Project: Workload Unloading

It could be a hostile work environment. Creative differences. Financial burdens. Promotions. Humiliating demotions. Onboarding. Firing. A once in a lifetime risk. The situations and predicaments we find ourselves in as employers, employees and colleagues occur to all of us in a variety of forms and throughout different seasons. As we punch in our virtual clocks, time begins to sucker punch our life with stress and anxiety. Knowing how to overcome these frustrations before they overcome us is essential to healing ourselves, interoffice relationships and even those beyond our cubicles.

Taking proactive steps or being conscious and aware when noticing you begin to feel your workload is preoccupying too much brain space is the first step to unloading.

Here are a few ways to relieve stress:

Chew gum: Researchers have conducted studies that indicate chewing gum for more than 10 minutes is highly effective in reducing stress. Note - excessive gum chewing can cause adverse side effects and to those listening may annoy their senses should you smack your lips or pop bubbles.

Step away from your screen: Not only should you ensure you feet, back, chair, keyboard and screen are always at optimal levels when sitting at your desk, but every hour working, try to prevent eyestrain by taking a five-minute break. Get a cup of coffee or take a restroom break. Whatever you do, don’t check your phone or trade one screen for another.

Listen to your favorite playlist: Research shows that listening to soothing music like nature sounds or melodic tunes can lower your heart rate and blood pressure. Not quite your genre? Statistics also prove up-beat, fast-paced music can help you blow off your steam. Time to plug in and meet some deadlines!

Eat up, keep up: In the long run, skipping food because you think you don’t have time decreases your ability to focus and ultimately slows down your productively. Whether it’s healthy snacks between meals or indulging in a large breakfast, lunch and dinner, ensure you stay hydrated as well.

Be grateful: You have a job. It may not be a career. It may not be where you want to be in five years. But you have what not everyone has. You have accomplished a lot to get where you are and you will continue to accomplish more if you keep overcoming stress before it overcomes you.

 -The Green Couch

Project: The Walgreen’s Way: Prompt and Proactive

The enterprise started like any other. Named after the surname of a brilliant man.

This business was born of a necessity and based on education and experience. As a pharmacist, he interwove medicine and the mediocre.

A man, sick himself, found his vocation and that man was Charles Rudolph Walgreen.

He becomes the drug store and a retail location providing knick-knacks, non-pharmaceuticals and soon would food and beverages that sold just as well as his original concept.

When things were going good, things were good. But when things were slow, Walgreen did not allow the business to stop. In less than 40 years he opened 110 stores. How?

Because when things got slow, he decided to not do the norm and accept the fact that his fiscal year was safe. He questioned how could he beat the competition but also satisfy his clients and keep them happy? He questioned how could he make things better? 

Thus he created the 2-minute drill.

The drive-thru, delivery service and microwave dinners seem impressive now, but Walgreen set a standard that created word of mouth advertisement so positively it could possibly be why Walgreens is the largest drug retailing chain in United States.

So what was this drill that deserves such laud and honor?

It’s 1893 and you live close to Walgreen’s south side Chicago location and called them in for non-prescription items, Walgreen would answer the phone and repeat the items enunciating the name of the caller, their address and their desired products. Loud and clear. In doing this, Walgreen’s assistant could accurately collect all the items while Walgreen continued to keep the caller on the phone discussing weather and whatever else might be happening on the social calendar. 

All items collected, the assistant Caleb Danner, set out to make the delivery as Walgreen was still talking to the client. And then the doorbell rings. The client excuses himself or herself from Walgreen’s conversation and finds their order at the door. Astonished at the speed of delivery, Walgreen set the standard for customer service and all through his Two-Minute Drill.

So what’s your 2-minute drill? How will you set your company apart from others or improve your morale? How will you redefine customer service?

-The Green Couch

Project: Time Management for The Speed Skaters of Life

Is everyone going too slow, or is that you are just going too fast?

When others are dependent on you and your business is dependent on others for revenue, your option for a pause button, for a step back and a week or two off is just not a convenience you can afford.

You are passionate about your business, your people, your product.

You want success, but you also want to protect your sanity and keep the company inline with a healthy and constructive direction – one that benefits from the head employee, down.

You want structure, and you want to guarantee satisfaction. You want to manage your company efficiently. You want more hours in the day. We all do. However, we all get 24, and we all need sleep and there is only so much coffee can do, so for those of us that speed skate through life, what are our options?’

Here are ten business tips that will help curb those 18-hour days down to 12 hours and maybe, someday, even just one day here or there, down to 10 or 8 hours!

1.    Make a List and Check it Twice

Writing down your tasks is essential. Even if your cognitive and memory skills are sharp and superior have your day-to-day tasks written out is important for your entire staff and team, specifically you. And nothing is more satisfying than crossing it off once completing. Then crossing it off again. Done. 

2.    Delegate

Does it really need to be done by you? Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you have to. Delegating is a great opportunity to build the next generation of the management team. This will help ease your burden when overloaded, as they will have gained experience to make executive decisions in your absence or do the tasks when you cannot. Delegate. Say it with me, delegate.

3.    Develop a Routine

Embrace the mundane and rename it if you have to as tradition. Creating a sense of routine within your company culture will help establish a sense of calming reassurance and reliability. If everyone knows where they should be when, what time things need doing and how things need to look and feel, the representation of your company will always be cohesive, and time will be utilized more constructively and efficiently.

