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How To Avoid Burnout During Your #JobSearch. MUst REad!

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Looking for a job is exhausting – physically, mentally and emotionally. Physically, a job search takes time, hours per week on a regular basis for months. Mentally, you need to stay on top of the industries and companies you are targeting, the people you have met and where you are in the process for various jobs. Emotionally, there will be ups and downs as some applications turn into interviews, but some go nowhere.

Anticipate that your energy will wane during your job search, and plan in advance how you will get re-energized and re-motivated. Heading off signs of burnout ensures that you continue your job search efforts at a regular cadence, rather than start and stop. Regular and ongoing action will best help you land a new role.

Here are five ways to avoid burnout during your job search:

1 – Schedule regular breaks as part of your job search routine

You might want to research every company on your target list at once to get it over with, but if you don’t take a break, you are more likely to gloss over important details. If you plow through all your networking calls at once, you may sound robotic and therefore disingenuous. If you fill your day with back-to-back activity, you leave no space for an inspired idea to come to you – such as remembering a former colleague you can reach out to or recognizing that something you learned could be of interest to one of your target companies.

Whether you input specific breaks into your calendar or set an alarm to ring every one to two hours, actually schedule your breaks. In addition, make plans for your breaks so you are excited to take them, and you pick activities that refresh you. A walk, a special coffee, or one episode of your favorite sitcom are short ways to refresh. Also plan for a longer break every few days – go out in nature, or see a friend (you can have a virtual lunch if you’re sheltering in place).

 

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2 – Tame your negative self-talk

Sometimes it’s not too much work, but not starting at all that you need to overcome. I have heard from job seekers who put off reaching out to their network or applying for jobs because the negative voice in their head tells them they’re not ready to start or not worthy of being hired. You’ll need to tame your negative self-talk before it talks you out of your job search.

Naming the voice is one way of taming the voice. When you name the voice, you put it outside of yourself. You can notice it and choose to let it go. You can even pick a funny name for your negative voice (like Newman, if you’re a Seinfeld fan) to give it less power. If you have a positive voice that comes up, name that one too, and call for it when Newman shows up.

3 – Keep a running list of wins

The emotional ups and downs of a job search can drain your confidence if you’re not careful. Keep a running list of wins – not just job search-related but in all areas of your life. Note even small positive moments of serendipity, like picking the fastest-moving line at the grocery. When you fall into a bad mood, refer to your list of wins for a pick-me-up.

Having a ready list of wins is a great tool for getting your mindset ready before an interview or networking meeting. Knowing your job search-related wins also gives you something positive to say when people inevitably ask you how your search is going. You can respond with a laundry list of what you have accomplished, and then people will know you’re on top of things and won’t give you unsolicited advice!

4 – Surround yourself with success stories

In addition to your own wins, you can lean on the wins of others. Look for articles of successful people in the industries and roles you’re interested in. Look for articles about people getting hired – regardless of industry or role. Seeing that other people have accomplished what you want to accomplish makes it appear more doable.

When I made a career pivot at age 40, it added an international dimension to my life that was surprising in that I had lived in the same city my whole life (including the college years). But I had been reading story after story of people remaking their lives and careers abroad, so that option seemed accessible even to me. The professional association related to your industry or functional area may publish profiles of successful members. Or you can find profiles in business publications, such as Forbes, Fast Company, Inc, etc.

5 – Have a cheerleader to call

Everyone should have a cheerleader in their network (if you don’t, build your network to include this and other key supporters). A cheerleader is the friend who is always your champion. They may not have advice or ideas or feedback for you, but they always have encouraging words of support. Cheerleaders are optimistic and enthusiastic, so you can count on them for an infusion of energy.

I am not advocating a regular pity party – you don’t want to drive your cheerleader away. But sometimes you may need to vent, or at least say candidly how you feel, and a cheerleader is someone who won’t be brought down by your negativity. In fact, their enthusiasm is often contagious and just speaking to them can help you bounce back, whether you talk about your job search specifically or not.

The job search is a marathon and a sprint

You want to have a cheerleader, success stories and the other three tactics available to you to keep you going in your job search. The day-in, day-out nature of job search is much like a marathon, where you need to be prepared for a long journey.

That said, the most productive job search has a sense of urgency and speed – you want to be the first to apply, or ideally hear about jobs before they are broadly posted. In this way, the job search is also a sprint, and you can use these tactics as energy boosts to propel your search forward.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website or some of my other work here.
Caroline Ceniza-Levine
Forbes.com | June 29, 2020

#Leadership : #StressManagement – 5 Ways #NewManagers can Protect Themselves from Burning Out….Don’t Try to Do it All–That’s a Recipe for Disaster.

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Your company just promoted you, and you’re a newly minted manager. After a well-deserved celebration and many congratulatory messages, you come face-to-face with one harsh truth that comes with your new role–the lack of empty time slots in your calendar.

In my experience, new managers tend to make one crucial mistake–trying to do it all. They attempt to keep up with their own workload while making themselves constantly available to their team. As noble as those intentions may be, working 15-hour days won’t make you a better leader. After all, no one does their best work when they’re overly stressed.

I learned this the hard way. As soon as I realized that my round-the-clock hours were neither conducive to my work nor my growing family, I made time management a priority. To prevent burnout, I implemented the following five strategies. It’s something that I still live by today, and as a manager, I can attest that they go a long way in keeping you productive (and sane).

LEARN HOW TO SAY NO

I get it, saying no to a colleague feels terrible. But if you keep saying yes to requests, you’ll end up with an ever-growing to-do list of work that isn’t mission-critical for you or your team.

You’ll feel better about saying “no” when you realize that as a result, you’ll have more time to do work that’s highly important, but not urgent. Sure, it might feel good to send those emails and cross those “simple” requests off your list–but are those tasks really going to have a meaningful impact on your team or business? Probably not. So the next time a project, request, or opportunity comes your way, picture where it would land in the table below. If it’s of low urgency and low importance, say “no.” It’s not worth your time.

