Be more productive

Brainstorming Exercises

Brainstorming is one of those simple tools that is poorly understood, and even more poorly used. By using some simple Brainstorming Exercises, you can reap the maximum benefit from this simple concept. Below, we talk about the following aspects of Brainstorming Exercises:

When (and when not) to use brainstorming exercises
Where Brainstorming Exercises fit in
Types of Brainstorming Exercises:
- At a flipchart
- The Affinity Diagram
- The Delphi Method
- The Stepladder technique
3 things to remember about Brainstorming Exercises

When to Use Brainstorming Exercises:

Brainstorming Exercises are not something to do on a whim. There are specific circumstances that best lend themselves to Brainstorming Exercises:

When you want to generate a number of ideas quickly.
When you want to engage a group or team in problem solving.
When you need to be innovative and creative.

When Not to Use Brainstorming Exercises:

Brainstorming Exercises are not to be used in all cases. In particular, you should not use them:

When you already know the answer or solution you will use. Never string people along giving them they illusion they have input, when they really don’t.
When you’re not looking for options or feedback. In some cases, a manager will not want to solicit her team for feedback.
If you or your organization is too conservative to do anything differently. If all of their ideas are going to be shot down, you are better off not asking your team for ideas.

Where Brainstorming Exercises fits in

Brainstorming is one piece of the process of generating ideas and implementing them:

Frame the question. Ensure you have a clear idea of the question your asking or problem you are trying to solve.
Brainstorm ideas and options. Use some of the options here to generate ideas.
Evaluate ideas and options. After brainstorming, you will want re-engage your more critical brain.
Move to Action. All the ideas you generate in a brainstorm are useless unless you do something about them.

Brainstorming Exercises

At a flipchart

Start with a specific question. Ensure that your group all has a common understanding of the question or problem statement.
Use green-light thinking only. There should be no evaluation or criticism at this point.
Use more than one scribe to get ideas happening in rapid succession.
Tell everyone to start their sentence with “Yes, and…” , and go around the group in sequence.
Once you have run out of ideas to write down, you can go back and begin to evaluate and condense your ideas.

Affinity Diagram

Start with a specific question. Ensure that your group all has a common understanding of the question or problem statement.
Have everyone write his/her ideas on a Post-It note.
Assign two people to put the Post-Its into categories.
Get two more people to edit the categories yet again
If there are a large number of ideas, you may want to refine the categories several times.

Delphi Method

Start with a clear question. Ensure that your group has a common understanding of the question or problem statement.
Have people write down their ideas anonymously, and send them to a facilitator, or collector of ideas that is viewed as neutral.
This is normally done outside of a meeting.
Schedule a meeting and present all the ideas generated to the participants.
Evaluate and condense ideas.

Stepladder technique

Provide a clear question to all members of the group. Ensure that your group all has a common understanding of the question or problem statement.
Have two members meet to discuss their individual ideas one on one.
Introduce a third member who presents her ideas to the first two. The first two member would then discuss their ideas with the newcomer.
Add group members one at a time. This can be done over the course of several meetings.
Once all group members have contributed, evaluate and condense ideas.

3 Things to Remember About Brainstorming Exercises

Brainstorming isn’t a free-for-all. To get the benefit from brainstorming, you should put some structure around it.
There are variations that may be more appropriate to your situation.
Beware of the extroverts, and encourage the introverts. Extroverts are very comfortable throwing ideas around and verbalizing their ideas. Introverts have as much to contribute, but need to be drawn out.

Be the Master of Your Email Domain

Regular consumers of the Wily Manager website and podcasts will know we make the occasional Seinfeld reference when making our point. In the spirit of the 1992 Emmy Award winning episode, “The Contest”, we submit our list of ways in which dealing with email is a lot like being the “Master of Your Domain”:

The ridiculous amount of time you spend doing it, is something you really should keep to yourself.
It’s something you know everyone else is doing, but you’re never really sure.
If you don’t exercise caution and discretion, it can be really embarrassing.
It’s all about you… and really has nothing to do with anyone else.
It can make you go blind.

There are five more reasons that I chose not to publish, because many people visit our website from their workplace, and I’d rather not have it get caught up in a firewall.

For those that have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, I’m hoping the video clip below helps, and if not, you should google: “Seinfeld: The Contest”. It’s even on Wikipedia.

Are you master of your domain? Cause, “I’m out. I’m out of the contest.”

I gotta go answer some email now.

