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If you ever wake up in the morning dreading your work day and the getting ready process, then you are in a big club represented by the majority of working Americans. If you ever feel guilty about spending more time wishing for 5 o’clock to finally roll around rather than focusing on being productive, then that just makes you normal. We may all wish we could get ready with a smile and be a locomotive at work every day, but the truth is that we are tired, stressed and unsatisfied with the repetitive nature of a job.
Hollywood and the media does us no favors either. They are always featuring some top level executive that is driven and living a luxurious and glamorous lifestyle. Most big money makers know what stress is though. We must always discover ways to make our days less stressful, get a better night’s sleep and accomplish more with our days. It’s all about efficiency and optimization. So, here are 3 tips to make your workday more productive and to make it run smoother.
Scheduling
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My father is a Navy veteran from the Vietnam War and used to say to me that when life is good time feels like it flies by, but when life is not good, time crawls. He said life on a Navy ship during the war moved by painstakingly. He said after the war all he ever wanted was a normal life and that a 9 to 5 job felt like a dream come true. Life really is all about perspective, but I bet as the years went on at his job, even he spent some time looking at the clock. It’s true that a job that requires the same repetitive functions each and everyday fails to continuously stimulate the brain.
Today there are tools like Google Calendar, Trello Boards and Monday that allows us to create reminders, notifications and checklists to help keep us on track throughout our workday. By taking the time to setup these sorts of tools, you can be thinking about what has to get done tomorrow, next week or next month ahead of time. You will find yourself thinking about what needs to get done on your commute home at night and to work the next day. The plans will already be set in motion in your head and you may even experience some level of excitement in getting it done. By showing employers how much quality work you accomplish in short periods is how opportunities to move up come around. Especially on Fridays, schedule out what you need to start your next week and you will not find Monday’s as overwhelming.
Gamification
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There is a concept known as gamification. I look at people playing video games for hours on end each and every day, and I just do not know how they do it. Regardless of how I feel about video games, it is apparent that people are driven to collect as many points and move up as many levels as then can. They feel satisfaction at moving up and defeating fictitious foes. It’s not as if it isn’t hard work either. They have to study and deal with losing, setbacks and at times some fairly challenging problem solving. Then there are the people that can just go crazy on Candy Crush or some solitaire app. When people think about something in terms of game, it helps them deal with the repetitive mundane work.
With work, obviously the amount of money that you make is one way to turn the mindset you have towards your livelihood into a game-like concept. However, many people make a set salary, so they know exactly how much they will be paid each and every month. There are other ways of turning your workday into a game though. Analytics should be readily available to you to see how productive your work is to the company. You can work towards trying to make personal bests, and heck you might even win a pizza party! Discovering that you are part of a team that is the driving force for one of the company’s main key performance indicators can be very satisfying. If the company you work for is publicly traded, you many even see your work reflected in its stock price.
Natural Remedies
How much coffee do you drink in the morning? How much coffee do you drink in the afternoon? Do you ever go get one of those 5-hour energy drinks or a Monster to try and power you through your day? Do you find that it keeps you from being able to fall asleep at night too? It’s a vicious circle. Pour so much taurine, glucuronic acid, malic acid, N-acetyl L tyrosine, L-phenylalanine, caffeine, and citicoline into your body just to stay awake until you can’t fall asleep until the wee hours of the morning, and then your alarm goes off a couple of hours later for you to just be tired all over again. Stop with the caffeine and all the other ines. There are a lot of natural remedies to consider that are not addictive and don’t have the side-effects of an energy drink.
How about something as simple as Hemp cookies? Or, take a Hemp 1000mg tincture oil bottle of Bubble GumHempD oil to work. Hemp edibles along with some tea and other natural herbs may help you make your days much more productive without all the other side-effects of stronger substances like caffeine. Create a plan. Have something you take with your breakfast. Drip some hazelnutHempD oil into your coffee in the morning before work. Drink some tea in the afternoon instead of another cup of coffee and maybe chew on a 25mg Hemp gummy bear. At night, explore some aromatherapy to help you get a good night’s sleep. Routine and organization can make your work week much more productive, bearable and even satisfying.