 

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BE SUPER SELECTIVE WITH MEETINGS

You know that too many meetings can kill your productivity, but earlier in your career, you probably felt obliged to say yes to all of them. As a manager, you can’t afford to do this if you want to get any work done.

Before RSVPing, ask yourself–is there a clear agenda of what this meeting needs to accomplish? Are you the best person to add value in this meeting? Is this something you can’t resolve quickly via email or messenger? If the answer is no, then the meeting is probably not the best use of your time. If the answer is yes, focus the conversation by setting the meeting objective ahead of time. This way, you’ll avoid going into pointless tangents. If you need to decide on something in the meeting, make that clear in the agenda.

Related: 3 creative meeting formats to make your whole team more effective

DO A REGULAR CALENDAR AUDIT

Every now and then, it can be helpful to push the reset button on your schedule. There may be standing meetings that are no longer relevant or nonessential “check-ins” that take up your day-to-day. Do a bird’s eye view analysis to figure out which one of those activities are truly the best use of your time, and whether they’re something others in your team can handle.

You should also think about blocking out time for certain projects that don’t require a meeting–whether that be recruitment or catching up on company updates. Without scheduling those tasks in your calendar, you might find it difficult to make progress.

DON’T USE YOUR INBOX AS YOUR TO-DO LIST

Chances are, you’ll get more emails, not less, when you become a manager. So if you’ve been using your inbox as your to-do list, now is the time to put a stop to that practice. Organizing your “priorities” trains your brain to be “always on” and look for the next task to knock off the list. It does not train you to think about how those lists relate to your big-picture goals and responsibilities.

I use Trello and have separate horizontal lists for “People,” “Culture,” “Product,” “Sales,” and “Performance.” The lists are side-by-side, which allows me to think holistically about my output in a given day or week without the urge to cross off what’s at the “top” of the list.

Related: These to-do list methods will help you finally get organized 

DELEGATE OBJECTIVES, NOT TASKS

Delegating work should save you time, but you can waste a ton of it if you don’t do it right. For starters, delegating to-dos without providing full context results in a lot of hand holding, and as a result, employees don’t feel ownership over the work. This makes them more likely to check in with you and ask unnecessary questions like whether they are doing it “right.”

On the other hand, if you delegate an objective or mission (and provide a few guardrails), they won’t expect a step-by-step instruction manual from you along the way. They’ll write their own, and might even come up with creative solutions as a result. You’ll probably get a better output, and you’ll find yourself with more time to tackle essential items.

Time is our most coveted resource, and that becomes even more of a reality when you move into a management role. By following these methods, you’ll be able to succeed in your new job while maintaining a healthy personal life at the same time.

Christian Kinnear is the managing director and VP of sales at HubSpot.

 

FastCompany.com | August 3, 2018 | BY CHRISTIAN KINNEAR 4 MINUTE READ

#Leadership : #WorkSmart – How to Make your #Anxiety Work for You Instead of Against You…Anxiety is Energy, and you can Strike the Right Balance If you Know What to Look For.

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While some cases of anxiety are serious enough to require medical treatment, everyday anxiety is a fact of life and can actually be helpful, says psychologist Bob Rosen, author of Conscious: The Power of Awareness in Business and Life.

The first hurdle to get over is viewing anxiety through a negative lens. “We see anxiety as something to fear and avoid,” says Rosen. “That thinking is self-defeating and makes it worse. In a sense, we need to see anxiety as a wake-up call; a message inside of our mind telling us to pay attention. We need to accept it as a natural part of the human experience.”

Another problem is our faulty thinking around change, says Rosen. “For centuries, it was viewed as dangerous or life threatening,” he says. “But stability is an illusion, and uncertainty is reality. Uncertainty makes you anxious and vulnerable, and anxiety leads you to worry or run away because you’re not in control of life anymore and you feel worse.”

People often move back and forth between too much, just enough, and too little anxiety, and anxiety is contagious, says Rosen: “We communicate our level of anxiety to others because we’re connected to each other,” he says. “Studies show that your blood pressure can go up when you deal with a manger who is disrespectful, unfair, or overly anxious. People are hijacked more and more because of too much anxiety.”

Related: Four tips to help you feel less anxious about the future

Anxiety is energy, and you can strike the right balance if you know what to look for:

TOO MUCH ANXIETY

Some people naturally have too much anxiety, and that’s a problem. “These are the people who need to be right, powerful, in control, and successful,” says Rosen. “They orchestrate everything around them, and are mistrustful or suspicious. They’re scared of inadequacy, failure, being insignificant, or being taken advantage of.”

You have too much anxiety if you tend to expect respect and admiration, are frustrated a lot, question the motives of others, and are overly impatient, says Rosen.

 

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TOO LITTLE ANXIETY

Too little anxiety isn’t good either. “You put your head in the sand in the face of change,” says Rosen. “You don’t want to take risks. You value status quo and live in a bubble.”

You have too little anxiety if you’re too idealistic and cautious, detaching from all of the change around you. “The world is changing faster than our ability to adapt. We need to learn new things, and can’t stay complacent for long,” he says. “It’s important to allow yourself to stretch and to feel just the right amount of anxiety.”

Related: How anxiety affects your decision-making skills

GOOD ANXIETY

Living with the right amount of anxiety provides just enough tension to drive you forward without causing you to resist, give up, or try to control what happens. “It’s a productive energy,” says Rosen.

The first step is getting comfortable being uncomfortable. “A lot of people think the goal of life is to be happy, but it’s not,” says Rosen. “The goal is to live a full life, and sometimes you’ll have good days and sometimes bad days. Develop the skill of being uncomfortable. Knowing you can and will get through it is important.”

Listen to your body; it speaks to you, says Rosen. “Whether it’s stomach pain or heart palpitations or a stiff neck or back, these are ways the body tells you that you are anxious,” he says.

Ask yourself why you’re anxious. Is it because you’re excited? How you interpret anxiety could be good or bad. If you’re about to give a speech, for example, anxiety is good. Instead of trying to avoid it, understand it. “If you’re not anxious, you’re probably not going to give a great speech,” says Rosen. “And if you’re too anxious, that won’t be a great speech, either.”