Email is Evil

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Any self-aware person will know that email is evil, so we will discuss how to make it less evil. How can you be more productive with email?

Below we discuss why email is evil, and what you can do about it:

Why Email is Evil.
Making Incoming Email Less Evil
Making Outgoing Email Less Evil

Why Email is Evil

It’s a time killer. Some people report spending up to 20 hours per week dealing with email. In almost all cases, this is way too much.
Email is not an effective way to communicate. Email is a horrible way to communicate with others. It lacks context; emotions are easily misconstrued; and it is too impersonal to be meaningful. It can be a useful tool for moving information around, but that is not the same as communicating.
Email is particularly evil when users feel the pressure of instant or “pavlovian response”. Just because the email chime sounds, doesn’t mean you have to check to see who has sent you a note.
It looks and feels remarkably like work. Email is not work, although we like to think that it is. It is an escape from work at its worst, and at its best it should be an enabler of work, or a tool. However, never mistake the managing of email as actual work.

How to Make Incoming Email Less Evil

If you believe that email is evil, then your mission now must be to figure out what to do about it. You don’t have much control over what email gets sent to you, so you need build coping strategies into your day:

Limit your time on email. You need to block time daily to deal with email, and once that time has elapsed, you need to go do some real work. For example, you may want to set aside 30 minutes each morning to deal with you email, and then another 15 minute follow up in the mid-afternoon.
Turn off the email chime. It is a cruel joke that a bell sounds every time we get an email. If you feel pressure to check your email every time you hear the bell, you should turn the bell off.
Deliver all cc emails to a separate folder outside your Inbox. Many people copy the whole world on their emails, so you should consider any email that is not addressed to you directly to be of secondary importance.
Create expectations in others as to how you will respond to email. Many people expect an instant response to email. It is up to you to temper this expectation. In some professions, it is necessary to have a turnaround time of minutes on an email. For the vast majority of us, this is not necessary, and you should let people know that you only look at your email once or twice a day.

How to Make Outgoing Email Less Evil

You want to make sure that your actions are not contributing to others’ ongoing struggle with email. To that end, exercise as much self-control as possible when sending email:

Use “Reply to All” sparingly, if ever. Don’t jam up others’ email inboxes unnecessarily.
Never use email to deal with an emotional issue. When dealing with an emotional or otherwise potentially volatile issue, you need to choose a different communication media. Email is not appropriate. And certainly, never send an email in anger – you will regret it after the fact, and there is a permanent record of your outburst.
Compose email properly. We don’t claim to be the etiquette police, but there are some simple rules for using email.
1. Spelling. You look like a dolt if you send an email full of spelling errors – especially considering most email applications point out those spelling mistakes.
2. Don’t use all caps. It’s an old rule, but it really does show a lack of consideration (or awareness) when you send out an email all in upper case.
3. Remember there is a permanent record – don’t say inappropriate things. Much like that inappropriate comment you wrote into someone’s high school yearbook, you can’t take it back after the fact.
4. Don’t send one-word responses such as “thank you” or “OK”. Assume the other person would prefer not be thanked over having more junk in their Inbox.
5. Put something meaningful in the “Subject” box. Many people delete email without opening it, and the best way to make sure your email is deleted without a view is to skip the subject box.

3 Things to Remember About Why Email is Evil:

Email is not work, nor is it productive. It is a necessary evil (at best).
Use it as a tool, but don’t let it manage you. If half your work day is spent dealing with email, you need to make some changes.
Use the E-Golden Rule: treat others on email, as you wish to be treated.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about Email is Evil (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

Looking for the Full-Length Podcast/Video? …

Multi-Tasking Rush: The Recreational Drug of Choice

I often wonder when I see two people walking down the street side by side, talking on their mobile phones whether they are talking to each other. It seems quite possible to me that the cell-phone has become such an extension of our bodies, that this somehow feels more natural to talk to each other through technology than it does face to face.

Or maybe people simply feel they can get in some exercise, have a visit with a walking companion and return some telephone calls all at the same time. Now that’s multi-tasking!

It’s also horribly inefficient, and incredibly rude, but we seem to conveniently overlook these things. Somewhere along the line we decided that an iPhone can override a few million years of evolution that up until a few years ago had still only minimally developed our ability to do more than one thing at once.

It’s kind of a rush to try, though, isn’t it? It feels really good to be driving down the road, talking on the phone, listening to the radio, and screaming at the guy in the Audi that just cut you off.

