mean that you don’t have to take up valuable free space in your office with multiple clunky machines.

3. Cable Organizers

This is not only a space-saver but a health and safety savior! Tangled cables lying around are not just a trip hazard but really annoying to navigate. Ensure all your staff can walk around the office freely and quickly by clipping all cables under desks or covering them with floor covers, both of which can be bought online or from office stores inexpensively.

4. Message & Pin Boards

Pin important documents and messages that the whole team need to see on a big office pin board. This way, need-to-know messages won’t get lost and will be positioned at eye level for all to see.

5. Desk Tidies

Give everyone in the office their own personal desk tidy, like a small cabinet or a computer screen platform with built-in drawers. Give each person their own coat and bag hook to avoid personal belongings being dumped on the floor. This means everyone is responsible for their own tidy desks and there can be no excuses!

6. DIY Organizing

If you’ve blown your business budget for the month but can’t stand the mess any longer, there are plenty of temporary DIY solutions you can turn to. Use old shoe boxes for filing papers and jam jars as pen pots. Clip cables and wires together and out of the way with crocodile clips and use a long line of parcel string fixed to the wall to clip papers onto and keep desk space clear.

7. Have a Spring Clean

To tackle the clutter of old paper, junk, cardboard boxes, and more, consider hiring rubbish removal services to efficiently clear out the items you no longer need and have been meaning to throw away for a long time.

Set aside one morning for the whole team to clear out their desks and throw out anything that is no longer needed – you might need to hire a skip! Afterwards, you should all have much more space to breathe and the whole office will be fresh, clean and clear of clutter.

8. Cubby Holes

Give each employee a cubby hole for their mail so that parcels and personal mail doesn’t end up littering the office, or worse, getting lost. Try to ensure that everyone keeps their cubby clean and neat – maybe install a bin beside the area so people can throw away any rubbish instantly.

What Do You Need To Be Successful?

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Some people in this world always seem to be successful no matter what they do. The interesting thing to note is that these successful people were not born this way, and have not simply been lucky in life. There are certain things that all successful people do that mean their success keeps on coming. If you also want to be successful, then these next tips will help you get there.

They Are Focused

Successful people are always focused on their goal. They direct their energy towards getting there, and they don’t let themselves get distracted. What’s more important is that they focus their work on high-value tasks, tasks that will boost them higher than many low-value tasks would. It can be tempting to take on low-value work because at least it is something, some kind of income, but if you focus solely on the work that will bring in either greater revenue or give you a bigger presence in your sector, then you will be much more successful. Take a look at your to-do list; which of those tasks are the high-value ones? The ones that will bring you the most reward? Those are the ones you need to focus your energy on.

They Prioritize

Successful people tend to also be busy people. However, they don’t become flustered or feel overwhelmed by the amount of work they have to do. They don’t start panicking and lose themselves, the result being that they get nothing done at all. Instead, they prioritize. They know what the most important tasks are, and which ones they should do first. This is what they work on. Everything else will be much lower down the list.

They Learn

Successful people aren’t afraid to admit when they don’t know something, even if they only admit that to themselves. They don’t continue on a task when they don’t know what they’re doing as they know that disaster won’t be far away. Instead, they learn. They take it upon themselves to find out all the things they don’t know so that they can then complete the job. So if they need to understand how magnetic clutches are installed, or which tiles look best on a bathroom floor, or whether it’s best to use a credit card or a debit card, or any number of other things that could be part of their remit, they will make it their job to find the answers.

They Have The Right Attitude

You’ll have heard it said that having a positive mental attitude is the key to a successful, happy life. Negative thoughts can have serious consequences on your physical health (because you will become more anxious and stressed and this can lead to all kinds of issues such as high blood pressure and heart disease) and your mental health. If you can turn your negative thoughts into positive ones and keep pushing forward, you’ll find that you’ll notice many more opportunities. If you’re feeling negative, you won’t see the chances that you could grab. Having a positive mental attitude could be the difference between total success and failure.