When you have too much anxiety, it’s often because you’re telling yourself a story. “For example, ‘If I don’t do a good job I’ll get fired,’ ‘My boss hates me,’ or ‘I’m going to embarrass myself,’” says Rosen. It’s often not the event that causes anxiety; it’s the story we tell ourselves about it.”

When this happens, take a long walk or breathe deeply if you have too much anxiety. Meditation is a force that helps you live in the present moment. “When you meditate, you get a better sense of how your body and mind are reacting,” he says. “Deep breathing creates a direct connection between your breath and reducing stress. You can get a sense of the source of the anxiety, peel back the onion, and find the cause.”

All change happens in the gap between our current reality and desired future, says Rosen. “We have a problem we want to solve or have a goal we want to accomplish,” he says. “In the gap sits our motivation, our engagement, and our anxiety. Anxiety is the energy that moves us across the gap. We need to have enough energy to change. You can’t change or transform yourself unless you allow yourself to feel uncertainty and vulnerability.”

 

FastCompany.com | July 17, 2018 | BY STEPHANIE VOZZA 4 MINUTE READ

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#Leadership : 5 #EmotionallyIntelligent Habits For Handling Work Frustrations…It’s All About What you Do in the Moment–and Don’t Do.

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Unless you lack basic social skills, it’s hard to imagine getting in trouble for expressing positive feelings at work. Sharing enthusiasm and encouragement  is usually beneficial to everyone around you. It’s the feelings on the other end of the spectrum that most of us struggle with. We’ve all gotten frustrated or overwhelmed at work.

Maybe someone less qualified gets a promotion you worked hard to earn. Or a coworker takes credit for something you did. The slackers on your team land a major project opportunity, despite the countless hours you spent working on the proposal. Or worse, the idea you submit gets rejected and criticized. These situations will make even the most even-tempered people feel angry, frustrated, disappointed, resentful, and afraid. But it’s not the situations themselves that make or break us, it’s how we respond to them. And that just takes practice. Here are five emotionally intelligent habits that can help you keep your cool.

Related:Emotionally Intelligent Ways To Express These Feelings In The Workplace

1. WAIT TO REACT

Obviously, it’s not that easy. We feel before we think. But even a couple seconds’ buffer can make a huge difference. If you can practice giving yourself just a short moment to think about your reaction, you can gain a lot more control over what happens next. We all know people whose angry outburst has cost them their goodwill, promotions, and career opportunities, and have generally held them back in life.

Feeling a strong emotion of any kind should send you a cue: I need a second to think. If you have to remove yourself from a situation temporarily, do it. The crucial first step is simply noticing those negative feelings early enough to decide not to react just yet.

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2. NAME THE FEELING

This is the logical next step. Being able to name how you’re feeling takes away some of the power our most unpleasant emotions have over us. Describing a feeling gives you some distance from it, allowing you more clarity. And chances are you can assign a name to the experience you’re having more quickly than you can choose the right response to it.

Related: The Surprising Upsides To Getting Angry At Work

3. SHARE HOW YOU FEEL WITH SOMEONE WHO CAN BE OBJECTIVE

The worst thing to do is commiserate with others who hold the same grievances you do–the colleagues who will share in and urge you to hold onto your negativity. Misery loves company. While indulging in it may feel good at the time, it isn’t productive and will keep you stuck in a vicious cycle. The more emotionally intelligent approach is to find someone who’s a great listener and removed enough from the situation to offer an unbiased objective point of view. This is usually someone who has no stake in the circumstances one way or another. When explaining what happened, try to share only the data, not your opinions or feelings.

4. REFLECT ON THE SITUATION LIKE AN OUTSIDE OBSERVER

Try to look at the situation from someone on the outside looking in. Make an honest attempt to try and see things from the perspective of everyone involved. Suspend judgment if you can, and come up with as many possible explanations for what occurred as you can think of–no matter how unlikely they might seem.

This exercise is difficult, but it can help you identify alternative explanations for the situation that’s made you so upset. The tough question is, “What was my part in this–both the positive and the negative?” There may be valuable learnings in this, but at the very least, this habit gives you some time to cool off and redirect your frustration somewhere else.

5. IMAGINE IT’S ONE YEAR LATER

Ask yourself how much this will matter to you one year, five years, or 10 years from now. Consider your long-term goals and plans and think about how this all fits in with where you want to be in the future. Is this really a battle worth fighting, or will it serve you better in the long run to let it go and move on? What will be the likely outcomes of the choices you make from this point on, and how will they help or hinder you?

Feeling upset may seem like something that happens to you–an onrush of negative emotions that you can’t control. But by practicing these techniques, you may begin to see that you still have a choice: You can’t prevent yourself from feeling aggravated, but you can often control what you do about it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Harvey Deutschendorf is an emotional intelligence expert, author and speaker. To take the EI Quiz go to theotherkindofsmart.com.

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FastCompany.com | May 4, 2018 | BY HARVEY DEUTSCHENDORF 3 MINUTE READ

Your #Career : 14 Everyday Habits That Drain Your Energy…Here are 14 Bad Habits that are Easy to Justify in the Moment, But are Hurtful in the Long Term.

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Habits are the foundation of who we are as a person and as a professional. We are the product of our everyday habits, and we choose every day whether we want to improve ourselves, maintain excellence or contribute to our own discontent. But first we must be aware of bad habits, so we can take the necessary steps to change them.

Here are 14 bad habits that are easy to justify in the moment, but are hurtful in the long term:

1- Taking Things Personally  

When you attribute every interaction a person has with you to how they feel about you, it’s exhausting and more often than not it’s not correct. Chances are, it’s not about you, and you’re not helping the situation by taking it personally. Nat taking things personally will save you a lot of stress and your workplace a lot of needless strain.

2- Holding On To The Past  

The past is what it is, there isn’t utility to holding grudges or being angry. The only person you’re impacting by holding on to the past is you. So let things go, if not for them, then for you.

3- Always Checking Email & Social Media  

If someone has to wait a couple of hours for an email, then they wait. The world won’t end, so relax.