Or the guy I heard in the men’s room returning a telephone call from the toilet. Just for fun, I went and flushed all the vacant toilets, and did some fake vomiting so the sound effects would be complete for whomever he was conversing with.

The “Multitasking Rush” is, in short, the same euphoria one gets when using drugs. Far be it from me to lecture people about how they get their kicks, but I would suggest that Multitasking, like all other recreational drugs should be used carefully and sparingly.

Multitasking Skills

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What we think Multitasking Skills are:

Many people erroneously think Multitasking Skills are a good thing. We put it on our resumes portraying it as a good thing.

We mistakenly think we can do a whole bunch of things simultaneously and save time.
We delude ourselves into thinking that being able to do several things at once is the advantage of living in this age.

What Multitasking Skills Actually Are:

When looked at objectively, it is clear that Multitasking Skills are actually a bad thing:

Multitasking divides your attention to ensure nothing is done well.
It damages productivity, creativity and innovation because the brain is designed to only do one thing at a time.
Multitasking is a highly addictive, self-destructive behavior

Five Things to do Instead of Multitasking:

Delegate
Automate
Manage Expectations
Prioritize
Mindfulness

Delegate

Rather than try to do multiple things at once, see if you can stop doing some of those things:

What can you get someone else to do? Does someone else have the skills to do some of your tasks?
What tasks are appropriate for your position? In many cases people end up executing tasks that are far below their skill level, or below the level expected of their position.

Automate:

Putting in a load of washing while doing other things is an example of the positive potential of multitasking. The automatic washing machine does not require your attention while it is doing its work – you simply need to set it up, and press “Start”.

Are there tasks you are undertaking that can be automated?
Are there tools you can use to improve efficiency of certain tasks?
Be cautious that you do not get drawn to technology for its own sake. Any technology must take LESS time and effort to be useful.

Manage Expectations

There may be some things you are doing that are unnecessary or being done to a degree that does not add value.

Are you doing some things that you really shouldn’t be doing at all?
Are there carry over tasks from a previous position? Choose a date to stop doing these things.
Do some stakeholders have unrealistic expectation of you or your group? You need to address these expectation before it drives workload out of control.

Prioritize

It is quite likely you will never have enough resources to get everything done. Those that succeed are those that correctly choose what to get done, and what to ignore.

Focus – start every day by reviewing your big objectives for the year, and make sure any tasks you do that day are related.
Filter – As emergent tasks present themselves, do not feel you have to do all of them. Ask how this task fits into your larger priorities

Mindfulness

By focusing on one thing at a time, you will execute that task better and faster than by attempting to multitask.

Dedicate 100% of your mental energy to the task at hand.
Create methods to minimize distractions
- An open office – put up a do not disturb sign if you are working on something that requires your full attention. In the old days, we would have closed the door – find a way to create a “door”.
- Email – turn off the chime that lets you know when an email comes in, and dedicate specific times to deal with email. You likely do not need to be on constant call when it comes to email
- Meetings – be very selective about the meetings you attend, and insist that those meetings start and end on time.

3 Things to Remember about Multitasking Skills:

Contrary to popular belief, multitasking is not a good thing
You will get more done by focusing your energy, rather than by diffusing it
Start with email and meetings

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about Multitasking Skills (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

Looking for the Full-Length Podcast/Video? …

Fast Track to Alignment: Ignore Head Office

Many moons ago, I was an Operations Manager for a big, global company. My part of the empire was very small, but I was still subject to much of the silliness that comes with being part of a huge organization.

You could have said that the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing, but that would have been overly-kind. There were departments at global headquarters that out and out competed with each other. The loss-control guys would send out a memo, only to be contradicted by the HR group. Of course, none of them did this knowingly – they were simply so big, that they had no idea what the other support group was doing.

This is what happens when companies face operational issues, and rather than invest in frontline managers to teach them to deal with the complexities of the business, they suck control of everything short of turning the key in the front door back far away from the core business.

The result: total and complete misalignment. Frontline managers and the employees doing the actual work that makes money are being continually pulled in all directions, and end up flying like a moth to the brightest light depending on which support department issued an email directive that day.

I made the decision to leave this organization, about a year before my ultimate departure. I still loved the business, I just didn’t like working for a large, bureaucratic company that had centralized all control and decision-making.