The benefits of getting out of the office

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It might feel safe behind that desk, but there’s nothing quite like getting out into the world and just getting things done at your own pace. The office may have everything that you think you need, but you might be amazed by the mental adjustment that occurs when you step into the outside world. Between fresh air and natural light, as well as more control over your working day, there are a number of reasons that make it worthwhile to escape the cubicle. Here then are the top reasons to unchain yourself from the safety of your desk and head to the outside world.

Face-to-face interaction

Of course you can have meetings in a virtual manner, utilizing chatrooms and group video call facilities to make it easier for everyone to be involved no matter where they are. However, there is a lot of difference between seeing a face on a screen and actually being face-to-face. The level of communication changes, and more attention is paid when the person we’re talking is in front of us. There are even suggestions that face-to-face meetings garner more positive results overall, so the benefits far outweigh the tired alternative of yet another Skype meeting.

Control

There’s little worse than constantly refreshing your inbox as you wait for a vital email to land. Often it’s hard to work out what could be taking so long to answer such a simple question, but of course you have no idea what’s happening at the other end of that high-speed internet connection. However, getting out and about means that you can get problems solved and have questions answered in real time, and there’s nothing better than that.

The change of scenery

Stepping outside can do wonders for your creativity and energy levels, which means that getting out of the office is as beneficial to your working life as replying to that errant email you’ve been putting off all afternoon. No matter how open-plan your office and no matter how much natural light there is, nothing beats a bit of fresh air for getting the brain active.

The journey is the reward

Physically traveling to a meeting gives you time to mentally prepare yourself for the discussions ahead. A car journey, whether you’re off to meet a client or if it’s an in-house board meeting, is proven to clear the mind of clutter and can help to re-energize you. Of course, with all of this traveling you’re going to have to make sure your vehicle is up to scratch, and if you haul a trailer, then you need to have access to trailer spares in case of emergencies. It’s worth keeping some in your car, just in case.

The best thing about getting out of the office is that it doesn’t have to be for a long period of time. Schedule a walking meeting rather than a sit-down meeting as usual. That way it’s not just you that benefits from the revitalizing effects of the outside world, and you’ll notice the difference in your team immediately.

How to Improve your Productivity

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Staying motivated and productive can be a major struggle for a lot of people. If you find your attention wavering while you work, then you might just need a boost.

Here are some of the ways that you could boost your productivity, at home and at work.

Reward Yourself

Treating yourself to a small break or snack after you finish a task will keep you pushing forward. Sprint style working, where you work for a set period quickly and then take a break, is big in business for this reason. Treats can be small items, like a snack or a walk around the building, which you can easily fit into your working time.

Set Goals

Setting yourself goals gives you something to work towards. This can be great for keeping you motivated with a larger task, as you can split it into smaller tasks to keep you on track. Being able to check smaller tasks off your lists will make you feel accomplished, instead of slogging towards a larger, overall goal.

Track your Progress

There are lots of online tools that you can use to track yourself and what you’ve managed to complete during the day. Some of them will even allow you to break this down into individual tasks, so you can see which tasks take you the longest. This serves two purposes, you can see what you’ve spent your day on and you can also budget time more accurately for these tasks in future.

Have the Right Equipment

There’s nothing worse than having to undertake a job without the right software or equipment. Even small things, like having the most up to date versions of Word and Excel, can save you time. Dynamics 365 software can be kept up to date by a Dynamics 365 partner to make sure that you always have the right tools to get the job done.

Tackle Undesirable Tasks

The amount of time that you take putting off tasks that you just don’t want to do can be costly. This is a pitfall that we all fall into from time to time, sometimes it’s better for your productivity to face this head on. If you do so, you will get the worst tasks out of the way and you can enjoy the rest of the task with this in mind.

Steer Clear of Distractions

Distractions are the enemy of productivity, so try to keep your workspace clear of them. This could be a digital distraction, like Facebook, or a physical one like your phone. Stay logged out of digital distractions and put any physical ones away where you won’t be as tempted by them. Remember that these are designed to grab your attention, with notifications and pings, so try to avoid them where possible.

Staying productive can be tricky, but if you track your time and push yourself to complete goals then you can keep this motivation up. Take breaks when you need to and come back refreshed, ready to smash the task at hand.