 

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4- Constantly Worrying   

Worrying does not solve the problem. If something is out of your hands, then it’s out of your hands and there is no point in worrying about it. If there is something you can do about it, then stop worrying and take action. Worrying is a waste of energy, focus on what you can control.

5- Negativity  

If you are negative you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. You are not only draining your energy, you’re draining your colleagues’ energy, the workplace’s energy, your friends’ and family’s energy, etc. It is not productive, so try and focus on the positive.

6- Sleeping Too Much  

Sleeping too much does not increase your energy, create energy reserves or make you more present when you are awake. It has the opposite impact, too much sleep makes you lethargic. That being said, make sure you’re getting enough sleep, seven to eight hours a night, as it is a major contributor to your health and energy.

7- Poor Diet  

You know what I’m about to say, if you’re eating too much sugar, carbs and trans fat you’re just giving energy away to snacks and meals. Be thoughtful about what you eat, eat food that gives you energy, like greens, lean protein and healthy fats, not food that takes it away.

8- Complaining  

By complaining you are not only projecting negativity, but you’re forcing the people around you to work in spite of it. No one wants to be around the person who complains about everything. Do not be a part of the problem, be a part of the solution, because people do not want to hear it. Do something productive instead.

10- Not Following Through   

Promising a friend, a colleague or your boss something and not following through, you create more stress, anxiety and work for yourself on the back end, and it depletes your self-esteem. Do what you say you are going to do, when you say you will do it and you will have more energy and self-esteem.

11- Being A Passenger 

Being a passenger in your own life and career makes you feel like you are tagging along on your own life. Seize control and get in the driver’s seat. No one is going to care more about your life and career than you will, so if you are unhappy, seize control and change your life.

12- Overthinking  

Once you have thought things through and you make a decision, stand by it. Overthinking things is usually unproductive and just creates needless stress. Square with whatever risk you take with making a certain decision, do what you can to mitigate it, and then follow through. Overthinking doesn’t create a better outcome, it just drains your energy while you’re executing a tough decision, which isn’t good for you.

13- Gossiping And Participating In Drama  

Discussing and creating drama does nothing to advance or career or build better relationships with your colleagues and friends. It is wasting energy on something that likely has nothing to do with you and is not any of your business. Don’t expend energy discussing other people, or trying to make their life more difficult by causing drama. Put that energy into your own self-care and self-improvement.

14- Unhealthy Relationships 

In addition to not complaining, not gossiping and not causing drama, you should not surround yourself with people who do those things. They are toxic, and chances are, if they are talking about people behind their back, they are talking about you too. Surround yourself with people who are positive, and who dedicate their energy to their own excellence and lifting up those around them.

 15- Constantly Trying To Please Others  

You will never please everyone, so it’s best to just try and please yourself. Are you happy and proud of who you are? That’s all that matters, if some people do not like you when you’re at your best, that is not your issue, that is theirs.

 

Forbes.com | May 2, 2018 | Frances Bridges , CONTRIBUTOR

#Leadership : I Tried A #FourDayWorkweek For A Month And Ended Up More Stressed… I Learned to Implement some Good Work Habits, but I Felt Very Rushed to Do Everything.

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When it comes to “solutions” for work-life balance, we’ve been told to do everything from meditating to tracking our time. For the most part, employers have put the burden on employees to figure it out for themselves. However, in recent years, companies have recognized the productivity benefits they can gain from investing in employees’ work-life balance. In addition to corporate wellness programs, some have implemented the four-day workweek.

To me, the idea of a four-day work week seemed more like a fantasy than a plausible reality, mainly because I didn’t see how on earth I’d be able to finish all my work before Friday. But when I was reflecting on how my 2017 went professionally, I realized that I didn’t allocate as much time as I’d like on long-term projects. I wanted that to change in 2018.

I realized that most of the tasks I scrambled to finish on a Friday could be done ahead of time, with a little discipline and ruthless prioritization. So I decided to try and do my own version of a four-day workweek, where I’d try to finish my routine and important/urgent tasks on a Thursday, and keep Fridays for thinking and strategy work. Here’s how it went.

Related: 3 Questions To Ask As Soon As Your Work-Life Balance Starts Slipping

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WEEK ONE: CATCHING UP AND PRIORITIZING

The day before I returned to the office from vacation, I made a conscious effort to spend my afternoon planning out what my week at work was going to look like. I realized that before I even started, I was already facing an obstacle–a short week. I had three days instead of four to do what I usually do across five days (not to mention catching up on things I didn’t quite get to during the last week of December.)

So the first step I did was sliced my goals in half–something I experimented with last year but have struggled to make a habit due to my tendency to overcommit. My new planner, the Full Focus Planner, made it a little easier since it was set up for me to write the three must-complete tasks of the day (rather than six, which I usually write.) However, I also made the mistake of including three extra “do if I have spare time” items, which of course, I never ended up doing.

My second obstacle was the “bomb cyclone” that hit the East Coast that week, forcing me to stay home and work. I did manage to do all my “urgent and important work” before Friday, by choosing to forego the quest of inbox zero–after all, 99% of the emails I receive are mere time-suck and of no productive value. I attempted to commit to a full day of deep work on Friday–editing a story, working on new story ideas, and strategizing how I can improve and grow our newsletters. However, I felt like my productivity level was at 50%. Some people work fine from home, but I’m just always less productive.

Related: 4 Ways To Trick Your Brain Into Keeping Your New Year’s Resolutions

WEEK TWO: DERAILED BY UNFORESEEN SICKNESS

I was determined to start week two with a bang, but toward the end of Monday, I started getting flu-like symptoms–which deteriorated into a full-on illness pretty quickly. I was out for two days, worked a not-so-productive day from home on Thursday, and when I was back in the office on Friday, I was–once again, playing catch-up. Surprisingly, while some of my long-term projects fell by the wayside, I did complete all my day-to-day obligations. The thing I let slide again? Achieving inbox zero.

