Articles for Creativity and Work

TOPICS:

• Self Test for Work-Life Balance
• Ten Top Ways To Keep Your Balance:
• Asking for a Raise (Or anything Else)
• How To Stay Focused When You Work At Home

 

ARTICLES: Self Test for Work-Life Balance

Score ’10’ when a statement is ‘True’ all the time, and ‘0’ for ‘Never True’ and other scores as appropriate in between.

1. I lose things or forget things.
2. I rarely have time to enjoy hobbies or interests outside of work.
3. I don’t bounce back quickly from colds or flu or get cold and/or flu a lot.
4. I often feel exhausted and have to push myself. My energy is low.
5. I am always in a rush. I tap my fingers on the counter when I’m waiting for the microwave.
6. My experience with exercise lately has been brushing my teeth.
7. I don’t sleep soundly and wake up feeling refreshed.
8. I crave carbohydrates.
9. My business takeS over my life. I answer my biz calls and/or emails whenever they come in.
10. I eat while driving or working at my computer.
11. My family is often upset with me for how much time I spend working.
12. When I’m not working, I’m thinking about work.
13. I always have more to do at work than I can successfully accomplish.
14. I never have time to do something “Just for me”.
15. I don’t have time to take vacations.

Scoring: The higher the score, the more you are out of balance.
The max you can get is 15 X 10 or 150. If you’re 70 or over, you’re too high.

ARTICLE: Ten Top Ways To Keep Your Balance:

1. Choose to believe that W/L Balance is possible. It may be challenging, but it can be done. Cultivate the belief that you can have wonderful Work-Life balance. As Henry Ford said, “If you believe you can, you can, if you believe you can’t, you can’t.”

2. Resolve to work SMART not HARD: Take time every week to work ON your business, not just IN your business. You need to be constantly looking at where you’re going and how to get there in the easiest way. Every entrepreneur needs to have at least 1 hour a week, or one morning/afternoon a month to review HOW to run their business better. (This is a great thing to do with a coach.)

3. Know that W/L Balance isn’t static. It’s different for different people and different at different times. Think of yourself on a balance beam-you get in balance, then you move to the left, then the right… it’s a continual readjustment and listening and responding. Go with the RHYTHMS of your biz. There ARE slow times, fast times, lucrative times, financially slow times… Go with them. Think like a cyclist and recover on the down hills.

4. Support yourself! Little things can go a long way. We often think we have to do something in a big way. My clients tell me they have to get a week off, but I tell them take lunch everyday. A one degree shift in course direction will send the largest ship to a whole new part of the world.
Small things go a long way. Here are some to consider:

* Set up a co-coaching or co-mentoring relationships too.
* Have a drop in membership at the gym.
* Have relaxation meditations on your ipod, ready for whenever you need them.
* Develop a meditation practice..
* Get a screen saver and inspirational newsletters..
* Have inspiring books in your car and at your bedside.
* Have self-help CD’s from the library or bookstore IN your car.

5. Treat your replenishments as non-negotiable. Also, make them hard to forfeit.

For example, if you have a walking partner, it’s harder to cancel your exercise date than if you don’t. Here are several ways to make it difficult to abandon your replenishments. . Put it in your calendar. . Pay for the class. . Book the holiday, even if it’s months in advance and pay for it. . Arrange to drive with someone to the class. Colour code your appointment book (in Outlook, go to calendar, then click on “Edit” and then “Labels”. Create a wellness tab with your favourite colour to delineate it. If you don’t use a computerized calendar, use coloured pens. Or get the 3 in one pen, red, green and blue. This works because it gives an immediate visual of your overall balance.

6. Think in terms of energy not time.

Become aware of what activities feed you and what activities don’t, both at work and at home. Make sure you’re balanced between them. It may only take 4 minutes to put on your favourite CD, but it may give you many a huge burst of energy. Conversely, it may only take 5 minutes to have a talk with a difficult employee, but it could drain you for the rest of the day. Do more of what gives you energy and inspiration and offload what drains you.

7. Throw Away Your “To Do” List.

To do lists are out of date time management tools and add to your stress. Whenever you think of a task, don’t add it to your list, but add it to your calendar and have a specific time when it will be addressed. Use your calendar for EVERYTHING–planning time, thinking time, getting there time, breaks, off time, time with partner, nap time, lunch dates, birthdays, events.

8. Schedule ‘Empty” time–Catch-up time.

Things rarely go according to a prearranged agenda. So much stress comes from not having room in our day. Give yourself room. Schedule empty time. Transfer things that don’t get done to new times, but if you transfer something a few times, re-allocate the task to someone else. Hire someone else to do it and if it needs doing,
that’s a good thing.

9. Listen to Yourself:

There are so many people who will tell you different things about how to be successful. Your job is to listen to YOURSELF. When you act from the truth of your own knowing, you are far more likely to be successful even if it goes against conventional thinking.