I can honestly say, I was at my most effective in this last year. I still wanted the business to be successful, and I cared deeply about the people I worked with. What made me (and my operation) effective and successful in this last year is that I stopped listening to head office. I did what I thought was in the best interests of the business, and largely ignored my instructions from head office.

The result? They didn’t notice I was not complying with the multiple and competing directives. They did notice our numbers were in the top ten percent in the company.

Remember you heard it here first – the fastest way to aligning your business, and ultimately generating better results is to ignore your head office. Of course, it could also be the most direct route to getting fired, too.

Let’s be careful out there.

Business Alignment Strategies

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One of the most common ailments in business today is a lack of alignment. Below we discuss Business Alignment Strategies to recognize and correct business alignment.

Identifying the absence of Business Alignment Strategies
The link between Accountability and Business Alignment
Ensuring Your Business Alignment Strategies
How to Improve Your Business Alignment Strategies
Ensuring Accountability as part of your Business Alignment Strategy
How Goals and Objectives contribute to your Business Alignment Strategy
Three Things to Remember about Business Alignment Strategies

Identifying the Absence of Business Alignment Strategies

If you suspect that Business Alignment Strategies in your organization may be lacking, here are some symptoms:

Do you have orphan projects or initiatives? Are there projects or initiatives that seem to be completely disconnected from the rest of your business, or that just don’t seem to fit in?
Do you have zombie problems or projects? If you are sure that a project has been killed multiple times, but seems to keep coming back from the dead, you may have a lack of alignment.
Direct reports that are not clear on their leaders accountabilities or goals. Ask any employee what is most important to his/her boss. If there are unclear or conflicting answers, it could be because of a lack of alignment.
Continuous lack of improvement. Is the business treading water, and not improving over time?
Managers are reaching down into the organization to do the work that should be done by the people who report to them (or even lower).

The link between Accountability and Business Alignment

Business Alignment cannot be achieved without clear accountability in an organization. Here are some definitions:

Alignment: Linking of organizational goals with team goals, and ultimately with the employees’ individual goals, actions and activities.

Accountability: The obligation of an individual or organization to account for its activities, accept responsibility for them, and to disclose the results in a transparent manner.

Ensuring Your Business Alignment Strategies

Goals must cascade clearly between all levels in an organization. All goals of individual contributors must be supported by development plans as well:

How to Improve Your Business Alignment Strategies

There are three core reasons your Business Alignment Strategies may not be working:

Execution
Quality
Quantity

Execution – are you cascading your departmental goals? Are you transferring them into individual goals/objectives for your team members? Or, do you not execute this and hope everyone knows what’s truly important? People will not know their role in achieving results unless goals are properly cascaded.

Quality – Are all goals SMART, clear, and aligned with the larger organizational goals? Or are they vague, not tied to a specific outcome or measure and without a deadline?

Quantity – is this a once a year exercise to keep the HR people off your back, or do you talk often about what is expected, how people are doing and what they can do to get even better?

Ensuring Accountability as part of your Business Alignment Strategy

If accountability around goals is critical to ensuring alignment, then you need to ensure that accountability is achieved. The best way to do this is use existing meetings to refine and discuss progress against goals.

How Goals and Objectives contribute to your Business Alignment Strategy

Drives focus and alignment through the organization on what’s most important.
Closes the gap between Strategy and Execution.
Helps define and drive performance.
Clarifies priorities.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about Business Alignment Strategies (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

Looking for the Full-Length Podcast/Video? …

Capturing Discretionary Effort

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Below we discuss the following aspects of Discretionary Effort:

What Discretionary Effort is
Why managers should care about Discretionary Effort
Who does a good job of capturing Discretionary Effort
How your organization can capture Discretionary Effort

What is Discretionary Effort?

Quite simply, Discretionary Effort is the difference between the full potential of any given employee, and the minimum required to NOT get fired.

Why You Should Care About Capturing Discretionary Effort

Often people talk about the intangible benefits of capturing Discretionary Effort. According to a 2010 survey, here are some tangible benefits:

Productivity – is 20% better with a more highly engaged workforce.
Retention – highly engaged people are 87% less likely to leave their organization.
Safety – highly engaged employees are five times less likely to have a safety incident, and seven times less likely to have a loss time accident.

What Organizations do a Good Job of Capturing Discretionary Effort?