4.    Sync Your Schedule

Google calendar, iCal – whatever system you use, using an OS platform, program or app that allows you to have remote and on-the-go access will enable you to stay ahead of your game, especially if you can grant different levels of authorization and calendars to other associates and employees. Being in the know is important when you are on-the-go or just need to know where to go and when and why.

5.    Have a 15-Minute Recap and Reboot Session

Begin your day right. Gather with your staff for a recap of the progress from the previous day or week and reboot in the morning with a project review for what needs done that day or week.

6.    Block Out Mental Productive Blocks

A little social media, here, just a quick question, a brief conflict resolution with the stuck ink cartridge. These seconds add up, and the sum is equivalent to an hour, maybe even two. Sometimes the My door is always open for you mentality needs to have a sabbatical. Just an hour a day where you can clear your inbox, rest your head on your folded arms on your desk for 10 seconds of that hour.

7.    Don’t Bring Your Home to Work, and Don’t Take Your Work Home

It is worse than mixing work with pleasure – sure go golfing. Do get some business clients – but never shall the two (home + work) mix. Mixing the stress of those two lives is a huge time management drainer. When you leave the house, try to leave your dirty dishes at home. When you leave work, try to leave the overflowing inbox there.

8.    Say Yes to The No Word

Does it really need doing? Does it need done by you? Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should, or have to.

9.    Provide Undivided Attention

Focusing 100% on the things right in front of you: We talk a lot about not multi-tasking. About the importance of seeking your purpose and dedicating your life to that cause and how that single decision can alter the significance to our rate of success. All profoundly and astoundingly true but sometimes we forget that focusing on the one person in front of us is equally important. Whether it is the person on the phone, the subject of our email or face to face physical person staring at us waiting for direction or just a, Hello, how are you this morning? Undivided attention is never a waste of time.

10.    Don’t Ask. Start Tracking

“I cannot believe it is already August. I cannot believe school has already resumed, the summer is gone, and I have barely vacationed. Where has the time gone?”  Don’t ask, where has the time gone? Start tracking it! No, no, no. Let us not get carried away and use those “clock in” time machines. But between syncing your calendar and utilizing time management systems like FunctionFox, you’ll see where your time has gone, and where it has not gone. That is always the more interesting answer, is it not?

Now, take a breath and pick one of the above and begin enjoying your managed time.

-The Green Couch

Project: It Takes Gutsy To Be A Good Leader, Part II

For every good leader I can reference, you can point out 2.5 misleading pop culture leaders and five poor examples that you have encountered in life. It is true, isn’t it? I mean, you probably have pulled out your trusty finger calculators as we speak trying to configure whether or not that is true. (Which is why I created my statistical number under 10 as, yes, I often find myself resorting to using my fingers.)

For me, these numbers are quite correct – and not just because I generated this statistical factoid off the top of my head. As much as I love you, Michael Gary Scott; The Office, NBC your leadership qualities are unorthodox and sorely lacking.

If you are going to be a leader you might as well do it right, and do it right on the first try right? Unfortunately, it is not always that easy. That is probably one of the first lessons a leader will learn: The lesson of humility. So while you are down there in your humble stance, here are a few other ways your employees are seeking out for you to…

•    Lead By Example, Not By Exclaiming:

Start by being in the presence of your employees. The mentality of being the first one there, the last to leave is an honest approach to setting a standard of showing up to work and investing in a company with heart and soul. A good leader is never too afraid to get their hands "dirty." They never ask of their employee what they would not do. You celebrate the accomplishments; offer constructive criticism when others would offer destructive criticism. In essence, they will show, not tell. That is leading.

•    Lead By Pushing, Not Pulling:

Sometimes you have to get behind your people. There are times your team will not believe in themselves. So if you are pulling them along they cannot see where they are going. You have to get behind them and their dream to help them see and understand their purpose and their power. So sometimes a little kick in the rear is good for the morale!

•    Lead By Logic, Not Leverage:

There are moments when it is easier to speak down to people. You are an authority figure, probably have a higher salary figure (if you are cutting their paycheck you should know this) and in the presence of others it is human nature to want to show your dominance and achievements by exuding the charm of a slightly egotistical superior. It is in all of us. Whether we are taller, older, excel academically or athletically - it is how we cope. However, a leader respects the intelligence of their "inferiors" (and I use that term for illustrative purposes) instead of using their superiority as leverage; as a mechanism; a method of manipulation to “motivate” others into doing what needs doing, they use logic. Sit down, have systematic conversations, have performance reviews and find a way to understand each other.

•    Lead By Confidence, Not Cowardice:

There will be conflict, and there will be rivalry, there will be times you have to downsize, and there will be times you have to fire without the reason of downsizing. Leadership is about short and long term decisions. It is about living the mission statement and trusting yourself and your instincts. Those around you will take their cue from you and as a leader you cannot hide behind the excuse of, “I want to hear what your thoughts are on this," so as not to have to make an executive decision. It is about responsibility, taking a vision and confidently and effectively delegating and putting it into action. 

So will you? Will you put your vision into action?

It takes gutsy to be a good leader. Do you have what it takes?

-The Green Couch