10. Remember Your Vision and Keep it Light:

This in so important. Every day, remember your dream. Act as if it’s true. Visualize it, feel it, make it alive. Jim Cary carried around his cheque for a million dollars and he’s cashed that cheque a few times now! .

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If you’re finding these articles helpful and would like more ideas in either starting a business/creative project or learning how to run it in a balanced, lucrative way, click here for a free 30-minute, over-the-phone ‘Idea’ session. Fill in the details of the contact form (be sure to put in your time zone) and we’ll set up a time to talk. Remember, there is no obligation to go further and you’ll get a lot of ideas to get your project going or keep it on track. I’ll pick up the long distance charges.

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ARTICLE: Asking for a Raise (Or anything Else)

Asking for a raise or anything else can be fraught with emotional peril. Why? Because when we ask for a raise, we usually don’t know the outcome! No wonder it’s anxiety provoking.

Yet, asking for a raise is hugely important.
As Wayne Gretsky, the famous hockey player always said, “I always lost 100% of the shots I didn’t take.”

If you don’t ask for a raise, you have no chance of getting it.

So, taking a shot at what we want is vital. And there are some ways to make asking for a raise or asking for anything else easier as the following example will demonstrate.

I was working with someone a few months ago who wanted to ask for a raise but was plagued with fear. “What if he turns me down?” she asked me over and over. The prospect of being rejected had been crippling her until she hired me as her coach.

My suggestion helped her take a significant step forward. As you will see, it paid off big time.

I suggested that she ask about asking. I suggested that in her next review with her boss, she ask him boss what she needed to do to make asking about a raise successful.

Luckily for her, he said, “Nothing,” and she got the raise right away. But in other situations I’ve worked with, the boss has made a few requests and/or tasks that my ‘coachee’ had to do first. But as you can imagine, there was a lot of eagerness once a carrot like this was dangled so close and the raise was a done deal once the tasks were accomplished.

So, ask about asking. Get clear on what needs to happen before you make your pitch.

Here’s some language: “What do I need to do to be eligible for:
a) a raise?
b) this team?
c) membership in this club?
d) this mortgage?
As you can see, this phrase has lots of applicability?

My second tip to make your asking more effective is to ask early. Sometimes people don’t ask until they are so frustrated that the asking comes out charged. It can sound like a demand or have a whine to it. You don’t want that. You want to be squeaky clean in your tone. That’s what will get you the best result.

And lastly, keep asking. I just got an email today with a second request for something. A woman had sent out a group email to several ‘creatives’ asking for some exercises to give a class she was leading. With the school break happening, I guess none of us answered. Did she stew in resentment? No. She simply asked again. And guess what, this time, I found the time and replied.

 

ARTICLE: How To Stay Focused When You Work At Home

1.) Accept that working at home presents some unique challenges and don’t just assume that working at home is the same as working at the office minus the commute.

2) Establish office hours. One of the hardest things about working at home is the blurring of boundaries, but boundaries are helpful and often necessary to high functioning. Setting office
hours will give you a better container to work in.

3) Tell your family and friends about your hours and stick to them. Others will learn to respect these hours if you do.

4) Work less. With no commute, the ‘cafeteria’ just steps away in your kitchen and no office mates to distract you, you should be able to save many hours a week. shave them off your work time.

5) Keep your office as just your office. Don’t let the kids play in there or lets guests use the couch when they visit. Keep its integrity intact.

6) Don’t do family or house tasks during work time. This is the downfall of many people who work at home. As tempting as it is to do a load of laundry, or other tasks during your work day, don’t.
It pollutes the work environment. And it’s a very slippery slope.

7. Try to keep your work time as similar to what it would be like in an actual office. For example, if a friend dropped by, you might say a quick ‘hello’, but you’d soon be back at your desk. You woudn’t invite them in for tea as you might be tempted to do in a home work environment.

8. Just like ‘interval training’ is more effective at the gym, do intervals with your concentration. Set up 3 or 4 what I call, ‘High-Powered Productivity’ times. Keep these somewhat short, anywhere between 45 and 60 minutes. Have specific goals that you want to accomplish during these times. Knowing you only have a limited time will work in your favour.

9. Don’t multi-task. New research shows this is a slower, more tiring way of working in the long run. Create specific times in the day when you answer calls, emails, do paperwork etc.  Set tight goals around what you want to accomplish during these times.

10. Set energy goals. It’s just as important to set ‘energy’ goals as it is to set task goals. Here are some you can try: Work steadily in a relaxed way. Feel inspired. Stay focussed.

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If you’re finding these articles helpful and would like more ideas in either starting a business/creative project or learning how to run it in a balanced, lucrative way, click here for a free 30-minute, over-the-phone ‘Idea’ session. Fill in the details of the contact form (be sure to put in your time zone) and we’ll set up a time to talk. Remember, there is no obligation to go further and you’ll get a lot of ideas to get your project going or keep it on track. I’ll pick up the long distance charges.

______________________________________________________________________________