There is a misconception that it is only cutting edge technology companies in the Silicon Valley that can aggressively improve employee engagement. This is not the case. In fact, it is often businesses in seemingly mundane businesses that routinely make up Top Employers Lists:

Wegmans Food Market – Retail Food (Fortune Magazine’s Top 100 US Employers)
Container Store – Retail (Fortune Magazine’s Top 100 US Employers)
Luminus – Community Housing (Sunday Times Top 100 UK Employers)
Beaverbrooks – Retail Jewelers (Sunday Times Top 100 UK Employers)
BC Biomedical – Medical Laboratory Services (Canadian Business Top 100 Employers)
Great Little Box Company – Manufacturing (Globe & Mail’s Top 100 Employers)
Diageo – Manufacturing (Great Places to Work Australia 2010)
Sentis – Education and Training (Great Places to Work Australia 2010)

How to Capture Discretionary Effort

The pool tables, concierge services, bring a pet to work policies and on-site masseuse may work well for some organizations. For others, there are some conceptually easier ways to create a great work place:

Create clear expectations. You people need to have a very clear idea of what it is you want them to do. Most people want to have a sense of accomplishment, which is extraordinarily difficult if they have no idea of what the organization expects from them.
Connect people to a larger picture. There is an old adage about the difference between a bricklayer, and a cathedral builder. They may be doing exactly the same work, but the job has significantly more meaning for the latter one. How can you connect your people to the larger purpose of the organization, or a greater cause?
Create improvement opportunities. The days of linear career paths are quickly ending. What learning and development opportunities can you provide for people. For many employees a lateral move, or a special project is better than a promotion, so what can you do to give people the opportunity to improve?
Encourage social networks at work. People will feel much more engaged if they feel they have good friends at work. It also makes it much harder to leave an employer, if a good portion of your social network is there as well. In many cases people spend more time with their coworkers than their families, so do not underestimate the importance of solid social networks at the workplace.
Make people feel important. Regardless of the job, people like to feel that their contribution matters. Leaders often underestimate the impact they have on people, and by doing something as simple as offering your full attention when you talk to someone, you can make them feel valued.

3 Things to Remember about Capturing Discretionary Effort

This is not a task, but a way to operate. You can’t go out and capture discretionary effort, and then tick it off on your list. This is an ongoing challenge for those in a position of leadership.
It’s not about the concierge and the spa. Look to do the fundamental things first, and only graduate to the sublime, once you know you have a well-lead organization.
You need to invest in leadership. People and organizations need to take leadership seriously, and continually improve that part of their business.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about Capturing Discretionary Effort (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

Looking for the Full-Length Podcast/Video? …

The Myth of Work-Life Balance

I was out for lunch recently on a weekend with an old family friend. Our lunch, on a beautiful autumn afternoon, overlooking the ocean was repeatedly interrupted by a Blackberry – and not the thorny cane-fruit type. I finally asked if my friend’s wife was eleven months pregnant, and if he was waiting on the call to rush to the hospital.

“No”, he replied without looking up. “We’re well beyond our child-rearing days”.

Apparently, my attempt to diffuse the situation with some sarcastic humor had failed.

Some people find themselves in jobs where they really are on call over a weekend. For the vast majority, however, they voluntarily place themselves on constant standby regardless of their position. They then have the nerve to whine about not getting any time to themselves.

Suck it up, Princess, you’re doing it to yourself.

My friend above is a public school teacher. I have great respect for the work that teachers do, but I’ve got to think that one of the perks of the job has got to be the fact that outside of the occasional basketball game, you are largely left alone on the weekends. Does a public school teacher really need to be monitoring email messages on a Saturday afternoon?

The honest answer is “No”. People, like my friend, end up doing so for a variety of reasons. First, it makes us feel important if we believe we are indispensible. Second is the addictive nature of being continually connected – what if we are the last ones on the block to know that the Joneses are having ice-cream with their apple pie for desert tonight? Third, it fits right in with what we’ve always been taught to do – not to hold your attention on anyone or anything for more than 30 seconds.

The myth of work-life balance is not that it doesn’t exist, but rather that most people do not allow it to exist. It is true that organizations need to reduce explicit and tacit pressure for employees to be connected at all times, but employees have some accountability here too.

The reality is that people love to complain that they work long hours, and never get a break, when in fact a large portion of the dysfunctional behavior is entirely self-imposed. If you want work-life balance, then turn off your phone, and be completely present with whomever or whatever you are dealing with at that moment. Unless you’re on call for the next space shuttle launch, nobody is going to notice anyway.

