10 Ways to Manage Stress at the Office

In today's hypercompetitive business environment, it's common for workers to experience workplace stress. Stress will not only make you less efficient at your job, but it can also negatively affect your health. The following are 10 easy ways to manage workplace stress:

1. Acknowledge the stressor. Sometimes simply acknowledging what it is that is causing you stress at the office can help put it in perspective and reduce the stress.
2. Take a break. When stress gets too much to handle at the office, get up from your desk and take a break. If possible, leave the office completely. Even if it's just for 15 minutes, this break can calm you and give you new perspective.
3. Try deep breaths. Stress results in a physiological response that includes muscle tension, an increase in one's heart rate and faster breathing. Deep breathing can counteract these responses, allowing you to relax and address the stressor at hand calmly and coolly.

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8 Reasons I Hate Wearing a Necktie to Work Everyday

I’ve already told you that wearing a suit everyday to work sucks.  Big time.  And the biggest problem is the necktie. 

Born several hundred years ago thanks to Louis XIV’s eye for haute couture, the necktie fashion trend crossed over to England, where gentlemen displayed their status with colorful cloths hung around their necks. Thanks for nothing guys! (Read more about necktie history)

While many industries and companies have relaxed their dress code, some businesses, like mine, have held on to the notion that dressing up is part of playing a professional. I know they have their reasons, and some of them I get, but overall, if you’re sitting in a cubicle all day with limited interaction with the outside world, it all seems a bit pointless.

Here are eight reasons why dressing up in a necktie is a royal pain in the ass.

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Sabotage – Your Co-Worker Is Out to Get You!

No one likes to believe someone at work is out to get them. Work is challenging enough without feeling you have to watch your back. What if you’re just being paranoid? Maybe you’ve been feeling a little off your game recently or having a self-confidence lull.  But, what if those feelings turn out to be right on target? You could be the victim of sabotage by a co-worker. What can you do about it?

Identify the Signs of Sabotage

If you suspect someone is out to get you, here are some signs:

·        Get a friend’s opinion - Some people are really good at trusting their instincts – they read people well, are adept at discovering underlying motives and very perceptive. But if you’re not sure about trusting your gut, tell a trusted friend what’s been going on and get their reaction. If they agree it sounds “off,” then you have a good place to start.

·        Look for “tells” – A term used in poker, a “tell” is body language that allows players to read each other and anticipate a play. When people are lying or uncomfortable in a situation (unless they’re a psychopath!), you can usually read the signs. Lack of eye contact and hesitation in their speech are two tells.

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Making a Fresh Start in Your Current Job

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle

When we start a new job we are often filled with good intentions; we might promise ourselves that we will get to work in plenty of time, really give 100% and make the best of the role we are in. It feels good to do our best and we look forward to the clean slate and opportunity to start afresh. However, as time goes by in a job, it can be easy to slip into bad habits. Bad habits can erode our sense of self esteem and even our enjoyment of our work and the worst thing about them, is that often we don’t realise we are doing them! Whether you work cleaning jobs or accountancy jobs, here are some ways to blank the slate and help yourself to grow and reach your potential at work.

Assess Yourself

Take the time to do an honest assessment of yourself at work; your strengths and weaknesses and your positive and negative habits. What are you good at? What do you struggle with? What habits support you and your work and what habits drain you or stop you enjoying or achieving as much as you would like to in your work?

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Work Interrupted: How to Limit Distractions

Seventy-nine. That's how many times I was interrupted at work the other day. Even keeping the tally was a distraction, but the research was for a good cause.

In the modern workplace, where we wear so many hats that our hats are wearing hats, interruptions are commonplace. From people stalking us immediately after hitting the send button ("Did you get my email?") to bosses calling us into their offices every hour on the hour, something has to give.

[See Tips for Breaking Up With a Job.]

After making several mistakes at work, I decided it was time to re-evaluate the way I was working. My conclusion: I am being interrupted far too frequently. Plagued by a similar problem? Try these quick fixes.

Make yourself unavailable. Even at the turn of the century, doctors were letting us know whether they were in or out of the office with signs. The same way you wouldn't interrupt a radio deejay when the 'on air' light is illuminated, you should not address coworkers when they are clearly engrossed in other activities. As such, find your own version of an ‘on air’ light. Perhaps it’s as subtle as a pencil behind your ear and reading glasses; or maybe you need a physical sign for your cubicle wall.

Commit yourself to monotasking. One might be the loneliest number, but sometimes it’s solitude that allows us to achieve greatness. When you find yourself engaging in multitasking, stop yourself, literally. Decide which item you need/want to work on and shut everything else out. If another item creeps up after you have committed to a primary task, remind yourself, aloud, that you have already vowed to finish X before working on Y.

Read more of my post at U.S. News & World Report.

The Coffee Pot Wars: Creating Break Room Rules to Keep the Peace

The cherished workplace break room: a place to escape from challenging projects and catch up with co-workers over a fresh pot of coffee. However, while the break room can serve as a workplace safe haven, it can also be the site of fierce co-worker battles regarding proper etiquette. If break room wars are currently brewing in your office, here are 5 rules to consider implementing to keep the peace.

