Time is precious

“If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the world and everything that’s in it, And – what is more, you’ll be a man, my son”
These are the closing words of J. Rudyard Kipling’s famous and striking poem “If”. What perhaps Kipling had in mind when writing this was a reference to not giving up when it is so easy to do so. We all have moments of frustration, not least with deadlines and just making things happen. Health and well-being consultant Samuel Furse looked into it in more detail for us at relaxedworkplace.com.

Time is a great leveller. It is something none of us can destroy or create (despite what your boss may tell you), though surely all of us can have our time wasted. Time is the same for all of us – although our perceptions of it change over time (ironically) and as a result of external stimuli, it is the first thing about our awareness of the world around us that is compromised on suffering stress or indeed any other emotional upset. Something of which we are all aware is the importance of meeting deadlines and the effect of missing these – diminished productivity, dangerous effect on morale and even cash flow as well as the reputation of your firm or department.
What can we do about this? Well, three things can help with effective time management:

Step 1 – Planning. Tedious though it sounds, knowing what you need to do and by when and writing all this down so you can see it all at once on a piece of paper can only help.

Step 2 – Prioritisation. This is often more of a challenge – how important and/or how urgent are the things you must complete. Knowing the difference between important and urgent is crucial here.

Step 3 – Know your limits. This means do not be tempted to take on too much. Stick to what is achievable, but at the same time ensure that you have enough to maintain optimum productivity and intellectual engagement – don’t get bored!

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[ Tagged In ] effective time management, external stimuli, health, intellectual engagement, optimum productivity, rudyard kipling, stress

Relax while you work

While it’s good to get a massage from Relaxedworkplace.com, often clients ask us how to relax at work. There are simple techniques that you can use that could be of great benefit if you feel pressured or stressed at your desk.

We’re going to assume that you are a busy person and that taking 5 minutes to relax is quite tricky.

If you’re stressed, it’s difficult to seek help and it may even feel that people not very helpful.

First let’s talk breathing. Breathing deeply and slowly is an essential tool to take your stress away. You have to inhale deeply and slowly then in your own time release and exhale through the nose slowly. Repeat this for as long as you want and try and feel stress going away from you.

The most powerful way to try and reduce your stress is by using mental images. The reason for this is that most of us are good at visualizing things. You can form a mental picture of whatever you like: it could be yourself lying horizontally or a very good memory in your past. Try to keep that picture, be in that place as much as possible and capture how happy and relaxed you are. Use breathing to help get you there.

Other people prefer talking to themselves. You can mentally repeat to yourself several times ‘I feel more relaxed’. Use breathing to help get you there.

I have come across people that are too busy, they’re doing things too fast. Life is rushing. If you feel like this, remember that you can take it all away by focusing on one thing only. For example focusing on breathing and counting breaths can help occupy your mind and stop other thoughts.

Some ready made exercises:

If you’re feeling pressurized like a boiler cooker and you can’t let go of your stress, we suggest a simple mental exercise. Imagine you have a valve, pretty much like a pressure cooker would have. You can place that valve wherever you feel on your body. Now inhale deeply and slowly, when you’re full of air let go very slowly the air through your nose and imagine the flow is going through that pipe and drains your stress away. Repeat 10 times.

If you’re feeling tense and your muscles have accumulated stress, you can simply try to touch your arms and legs and give yourself a little massage. Do this while breathing in and breathing out slowly.

Overall you’ll be surprised yourself how much you can reduce stress and fatigue at your desk by using your imagination. If you practice relaxation at your desk everyday you will be able to manage your stress levels/body pain a little better.

Happiness and relaxation is a habit.

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[ Tagged In ] benefit, breaths, desk, exercises, exhale, massage, memory, mental exercise, mental images, mental picture, pressure cooker, stress

Cold and warm relationships at work

In the workplace, we all experience a vast array of different interpersonal relationships.  Some of our colleagues are warm, some are cold and we have to balance our attitude and feel comfortable around everyone. We asked ourselves what are some the issues we’ve seen or discussed with people we have met. Kyoungjin Ha our main massage therapist has given us a few clues into how to make relationships work better in a work environment.

Understanding that warmth is a commodity

We’re all too busy at work, everyone is working on their work projects and offices interactions often lack warmth.

At work we are all expected to deliver our work and respect deadlines which effectively turn us into individual units of production. There is a natural pressure at work to turn us into anonymous productive units working.

Becoming anonymous makes us look the same, we become indistinguishable.

The only way to counter this is to realize that not everyone is alike and we are all unique. We all have qualities and faults and everyone has a particular and unique personality.

At work it is important for us to communicate with all our colleagues, understand their personalities; realize what makes them special in order to cast a light on what makes them unique. If you seek what is the warmth in your colleagues (=what makes them unique, then you will discover that you can have warm relationship with anyone in your workplace.

Discover yourself, discover others

However, we all have our own hurdles to discover others. Some of us have serious emotional obstacles to warmth and intimacy. We can be afraid to come too close to our colleagues or being too open. We are afraid that if we come too close or if we are too open, we will be invaded, controlled or hurt.

These are simply ancient fears coming from our own experience and we have to get rid of them completely in order to become warmer.

There is no miracle cure for inbuilt fear so it’s one step at a time. Find what is good about yourself, what you like and try to match that with your collegues’s qualities. Then proceed to exchange moments around a coffee, discussions in the workplace around what you like in common. Once we become confident and have found much common ground with colleagues, we forget irrational fears.

No magic formula here, it’s one step at a time.

How to behave around cold people

Most of us have some inner warmth and face difficult moments when work colleagues are cold or not friendly.

A natural tendency would be to change oneself, try to become colder as others are, ignore them or even be as rude, however this is a waste of energy.

The best way to handle work colleagues that are colder than us is to keep content with ourselves. To do this we have to accept that judging others is healthy and keeps you sane.

So if someone is not positive around you, it’s just plain okay to tell yourself that you are in a better place that where they are and that you are the happier person. Simply this attitude will strengthen you and will allow carrying on your own attitudes without having to adapt to negative energy around you.

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[ Tagged In ] busy at work, colleagues, emotional obstacles, fears, interpersonal relationships, massage therapist, warm relationship, warm relationships, work environment