WEEK THREE: ANOTHER SCHEDULED SHORT WEEK

By week three, I was mostly recovered from the flu, but faced a challenge of another short week. Our office was closed that Monday for MLK day. I had a vacation scheduled for that Thursday and Friday to celebrate my wedding anniversary. That left me with…two days to do five days of work.

By this time, I had already figured out what my time-sucking tasks were, so I either did them first in the morning to get it out of the way–or when it came to my inbox, I got through as much as I could and made more use of the “delete” button. Because I wasn’t in the office on Friday, I didn’t have a dedicated “deep work” day that week, but I did finish all my routine tasks and met my deadlines for the stories I was filing.

WEEK FOUR: SUCCESS AT LAST

I realized on Sunday night that week four was my last week of experimenting. I started wondering if it was worth carrying on another week. It hadn’t been a complete failure, but I only achieved my goal of deep-work only once, and that Friday wasn’t the most productive. Then I reminded myself that what I was doing was an experiment and not a goal–it was a strategy I wanted to try using to achieve my objective of doing more deep work.

I actually ended up achieving more in the last week than I did my entire experiment–because I finally had a five-day workweek to work with. I did have extra obligations that week, so I spent the first two hours of my Friday doing routine tasks before I moved on to my meaty projects. I found myself being even more hard-fisted about what I put on my to-do list, only writing down items that were truly important, whether they were urgent or not. I also started implementing procrastination breaks again–when I found myself slipping back into old, sporadic Twitter-checking habits. I might not have had the most successful start to this experiment, but by week four, I felt like I was getting the hang of it.

Related: Here’s What Happened To My To-Do List When I Embraced Procrastination

I WAS MORE STRESSED, BUT I DEVELOPED BETTER WORK HABITS AND PRACTICES

At the end of my experiment, I felt conflicted about the four-day workweek. First, it made me more stressed. Unpredictable work came up, other tasks got pushed to the bottom of my to-do pile, but at some point, they still needed to be done. As a result, I ended up working longer hours to fit everything into my four-day deadline. Some days, that was worth doing, but other days, I just felt exhausted or annoyed that I had to cancel my evening plans.

That being said, my failures forced me to take a closer look at my work habits, and be a lot more rigorous about planning, reflecting, and readjusting my plans when last-minute work comes up. I now dedicate Sunday evenings to reflect on the progress that I made the week before, and use those insights to plan out how I’m going to tackle the upcoming workweek. Also, now I never leave work without writing my to-do list for the next day (which gives me no choice but to look at my progress, or lack of progress), for that day.

Related: Six Simple Sunday Habits To Set You Up For A Productive Week

THE LIMITATIONS OF A FOUR-DAY WORKWEEK

I have no doubts that a four-day workweek can work for some organizations. But since I work in a field that requires a degree of reactive work, it’s not always easy to plan ahead and cram five days of work in four days.

That said, I might have written a completely different article if I tried it during a time when my workload was light, and when I wasn’t hit with an unexpected illness. When our office tried summer Fridays during the slower month of July and August (we ended the workday at 2 p.m.), I didn’t feel overwhelmed. Going forward, I think I will still plan my week so that I can reserve Friday for deep work, but I’m not going to stress if I don’t finish everything by Thursday.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anisa is the Editorial Assistant for Fast Company’s Leadership section. She covers everything from personal development, entrepreneurship and the future of work.

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FastCompany.com | January 8, 2018 | BY ANISA PURBASARI HORTON 6 MINUTE READ

#Leadership : I’ve Worked Remotely For 5 Years, And It’s Stressing Me Out…One #TechWorker reflects on all the #Stress Factors–some More Obvious than others–that made #RemoteWork Difficult in the Long Run.

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In software engineering, remote working makes a lot of sense since, most of the time, you only need a computer and an internet connection to perform your duties. There are fewer reasons to force people to sit in an office every day. As a result, it’s become an important feature of a lot of IT jobs, even here in Belgium–which in my experience isn’t always the most forward-looking job market–where remote work is common for at least a couple days a week.

I’ve been working remotely for a little more than five years now, and it doesn’t come without stress. I think it’s taken a toll on me over the last couple years in particular, especially when I went almost fully remote for a year, from June 2016 to June 2017. In that period I’ve sometimes felt like I existed in a “remote-developer black box”:

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Here are some of the biggest downsides to that experience.

Related: My 400-Person Company Has A Great Work Culture–And We All Work Remotely

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IT’S HARD TO COMMUNICATE

Communication tends to stick to structured channels when you work remotely: the chats, daily standups, maybe a few global meetings every other week, Jira for the tasks and bug reports, and lots and lots of emails.

This works well to accomplish structured tasks, but it’s easy to feel disconnected sometimes. The fact that most of this communication happens in written form or in front of groups makes them unsuitable for small talk or more informal information sharing. And it can hamper your work, as just chatting about the general atmosphere at work can deliver important information about the smooth progress of projects. Worse, it can prevent you from feeling like part of a community.

In addition, written exchanges are more prone to misinterpretation, even with people you know very well. Plus, if you already spend your day typing on a keyboard to accomplish your technical tasks, it’s annoying to have to communicate in written form, too; you end up feeling like a text-processing machine. I began to miss the coffee chats that I’d previously thought to be unproductive wastes of time. I felt detached from the team, especially when the teams I worked with were made of people working in the same place (and seemed to be having fun).

Related: The Remote Worker’s Guide To Going Back To The Office

IT CAUSES INTERRUPTIONS AND MULTITASKING

When working remotely as a developer, chat platforms (usually Slack or HipChat) quickly become your lifeline; that’s the way most people contact you. And to me, being responsive on chat accomplishes the same as being on time at work in an office: it creates an image of reliability. If you don’t want to give the impression that you’re taking a lot of breaks, you might find yourself checking your notifications during lunch, for example. Whereas had people seen you working the whole morning, or had you just talked face-to-face with your coworkers by then, you wouldn’t feel the need to be so responsive. I’ve noticed other remote colleagues get criticized for not answering quickly by chat.

