Calm the Chaos
The average American will spend an estimated 90,000 hours of their lifetime at work. That’s SUCH a large chunk of your life and time away from other things like friends, family, exercise or hobbies. When work feels daunting, you may find that time outside the office is difficult to enjoy.

If you dread Monday mornings because work feels chaotic, we have a solution. Here are five tips to bring some order to your work life.

1. Build in Some Breathing Room
You are a human, not a robot. There are different ways to help you focus on becoming centered and find meaning in your work. First, let’s take a breath. Silly as you may feel, when we forget to focus on our breathing, we naturally get a little out of whack. Calm is a great app that provides free mediation that will guide you back to your breath when you start to sense those overwhelming feelings emerge.

Busy isn’t always best. You may feel a sense of success when your life is full and people need you, but that isn’t typically a sustainable way of life. You may need to alter your perspective if you are feeling overwhelmed at the office. Life happens and you will need to account for hiccups that occur, so create some breathing room into your schedule. Consider blocking 15 minutes in your daily calendar in the afternoon to give yourself some time to regroup before finishing out the day.

2. Set Your Goals to Reach Success
If you label all of your tasks as important, then nothing is actually important. To feel accomplished, make a habit of creating a results-focused to-do list. Either at the beginning of your day or at the end of the previous workday, take 10 minutes to brain dump everything that you need to accomplish in the future. Out of that list, bold or highlight 1 to 2 priorities that you need to take care of during the upcoming work day. You can solve big work projects by focusing on smaller tasks and plan to write those out. By zeroing in on smaller goals, you will accomplish the larger ones to move your job forward. Keep your eye on the prize.

Reflect on your routine before coming to work and while you are in the office. You are only as successful as your best-laid plan. Do you constantly hit the snooze button and arrive to work frazzled or are you up on time and ready for the day? In order to accomplish the goals you have set for yourself, you’ll need to have successful business habits. For the next thirty days, create a routine and then strive for regularity. Set goals for not only your day but the upcoming week, month, and business quarter.

So, how do you achieve them?

3. Work Smart, Not Hard
Be sacred with your hours in the office. Think strategically about the task that is assigned to you and the goals you want to attain. Can you delegate parts of your tasks to others that may have more experience and can accomplish them faster? Don’t let pride get in the way of being productive. You can’t be the best at everything, but you can be successful at one thing. If you work in a small office environment or if you are new in the position, decide how you can automate some of your tasks. There are times that following the office norms won’t necessarily lead to the best productivity levels to complete your to-do list. As a high functioning, capable adult, consider how you can work smarter – not harder – at your office.

4. Invest in Yourself and Take a Break
It’s okay to take a break and give yourself a mental health vacation. It’s easy to lose perspective when your days consist of constant emails and work projects. Don’t lose sight of your goals by trying to work 24/7 to achieve success. Instead, create space where you don’t check your work emails or think about office projects – and give yourself a mental break. Pursue things you enjoy – grab dinner with a friend, engage in something creative or take time for exercise. Be intentional in this process because you can fail to produce your best work if you are not refreshed when coming into the office.

Additionally, think about how you define success for yourself. More importantly, how do you measure that success for yourself? If you have not had the chance yet, take personal assessment tests, such as CliftonStrengths through StrengthsFinder, to discover how you approach tasks in a work environment.

For you to find success, you need to know yourself. You have triggers for performing positively and negatively at work. Each person in your company is different. Understanding what your strengths and weaknesses are provides you the leverage to be successful. The more you know yourself and how you handle situations will prepare you better both personally and professionally.

5. Tackle the Hard Tasks
Let’s address the elephant in the room – the tasks you don’t want to accomplish. It’s easy to feel stuck when some of your work creates dissatisfaction or a sense of chaos. How do you interrupt procrastination? A popular speaker, Mel Robbins, has a famous Ted Talk discussing her “5 Second Rule” theory. This video describes how to tackle these less than attractive tasks and simply get things done. For example, by counting backwards, you awaken your brain and focus it in a more confident manner. This counting process takes you out of that autopilot zone ability to complete your task.

Be Calm and Productive
Juggling a full workload can be mentally draining. Utilize our team at Brightwork to help with maximizing your office productivity. With our expertise, we can provide strategic plans on how to execute your goals more efficiently. Let us do the heavy lifting for you while you obtain success.