7 Life-Changing Habits to Get More Done in a Day

Life is a nonstop race with no breaks—or brakes. Your to-do list always seems full, and finding time to relax can be difficult. The following seven habits can alleviate some of that busyness and help you accomplish more in your day.

At Work

Work is often the place where you need to get the most done—and you can with the right steps and tools.

  1. Organization

Organization can make or break your productivity, so it’s important to stay on top of it. Physical and digital clutter prevent you from getting things done. Use filing cabinets, hanging folders, and digital folders to make your desk and computer more organized. Often, taking twenty minutes one day a month to get everything in order can save you hours of scavenger hunting in the future.

  1. Technology

Utilizing the latest technology can help you with almost every aspect of your job. Artificial intelligence is making headlines, and having an AI powered assistant such as Alexa or Google Home can help keep you organized.

  1. High-Quality Internet

Having high-quality internet at work helps you get more done in your day, but if you aren’t able to get a high-speed connection, you can take a few steps to increase your current speed. For example, limiting the number of tabs in your browser can give you higher speeds, as can controlling the number of browser windows you have open. Keeping windows and tab numbers down can also prevent feeling overwhelmed while you work.

At Home

You want to enjoy your time at home, and these tips can help you do so.

  1. Hydration

Drink more water. It seems pretty simple—and it is. Staying hydrated keeps your mind and body sharp as you accomplish your daily tasks. Many health authorities recommend you drink a minimum of 64 ounces a day.

  1. Meal Prep

Meal prep takes a little more time initially, but it saves you time in the end. Many make-ahead recipes are good for the wallet, the clock, and your peace of mind.

  1. Meditation

Mediation is one of the best habits you can add to your routine. Becoming more conscious of your surroundings and improving your awareness boosts your self-confidence and your productivity throughout the week.

  1. Fitness

Maintaining your physical health also helps you feel ready for whatever the day throws at you. Working out activates your endorphins and puts your mind and body in a super focused—and happy—mode so you feel motivated to get more done each day.

As you implement these easy tips into your life, you find more success during the day and more time to enjoy yourself and the other people in your life. Do you have any tried-and-true methods for accomplishing more? Share your tips below.

You’ve read 7 Life-Changing Habits to Get More Done in a Day, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement.

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Africa, Latest Theater in America’s Endless War

From a small village in rural Niger all the way to the White House, the US military has increasing influence over American foreign policy in Africa. Niger is just one of the many countries in sub-Saharan and West Africa in which the US has trained elite military units in the name of counterterrorism. But while America is making war in Africa and military engagement morphs into a proxy for foreign policy run by the Pentagon, China is doing business.

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Boat, hike, cycle, camp and fish at America’s most diverse…

Boat, hike, cycle, camp and fish at America’s most diverse national recreation area: Lake Mead. This year-round playground spreads across 1.5 million acres of mountains, canyons, valleys and two vast lakes in Arizona and Nevada. Whether it’s seeing the Hoover Dam from the waters of Lake Mead or finding solitude in one of the park’s nine wilderness areas, Lake Mead is the place for world-class adventure. Photo JT Dudrow (www.sharetheexperience.org).

 

Bringing Work And Life Back Into Balance In The United States

Knowing how to achieve work-life balance isn’t always easy. We live in an age where technology blurs the line between our hours at work and at home.

In fact, 40% of Americans think that it’s perfectly fine to answer work emails at the dinner table if it’s “urgent”.

Now, the only problem with that is your boss might have a different definition of urgent than you do.

Achieving work-life balance isn’t about being rigid and inflexible with your 40-hour workweek. It’s simply knowing how to set boundaries so your work won’t end up ruining your life.

America Kind Of Sucks At Work/Life Balance

The United States sits at the 30th spot (out of 38 countries) when it comes to work/life balance. Nearly 12% of our workers are working more than 50 hours a week, compared to The Netherlands, which only has 0.5%.

People in The Netherlands spend 16 hours each day working on leisure and personal care. In comparison, people in the United States only spend a little over 11.