Top 10 Work-Life Balance Tips

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In addition to the Top 10 Work-Life Balance Tips, we also address:

What is Work-Life Balance?
Why what you usually hear about Work-Life Balance is inadequate.

What is Work-Life Balance?

Quite simply, Work-Life Balance is successfully reconciling the demands made upon you by your work, and the demands made upon you by other aspects of your life.

What Work-Life Balance is Not

Contrary to much of the discussion out there, Work-Life Balance is NOT about figuring out how to cram more leisure activities into your already busy schedule. The most balanced people find themselves happier doing less, not more.

What You Usually Hear About Work-Life Balance

“Work-Life Balance will enhance workplace productivity”. This is true in many cases, but such statements imply that sole responsibility for achieving Work-Life Balance is that of the employer. This is not true, and irresponsible, as employees need to share accountability to make it happen.
“Many people self-identify as workoholics”. This is true – in fact a 2011 General Social Survey (StatsCan) revealed that nearly one-third of people self-identified as workoholics. The problem here is that this is the very last form of self-destructive behavior that people still admire. You don’t hear people bragging about their drinking problem, or their gambling addiction, but people will entertain others around the water cooler with their self-perceived status as a martyr because they worked 80 hours last week. Employers definitely have a responsibility here, but the employees’ accountability is definitely often over-looked.
“There are increasing demands on people to take care of children and elders, etc.” This is also true, but no more so than in previous generations. It is true that many households have two people working outside the home, which creates more challenges, but it can only be perceived as a conflict, if taking care of one’s family is considered “work” rather than “life”. Such statements reinforce the fallacy that the opposite of work is leisure, when in fact that is not true.

Top 10 Work-Life Balance Tips

Don’t be a Perfectionist. If you need to dot every “i” and cross every “t”, you won’t have a lot of extra time on your hands. The most successful people are satisfied with 80% on most things, and save their need for 100% for the few, truly important things.
Disconnect. Many people voluntarily check their work email at all hours, and find themselves “multi-tasking.” For the vast majority of people, this is voluntary. With the exception of when you are “on-call”, there is no need to bring work to your evenings and weekends on a regular basis.
Say “No”. You don’t actually have to be on every project or committee, and you may want to be selective with your volunteer activities. Contrary to popular belief, you CAN’T do it all.
Minimize & Mitigate “Drive-bys”. If you work in an open office, or are otherwise prone to many interruptions, use headphones, or some other method to signal you are not available. If you do not have an office door – create one.
Delegate. Many people, particularly in positions of leadership do not do this well. Identify some things you can get off your plate, and get someone else to do them. What might be boring and routine for you, could be a stretch assignment that someone else might be able to pour some real energy into.
Reel Back Your Expectations. The romantic notion of being a corporate executive working 100 hours per week, participating in the triathalon, and coaching each of your six children’s soccer teams works only on TV sitcoms. In real life it is not possible, and people have to make adult choices about what is most important to them. The most successful people make these trade-offs in a way that fulfills them.
Don’t Think You’re Indispensible. You may be very valuable to your organization, but no one is indispensible. It may make you feel important, but any company that has an over-reliance on any one (or small group of) individual(s), is not properly managing its risk. If you feel indispensible, consider it a business problem, not an ego boost.
Block Your Time. Be completely present at your kid’s soccer game – block that time for him/her. Most of the time multi-tasking doesn’t work, so don’t try.
Indulge in Some Small Pleasure Daily. This might be a simple as leaving your office for coffee for 20 minutes every morning, or perhaps going to the gym at lunch. Whatever it is, find something that you love, or relaxes you, and try to do that thing daily.
Exercise Discipline. Reading the above, it would easy to conclude that we’re suggesting it’s easy – it is not. Just like being a performance athlete, it takes a lot of work to get into the shape you want to be in, and just as much work to maintain it. Stick with it – it will be worth it.

3 Things to Remember About Work-Life Balance

The people who say this is easy are lying.
Much of this pressure is self-imposed.
You can’t have it all – you will have to give-up something.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about Top 10 Work-Life Balance Tips (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

Looking for the Full-Length Podcast/Video? …

Brainstorming Exercises

Be the Master of Your Email Domain

Email is Evil

Multi-Tasking Rush: The Recreational Drug of Choice

Multitasking Skills

Fast Track to Alignment: Ignore Head Office

Business Alignment Strategies

Capturing Discretionary Effort

The Myth of Work-Life Balance

Top 10 Work-Life Balance Tips

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