Since people don’t see you physically, they can’t really judge if it’s a good moment to interrupt you. So you get interrupted a lot, and if you’re like me, you feel forced to answer quickly. So you interrupt your own work a lot (programmers in particular tend to loathe this, since it saps their productivity and breaks their focus).

The other problem with remote chat is that people don’t know whether you’re already speaking with somebody else. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been juggling three different conversations at the same time, which to me can become stressful, especially when I have tasks to finish by the end of the day.

There are often “leisure” chats as well, about non-work stuff (usually a lot of memes), which can become very, very chatty. To keep my sanity, I mute these chats most of the time, but when you come back, catching up on everything that was said can be a daunting task, even though it may be my only opportunity to take part in the “office spirit” I’m missing by being a remote worker.

Related: Hiring Remote Workers Made My Whole Team More Productive

IT ENCOURAGES OVERWORK

Most jobs come with at least two types of obligation:

  1. Obligations of results, where you commit to give a certain result by a given date. Typically for a developer that means completing a sprint with a given set of bugs/features to develop by a certain deadline.
  2. Obligations of means, where you mainly commit to spending some of your time every day on your work, and you just deliver the results you’ve managed to produce within that time.

I’m not naïve, and I know that in the end (especially in software engineering), most jobs are really about results–you’ll get fired if you produce nothing–and not means. But since people can’t see you work remotely, you might feel more obliged to show results every day, even if it forces you to work way past eight hours a day. I can’t count the number of times a configuration problem or a customer call took a few hours of my day, but I still felt forced to finish the task I’d committed to that day, just so nobody could assume I was slacking off instead of working. Had my coworkers seen me in front of my computer all day, I probably would’ve felt relaxed enough to finish it that task later.

This instinct has led to two things for me: being really appreciated for the reliability of my output, and being seriously overworked. According to Basecamp CEO Jason Fried, this is “the true challenge of managing remote workers: People who work too hard.” In the end, it comes down to the question of trust: My employer trusted me a lot, allowing me to work on my own terms, and in exchange I’ve always felt compelled to work a lot more than if I were in an office.

Related: Stress Is Making You Micromanage, Which Is Making Everything Worse

IT’S CHALLENGING BEING A STAY-AT-HOME DAD

When you spend a good part of your time at home, your family sees you as more available than they sometimes should. Even if you have places dedicated to work that should be off-limits to your kids, it’s still tempting for them to come ask you “just a little something.” It’s hard to expect children to compartmentalize their home–actually, it’s hard for me, too.

 

I also know some people have problems resisting the need to perform home duties, like cleaning the kitchen. This has never been too much of an issue for me, but it’s created tension with my wife from time to time, since it was difficult for her to understand how I could’ve left a dirty dish on the dining room table all day while I was actually at home. (Answer: I was working and avoiding interruptions . . . )

IT CAN FEEL LONELY

Working at home can mean a lot of loneliness. I do enjoy being alone quite a lot, but even for me, after two weeks of only seeing colleagues through my screen, and then my family at night, I end up feeling quite sad. I miss feeling integrated in a community of pairs.

Interacting on social networks might help you fight that loneliness a little, but the experience isn’t different enough from working on your computer. Plus, it’s also well-known that spending a lot of time on social networks tends to make you less happy than the opposite. Eventually, I really started to hate being alone; it began to impact my mental health and my mood (another well-documented phenomenon).

WORKING OUTSIDE YOUR HOME HAS DRAWBACKS

One of the most common ways to fight this is to work in coworking spaces. But I find them a mixed bag; they cost real money (which your employer might agree to pay, or not) and often ask for time commitments (usually at least a month). They can create social environments and work opportunities, but at the risk of feeling a bit too much like a vacation camp, with activities every day (cooking, massages, meet-ups) designed to force people to socialize. I actually found myself going to coworking spaces only when those events weren’t scheduled–and gave up going altogether rather quickly, since it seemed pointless to use a coworking space to avoid loneliness only to not talk to anybody.

Commuting to a coworking space takes time, and when you’re there, you may work with headphones all day to avoid distractions, barely taking breaks (because you lost time commuting), and feeling awkward for not taking advantage of the community. As an added problem, video calls are more difficult to do in these settings, since there’s not much space to be alone, always a bit of noise, and the risk you’ll annoy people in earshot (or you have things to say that you don’t want them hearing).

Working remotely outside my home–whether in a coworking space or not–sometimes means not knowing where I’ll be working every day, and it’s stressful having to think about which hardware I need to take with me (keyboards, DVI adapters, chargers). Coffee shops are usually a bad idea, at least for full days: there’s too much noise, and I don’t like feeling obligated to buy something to eat or drink periodically to justify my presence.

Obviously, when you work remotely you don’t leave your workplace at night. And if your coworkers are in different time zones, you end up communicating a lot after your workday is over (I did that for months when working with people based in New York or San Francisco). It often makes sense; otherwise you might have few chances to speak with your team, which can really slow down projects, but it means there’s little time free of work-related concerns.

Finally, working at home doesn’t leave time to cool off while coming back home from work. For me, the ideal commuting duration is 15–20 minutes. That gives you some time to walk (which means at least some physical exercise) and change your thoughts a bit. Many evenings, I’d go from a video meeting to a family dinner in 30 seconds, making it hard to offer my kids my full attention.

IT COMES WITH UNFORESEEN COSTS

If you want to gain responsibilities over time, working with limited visibility can be a problem. At one employer I felt that people in the office were preferred for promotions. To be sure, working remotely over the last few years has been a boon to my family while our kids were small. It made it possible for my wife and me to pursue our careers with minimal hassle, since I was more available to take care of the kids when they were sick (which happens a lot in their infancy). And while that meant catching up on work in the evenings and weekends, I appreciated that flexibility.

Remote working also allowed me to join high-quality teams I wouldn’t have found in my local job market. So while I’m still a fan of remote work, it really took a toll on my mental comfort sometimes, which has impacted my family relationships–mainly just through my own irritability. In my experience, remote work can cut you off from the human interactions that make all those work-related tasks feel meaningful. Ultimately, for all its benefits, I don’t like being in the remote-developer black box.