The average workday in the United States is also creeping up, logging in at 8.15 hours a day for full-time employees.

Because of that, nearly 60% of Americans say that technology has ruined the modern family dinner because bosses expect answers at any hour.

Other complaints American workers have include:

  • 60% bad or overbearing bosses
  • 39% work beyond normal working hours
  • 39% experience inflexible work schedules or inadequate off time
  • 31% struggle with incompetent coworkers
  • 30% endure long commutes

commute from work

Working Too Much Can Burn You

You need that time away from your job to rest, spend time with friends and family, and just generally recharge your batteries. When things get out of whack, you suffer not only at work but also in your life at home.

Those with poor work and life balance report missing important family events or even ruining family time by being distracted or unavailable. They also tend to lose focus even when they are physically present.

At work, you can lose productivity, too. You’ll feel fatigued and even experience poor morale and high turnover rates.

In the end, people who don’t figure out how to balance work life and home life could end up with higher blood pressure, a coronary heart disease, anxiety, depression, and even hormonal changes.

See Also: 10 Habits That Can Prevent Heart Disease

How Can You Regain Your Balance?

work life balance

All that technology that is preventing you from separating your work life from your home life can actually be helpful in regaining your balance in life. Many American workers report that remote work, flexible scheduling, and paid time off can help restore that balance.

You can do that with the following:

  • Negotiate for a flexible schedule. Nothing makes your job worse than having to choose between being there for major family events and paying your mortgage.
  • Utilize that technology to work remotely from time to time. Being in an office is a great way to keep office stress at bay but sometimes, being able to cut out your commute and channel that time into other things can be a great way to restore balance to your life.
  • Draw lines in the sand. It prevents you from being called into meetings when you need to rest and relax during those times.

See Also: 5 Ways to Balance Work and Family Time Even if You’re a Workaholic

How Other Countries Beat Us To The Punch

In The Netherlands, there is paid vacation and maternity and paternity leave. People have a legal right to decrease their hours without having to worry about losing their jobs.

In Denmark, workers get to choose whether to work from home and when to start their workday. There is a minimum of 5 weeks of paid vacation for all workers, too.

We have a long way to go to get to that and it starts with redefining work in America. Learn more about restoring work/life balance from this infographic!

Work-Life Balance

The post Bringing Work And Life Back Into Balance In The United States appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

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Three Mindful Ways to Respond to and Overcome Boredom

 

“Live the mystery by beginning to perceive what average eyes fail to notice.”
– Dan Millman

We live in a world of incredible opportunity: we can travel like no other generation in history; we can communicate with each other in more ways – and with a greater ease– than we were capable of even 10 years ago; and we can access a seemingly infinite amount of literary, educational, artistic, and recreational content at virtually anytime we want.

Yet, many of us still complain that we are bored – maybe now more than ever before! Perhaps we encounter boredom when we are sitting around the house, despairing that there is “nothing good” on the television. Or maybe it sneaks up on us when we are stuck in a meeting (or lecture) where the content of the session is not as engaging as we expected.

Our tendency is to react to these unpleasant experiences by either avoiding them or by compensating for them in some way. This can lead us to overeat, shop for entertainment, abuse video games, or even resort to more serious addictive behaviors. But, these endless attempts to make our external experiences more arousing, stimulating or “satisfying” never lead to long-term solutions to the problem of boredom.

So next time, instead of seeking a temporary fix to your persistent restlessness, turn to these mindfulness techniques to calm your mind and embrace your current state of being:

1. Stop and Take Stock of What You Are Feeling

Recognize what is actually happening within you, which is simply that you are in an aversive mental and emotional state. Pay attention to what is going on internally and externally, without reactivity or judgment. Start by taking a few deep breaths, and simply paying attention to the feelings that accompany this experience of boredom. Where are you feeling this experience in your body? Jon Kabat Zinn likes to say that the mindful experience of boredom is actually very interesting! If we simply take a moment to pay attention, we will realize that boredom is simply a discomfort or aversion to our current experience – that is, we want our experience to be different than what it is. This mindful realization is the first step to overcoming this unpleasant state of mind.

