Here’s a great Happiness at Work clip brought to you by REI. Watch and learn!

True happiness is created from the inside-out, in the form of attitude.  Here are some simple actions you can take to increase your workplace happiness quotient by taking charge of how you feel:

1. Start the day smiling

I remember taking the bus to work, years ago in Boston.  A typical dark and wet winter morning, I rode to work standing in the aisle.  A woman sitting in front of me started to peel an orange, and the scent lifted me out of my dismal routine commute.  I smiled and commented how wonderful her orange smelled.  She smiled, and so did the people next to her, in agreement.  All of a sudden, several of us were smiling – over an orange!

Moral of the story: it takes so little to uplift yourself and others. Make a habit out of smiling in the morning, and you set the bar for a positive outlook all day!

2. Stop to breathe

Taking short, regular breaks in work has been clinically proven to improve memory, accuracy, and overall productivity.

You know when you’re overwhelmed, because you misplace items more, get sidetracked more easily, and forget important events.  Ideally, we would all learn to recognize the point before overwhelm. However, even after that point is soon enough to stop and recenter ourselves.

A good way to do this at your desk is by closing your eyes, and taking a 15-30 second break to relax your neck, back and arms, and focus on nothing but that.  You’ll open your eyes surprisingly refreshed, and certainly not far behind in your work.

3. Laugh, or die

If you live in society, if you have job, friends and a family, if you have a body and a mind, you will have challenges and stress.  What allows happy people to rise above it all is that they don’t allow challenges don’t define their lives and who they are.

Laughter is a tremendously powerful mood-elevator, and an essential element of happiness and productivity.  Practically speaking,  make sure you have people around you with whom you can laugh.  Make a daily habit of taking a break or having lunch with them.  The ripple effect of this happiness extends far beyond the interaction itself, into your productivity and that of the people you interact with.

Wishing you a meaningful, productive and HAPPY day!

If you’ve been following my blogging launch in 2008, you may have noticed a sudden nose-dive in posts. It’s disappointing, to say the least, to feel “left hanging”. I’m here today to tell you that I’M BACK! and to let you in some personal experiences I’ve grown through recently. Keep reading – this is to your advantage!

We all know someone who thinks the world would be a better place if only we (or they) could “fix” our weaknesses. True, in theory.  In reality, trying to “fix” ourselves or someone else often leads to disappointment at best, conflict, low self-esteem and  dissolved relationships at worst.

The hallmark of my organizing and coaching services is that they are strengths-centered. What does that mean? Strength-centered services focus on leveraging your strongest skills and abilities to compensate for your areas of challenge. I also affectionately call this “the path of least resistance”.   Meaning, rather than try to fix you, we look at the challenging task, to see if it can be made more easily manageable, delegated or (best of all) eliminated!

What does this have to do with my recent vanishing act? While I have been away from blogging and tweeting, I have been focusing on learning the therapies to treat our youngest son, recently diagnosed with PDD-NOS, or Autism Spectrum Disorder.

I’ll spare you the gory details on the disorder, and skip to let you in on the life-altering fact I  learned in 2008:  Just as we human beings are, for the most part, very similar but somewhat different on the outside, so too are our brains very similar, but individually unique.  This is no secret to people familiar with neuro-science, occupational therapy, education (especially Special Ed), and many more “neuro-professions” (I coined that myself – what do you think?).

The bottom line is that people with major neurological differences (like ADD/ADHD/LD) experience aspects of life and living differently from “typical” people.  They hear, see, feel, smell, and relate differently to our shared environment.  It’s up to us: parents, teachers, friends employers and co-workers, to help people with differences adapt to face challenges and leverage strengths.

If you are struggling with organizing or time management, and have failed at “tried and true” methods, you may consider that your brain is just “wired differently”.  You probably don’t have anything diagnosable, but even if you do, you should know that there is a productivity consultant who won’t make feel inqdequate because of it.  I don’t want to fix you – I want to help you discover the systems that match the way your brain works. 

Don’t think that because nothing has worked up until now that no one can help you.  Contact me for a complimentary phone consultation and find out how getting ARoundTuit can change your life!

With best wishes,

Lauren

For most people, it’s frustrating to talk with someone who interrupts.  Even people who enjoy fast, excited conversations may feel short-changed by the interruptions. 

Because it is impossible to think two things at the  same time (go ahead and try if you want), we can not at once listen and formulate a response.  What often happens is that something someone says creates a gut emotional reaction fur us, which comes out like a missle, without warning.  Other times, we actually tune out the speaker in order to formulate our response, which we state just as soon as the speaker is done.  While this is not interrupting per se, it is not listening either.   

You can probably think of one or two people in your circles who are exceptionally enjoyable to talk with, no matter what the subject, and whether you agreed or disagreed.  Very likely, what made you feel so good was that the person simply listened to you and gave you a thoughtful response.

People who listen are focused on understanding.  They stop what they were doing before you started talking, and make eye contact with you.  They pause their own thoughts, and concentrate on yours.  You may hear a significant pause before they first respond to what you said.  People who listen respond with validation, because they are primarily concerned with understanding before responding.

How does this affect productivity?  Plenty of time and energy is wasted every day due to miscommunications and unclear expectations (“but I thought you said/wanted/thought..”).  The obvious first: good listening promotes better understanding and hence, fewer misunderstandings.  Second, good listening improves morale.  After all, who doesn’t want to be heard?

This week, try to become a better listener.  Concentrate on what your partners in conversation are saying, and ignore your gut feelings and the litte voice that wants to cut them off and react.  When the speaker is done, that’s your time to take to formulate a response. 

Let me know how this works for you!