 

FastCompany.com | February 3, 2018 | BY MARTIN DE WULF 9 MINUTE READ

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#Leadership : The Three Biggest Leadership Mistakes I Made In 2017, And How I’ll Fix Them In 2018… Mistake #2: I Allowed my Stress and Anxiety to Set the Tone for the Organization

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For years, I’ve preached the value of self-awareness to anyone who will listen. Whether in your personal or professional life, the ability to confront your strengths and weaknesses head-on is essential for personal growth.

Now that we’re starting a new year, it’s a perfect time to take a moment and reflect on the mistakes we’ve made in the past and how we can fix them going forward.

For me, 2017 was a wild year, full of the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. It was, perhaps, the most transformational year in my company’s history.

Over the past 365 days, we have closed down old product lines, merged with another company, shifted industries, divested business lines, hired and fired people, recapitalized the business, and launched all new products.

Throughout all of this, I’ve seen my role as CEO evolve from a technology startup founder to the leader of a complex, multi-channel business.

With so many things happening in such a short period, it’s easy to get lost in the hustle and lose perspective.

That’s why I’ve spent the last couple of weeks reflecting on my performance over the year. I want to call out the mistakes I’ve made, share them with the world, and explore how I’ll fix them in 2018. 

Mistake #1: In trying to empower my team, I adopted a hands-off management style.

I was just 24 years old when my co-founder and I started BodeTree, and the only thing that exceeded my lack of knowledge was my arrogance.

I had found a fair bit of success in my career up to that point and as a result felt that I knew everything I needed to know about leadership.

In reality, I knew hardly anything about true leadership. In fact, I was a bull in a china shop when it came to managing people. I forced my opinion on others, closed myself off from criticism, and dictated plans from upon high.

It didn’t work.

I owe a lot to my co-founder and mentor who finally pulled me aside and helped me to understand the error of my ways. From that time on, I took measures to listen to others, let them take the lead, and adopt a much more gentle leadership style.

Like everything in life, however, problems arise when the pendulum swings too far in any one direction.

Throughout this past year of change, I wanted to do everything I could to ensure a smooth transition and integration. The best way to do that, I reasoned, was to adopt a gentle, hands-off leadership style with the hopes of empowering my team’s leaders.

The problem was that this hands-off style doesn’t equate to empowerment.

Empowerment is about giving people the guidelines, accountability, and resources to achieve the team’s goals. Sitting back and letting people run in their direction doesn’t do them any favors. In fact, it causes organizations to diverge in an ever-accelerating cycle of frustration.

My goal for 2018 is to bring my leadership style into balance. This entails taking a more hands-on approach to empowerment, serving as a coach and coordinator for the leaders on my team.

There’s nothing hands-off about it; I’ll be involved in every step, supporting, encouraging, and holding people accountable.

 

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Mistake #2: I allowed my stress and anxiety to set the tone for the organization

Change and stress go hand-in-hand, and in 2017 our organization experienced its fair share of change. To say that it was a stressful year would be an understatement.

Leaders set the tone for the organization. As I’m writing this, I have a list on my desk with two columns. The first column is the list of positive and exciting opportunities we have in front of us. The second column is the list of things that terrify me.

As the leader of my organization, I get to choose which column we focus on. Last year, I allowed the stress and anxiety I was facing to leak into the company at large.

I wore my emotions on my sleeve, and as a result, unconsciously chose to focus on the negative aspects of our situation – the risks, fears, and uncertainty – rather than the tremendous opportunity in front of us.

Since I was fearful and stressed, the rest of the team followed suit. This caused a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Since we focused on the negative, it seemed as though negative things happened.

Fortunately, the opposite also holds true. When we focused on positive things, miraculously it seemed as though positive things happened.

Morale has a certain momentum to it inside of organizations. You fall in the direction you lean, so it’s important always to be aware of how you’re leaning.

In 2018, I’m personally committing to controlling my emotions better and focusing on the positive things in front of us. I know that if I lean toward the light, my team will as well.

Mistake #3: I focused on long-term strategy and neglected near-term tactics

I come from a background in finance and strategy, and as a result, I tend to focus on the “big picture.”

My co-founder and I share this trait. We jump to the conclusion quickly, but often fail to pay attention to the tactical steps that are needed to reach said conclusion.

This past year, I focused on the potential that our newly-combined business had to bring about massive change to the franchising industry. However, I underestimated just what it would take for us to achieve this ambitious goal.

Strategy is great, but it is worthless without tactics. The devil is in the details, and it’s important to focus on the day-to-day operational tactics if there is to be any hope of bringing strategy to bear.

Going forward into 2018, I’m going to spend my time focusing on the tactical aspects of executing against our strategy, while my co-founder will keep an eye toward the future.

The path forward

2017 was a difficult year in many respects, but the adversity and uncertainty we faced transformed me into a more mature leader.

I’m finally finding the balance I’ve sought after for so long. BodeTree is no longer the scrappy tech startup; instead, it’s a complex, deep, and multi-faceted business that requires a more mature leadership style.

Honestly reflecting on the mistakes I’ve made is the first step toward becoming the leader that my organization needs.

I don’t know what 2018 has in store for us, but I know one thing for sure; I won’t be repeating the mistakes of the past.

Author:Chris Myers is the Cofounder and CEO of BodeTree and the author of Enlightened Entrepreneurship.

 

Forbes.com | January 1, 2018

#Leadership : 12 Apps to Help Ease Anxiety Struggling with Anxiety? These Apps Can Help you Get Things Under Control.

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Yes, there’s an app for that too. The 12 below help with stress management, sleep and more, easing anxiety and helping you live a healthier, happier life.

Free- Iphone with Gadgets

Pacifica: Track and rate your mood over time, learn muscle relaxation exercises and deep breathing techniques and set health goals for yourself. You can record your thoughts to develop positive thinking patterns and identify toxic ones. The app also helps users understand personal triggers.

Breathe2Relax: This app does exactly what it promises. Created by the National Center for Telehealth & Technology, it aids in diaphragmatic breathing that decreases the body’s natural “fight-or-flight” response — a big aspect of anxiety, anger and general mood instability.