2. Discover the Opportunities That Are Available

Once we recognize what is actually happening, we can investigate the true cause of our experiences. In virtually all circumstances, our negative experiences are caused by false core beliefs about our reality. The truth is not that there is “nothing to do.” We can verify this by asking ourselves what the real opportunities are for us in the present moment. If we think creatively about our present reality, we discover that the possibilities are endless. We then realize that the reality of the situation is not that there is nothing to do; it is that we are not exercising our innate imagination to provide ourselves with something to satisfy our desire for excitement.

3. Retrain Your Mind

Sometimes, realizing what is really happening, and recognizing that it springs from a false core belief about reality are not enough to eliminate boredom. After all, boredom has an emotional element that can be challenging to overcome. So, it is helpful to have some reset buttons to change your mind. A gratitude practice is one such reset button. List 10 things that you are grateful for, writing a sentence or two about why you are grateful for each one. This exercise is the antithesis of shopping for new things and experiences. Go the extra mile and turn this list into an email to your kids or loved ones. Or practice generosity by reaching out to a friend who is undergoing some challenges and needs some encouragement. Acts of gratitude, generosity, and kindness are easy to complete and help us shift our focus from what we can’t do to what we can.

Mindfulness not only helps you accurately assess your current reality, but it also allows you change it. These three simple practices can transform a boring afternoon into one that is supremely satisfying for yourself and potentially uplifting for others.


John Allcock is the Co-Founder and Director of Mindfulness at Sea Change Preparatory, a trailblazing academy that regularly integrates the practice of mindfulness into it’s curriculum. His new book, FORTY THINGS I WISH I’D TOLD MY KIDS, shows adults and children alike how to use mindfulness to become more compassionate, resilient, and confident.

You’ve read Three Mindful Ways to Respond to and Overcome Boredom, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

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Fine Specimens

Americans in the second half of the nineteenth century had no sure prospect of resting in peace after death. If their bodies weren’t embalmed for public viewing or dug up for medical dissection, their bones were liable to be displayed in a museum. In some cases, their skin was used as book covers by bibliophiles and surgeons with a taste for human-hide binding. The preservation, exhumation, and exhibition of human remains become, in the hands of the literary critic Lindsay Tuggle, an illuminating basis for a provocative reassessment of America’s foremost poet, Walt Whitman.

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Caesar Bloody Caesar

When Julius Caesar was thirty-one years old in 69 BCE, so the story goes, and serving as a junior Roman magistrate in Spain, he once stood lamenting before a statue of Alexander the Great because he had achieved so little at an age by which Alexander had already conquered the world. He had good reason for concern.

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Set between the jagged peaks of the Sierra Nevada and the…

Set between the jagged peaks of the Sierra Nevada and the geologically complex Inyo Mountains, California’s Alabama Hills is the perfect place for rock climbing, horseback riding, mountain biking – and for films buffs, touring “Movie Road.” Since the 1920s, more than 400 movies have been filmed at the Alabama Hills, and Movie Road allows visitors to walk or drive along the sets of many of their favorite blockbusters. Filmmakers love to use the steep hills, natural arches and windows found throughout the area to evoke far away places, including Afghanistan in Iron Man, the Himalayas in Gunga Din and a Spanish Estate in Gladiator. Photo by Michele James (www.sharetheexperience.org).

A New Lease of Life for Kettle’s Yard Gallery

Kettle’s Yard, four old slum cottages, tucked away behind St. Peter’s Church in Cambridge (named after the Kettle family, who had built a short-lived theatre on the site back in the 1700s), became the location of Ede’s experimental vision. He renovated them and unpacked his collection, around which he and his wife, Helen, set up home, thenceforth holding an “open house” every afternoon during the university term, when students were encouraged to drop by, admire the art, read the Edes’ books—and, if lucky enough to be invited, perhaps partake of a cup of tea and a slice of toast with marmalade. Part of the charm of Kettle’s Yard has always been the juxtaposition between old and new.

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