•          If you empty it, replace it – Each morning in workplaces across America, the rush to the break room coffee pot begins. Many a coffee fiend’s days have been ruined by going to fill a cup with the break room coffee pot only to discover a single drop remains. When someone uses the last of something in the break room, they must be expected to replace it as a courtesy to their co-workers. Whether coffee, sugar or other shared items regularly run short in your office, end the frustrations by implementing this rule. (Related: Coffee Banned From Office?)
•          Clean up your messes – In a recent OfficeTeam survey, 44 percent of respondents cited leaving messes for others to clean as the most annoying break room habit. Although employees may spend more time at work than at home, the workplace is not a home environment. If someone makes a mess either by spilling a drink or by leaving lunch crumbs, they should be required to clean it up.

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Take Your Lunch: How Breaks Keep Us from Breaking Down

Work is crazy. Just about all of us have stressful jobs. Lunch is often overlooked or had at our desks in the midst of the massive paper mountains and keyboard. It is important to give your body and mind a break. Without downtime, our minds will not function properly and we will become exhausted and hence, begin falling behind in our work. Even the most workaholic types should understand that breaks equal efficiency. Without focus and efficiency, our work will suffer and in turn, we will suffer the wraths of the evil bosses.

Clear Your Mind

Most corporations require a 15 minute break for every 2 or 3 hours worked and an 8 hour shift requires a 30 minute lunch break at the bare minimum. There is a reason most places embrace this rule. What we do during this time is crucial to our productivity. If you find that you are sitting in the break room frantically shoving oatmeal in your face without even taking time to chew it while you talk frantically on your phone or to your coworkers, this is not a healthy break. During your break, it is important to detach yourself from the activities you have been working on all morning and truly just give it a rest.

Leave the Office

The best advice I can give is to leave work and eat your lunch.  Even if you only get 30 minutes and it takes 10 minutes to walk to your destination, it will give your mind a change of scenery, thus creating new thoughts and breaking the pattern of stressful work related thoughts. By simply going outside and creating a different environment for yourself you will feel calmer and renew your energy levels.

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How to Maximize Your Peak Working Hours

Do you find yourself reaching for an energy drink around 4 p.m. on a work day? Or are you just revving up for your day’s work? Finding your peak work hours is a great way to boost your productivity. We usually do know our own energy body/mind rhythms of energy, but if you examine your work/productivity patterns, you can maximize those times.

Morning Person vs. Night Owl

People usually describe themselves as a morning or night person. But you don’t have to buy into your own stereotype: you can take some control over those energy cycles and be more productive at supposedly “down” times, because that self-talk can become self-fulfilling.

In the “Flow”

Published in 1991, Mihaly Csikszenmihalyi’s book “Finding the Flow – the Psychology of Optimal Experience,” is a concept that’s still applicable to work styles today. When you’re in the “flow,” you are so absorbed in a task that you lose sense of time, you feel in control and things just click.  A University of Chicago psychologist, he’s done numerous of studies on this phenomenon. 

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What Breed of Dog Is Your Boss?

As I was writing an article about the most popular dog breeds, I started thinking that we work with a lot of dogs "Animals in the Workplace - No, Not Your Boss!". I don’t mean that to be denigrating, but don’t you just see different breeds around you at work?

Terriers
Does your boss get hold of an idea and never let it go? Imagine him as a member of the terrier group, running around with a toy in his mouth, violently shaking it side to side. Terriers are also great at rooting things out of holes or hiding places. You can’t hide from your boss; he’ll find you, even if he has to sniff around under your desk. Now if your boss has a scruffy little beard, you’re never going to look at him again without thinking, “fox terrier.”

What about the hyper co-worker who can’t even finish one sentence before starting the next? I don’t know if she can leap up to your full height like my neighbor’s Jack Russell terrier, but has it ever been tested?

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The Perfect Fall Guy

This sad, very sad scenario is repeated all over the corporate world, and with alarming frequency. You know the drill: All of a sudden, a perfectly capable, highly motivated and well regarded veteran middle manager finds him or herself on the company skids. A major mistake has happened, and the company is either embarrassed or lost money. Someone's got to take the blame, yet it's never, ever anyone in the higher echelons of management and/or the politically connected, who actually made the decisions that caused the screw-up. And, while the gross unfairness of it all makes you disgusted and sick to your stomach, there's usually not a damned thing you can do about it. Or is there?
 
None of us want to be, yet we all do run the risk of becoming, the fall guy, the perfect victim. Someone who's easy to blame, whether or not they were responsible for the mistake, or error, in the first place. It's nasty, it sucks, and yet there's not a company or bureaucracy that doesn't employ this gambit.

A great example of how the fall guy process works was best displayed during the recent snow storm that socked NYC. Because Mayor Bloomberg, and his top brass, neglected to declare a snow emergency, despite much advance warning from the National Weather Service, streets remained unplowed for days. The City ground to a frozen halt, and ambulances couldn't respond to emergencies.

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