 

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Headspace: Stress, memory loss, focus, interpersonal relationships, creative blocks… this “personal trainer for the mind” app covers it all. 10-minute meditation lessons aim to strengthen health, performance and relationships. This app is on the pricier side though — subscriptions cost between $6.24 and $12.95 a month.

Positive Activity Jackpot: Another app from the National Center for Telehealth & Technology. This one uses a therapeutic method known as Pleasant Event Scheduling (PES), recommending activities based on the user’s location and interests. You can invite friends, save favorite spots and tag activities you participate in for future reference.

PTSD Coach: Created by the National Center for PTSD, this app helps veterans suffering or at risk of suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. With educational material and a self-assessment tool, it enables users to manage stress and find support.

Recovery Record: This highly rated app draws on cognitive behavioral therapy and self-monitoring methods to help manage eating disorders. Users can keep a food journal, make meal plans and learn coping methods. Questionnaires help track their progress and produce visual charts documenting their journey.

Worry Watch: This journaling tool has a simple user interface where users can log instances of worry, fear and anxiety. They can also add the outcome of each situation, which provides a comparison between expectation and reality that helps reduce anxiety over time.

I Can Be Free: This app helps with anxiety, phobias, insomnia and low self-esteem, offering more than 50 audio hypnosis sessions by well known hypnotist Jacob Strachotta. The sessions help target a variety of common fears.

Relax Melodies: This sleeping aid fights insomnia and stress with more than 50 fully customizable sounds and tunes. The blog also offers lifestyle tips to improve sleep.

Mindshift: Aimed at teens and young adults suffering from anxiety, this app allows users to log thoughts and feelings. It also offers exercises that encourage positive thinking.

Stress Doctor: This app takes you on a deep breathing exercise to promote calmness and can bring your heart rate down in five minutes. The app provides instant feedback with breath and pulse monitoring and tracks long-term progress.

Optimism: Helping with depression and bipolar disorder, this app helps users track their moods and keep daily records of their symptoms, plus log triggers or things that help them stay positive. Graphs of this data give users a visual breakdown of their well being.

 

Entrepreneur.com | November 9, 2016 | Andrew Gazdecki

 

#Leadership : From Landing A Promotion To Harnessing Stress: October’s Top Leadership Stories…This Month’s Top Stories may Help you Put your Stress to Good Use, Write Better Cover Letters, or Even End the Year with a Promotion.

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This month, we learned which cover letter gaffes turn hiring managers away, what kinds of work-related stress may actually be useful, and why the cybersecurity sector may want to consider recruiting musicians.

These are the stories you loved in Leadership in October 2016:

1. I REVIEW HUNDREDS OF COVER LETTERS—HERE’S WHAT I INSTANTLY REJECT

The days of the cover letter may ultimately be numbered, but they’re still widely used to screen candidates. These are some of the most common immediate disqualifiers, according to one experienced hiring manager.

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2. I’M A CEO—HERE’S HOW I DECIDE WHETHER TO GIVE YOU A RAISE OR LAY YOU OFF

Got your eye on a raise or promotion by the end of the year? To get it, you’ll need to make a case for what you’re worth to your company. This month, one CEO shared the basic math he uses to make decisions like these, saying, “For every dollar that you hope to get in increased pay, you need to bring in three to five dollars to the business for your raise to make sense.”

3. USE THIS FORMULA TO TAME YOUR HOPELESS TO-DO LIST

Chances are your to-do list is a bit of a jumble, right? You’re not alone—the very act of prioritizing your daily action items sometimes doesn’t feel like a top priority. But with this straightforward method, you can give your work tasks some much-needed structure, and all you need to know are your ABCs.

4. SORRY, BUT SOME WORK-RELATED STRESS IS GOOD FOR YOU

Chronic stress can be a workplace killer, but researchers believe that smaller doses of “acute” stress may actually help us develop our skills and boost productivity. Here’s a look at a few ways to make limited amounts of job-related stress work in your favor.

5. GM TO TOP TECH TALENT: DITCH SILICON VALLEY FOR DETROIT

The legacy carmaker isn’t exactly known for its fast-paced, innovative culture, but CEO Mary Barra is trying to change that. With several key acquisitions under its belt, GM is picking up a few things from the tech world, hoping the best and brightest will take note.

6. 3 CRUCIAL THINGS I’VE LEARNED IN MY FIRST 30 DAYS AS A MANAGER

Becoming a new manager isn’t easy. For Buffer’s Katie Womersley, it didn’t help that she felt the people she was tasked with managing were better developers than she was. Here’s what she says it took to shake that self-doubt and settle into her new role.

7. GWYNETH PALTROW ON WHY HER MONTHLY CAPSULE COLLECTIONS SELL OUT IN HOURS

Paltrow told Fast Company this month that recent rumors she’d be leaving Goop, her lifestyle brand, are dead wrong. The company is growing fast, thanks in no small part to the “lean” startup methods that inform its new, curated product lines featuring just a handful of items at a time.

8. THREE WAYS TO WRITE SHORTER, MORE EFFECTIVE EMAILS

Email is only as effective as what it gets done, so this week we learned how to trim the inefficiencies out of our messages to make sure they accomplish more in fewer words.

9. MUSICIANS MAY BE THE KEY TO THE CYBERSECURITY TALENT SHORTAGE

Data breaches are becoming so commonplace that the cybersecurity sector can’t seem to grow fast enough to help organizations defend themselves. In fact, the sector is at 0% unemployment, and the race to find qualified talent is driving up wages. That means looking for crossover skills in unlikely places, and some believe that musical training may be one of them.

10. SCIENCE-BACKED WAYS TO BUILD CONFIDENCE WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE OUT OF YOUR LEAGUE

There’s plenty of advice out there for faking confidence, but the better approach may actually be to persuade yourself to actually feel the vibe you’re trying to project. Here’s a look at the latest psychological research on how to trick your brain into greater self-assurance.

FAST COMPANY STAFF 10.28.16 5:00 AM