Showing posts with label finding happiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label finding happiness. Show all posts

Thursday, May 10, 2018

How You Can Efficiently Market Any Business Online Thought

Web marketing might be a great advantage for someone thinking of starting a new business enterprise or even to enhance and expand a preexisting organization. Finding a sound place to start can be difficult, though the online is rich with facts about this topic. This post features some concise tips for Online marketing.

A collection of the customer mailing list is important. Give your prospects many chances to leave their email address part of the buying process.

Ensure your website is diverse and different! With your numerous web sites on the net, you must stand out to be successful. One way to create your website stick out would be to highlight a service you are offering that nobody else does.

Will not stop out advertising and marketing also. You could potentially phone, e-mail and fax.

Search engines like yahoo are definitely more capable of cataloging web sites with much less subpages, than when it just has 10 to 20 or so thousands of.

Generally utilize signatures when you e mail other folks, even if the e-mail is merely personal. This is sort of a organization greeting card, and you should distribute it considerably and large. You are offering every person you email a hyperlink for your company, by letting the users of your own e-mails to see the way your company is really.

Online marketing must cause further Internet Marketing. The theory is unquestionably you want to produce a routine of customers discovering your company, along with has grown awareness mainly because it attempts to bring in new consumers, although it does seem unorthodox.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Most cellphone firms allow you add a committed work number along with your phone. So try and get a passionate quantity.

Keeping your site easy and simple is something which is usually ignored by webmasters. Smart proprietors be aware that not everybody will be able or may wish to use this sort of technologies. Whether it doesn’t have expensive features, an internet site should be fully functional.

Be sure you use social networking to grow your customer base.Youtube is a superb web site that lets you have everyday dialogue together with your customers.

Whilst it might seem productive to post a bunch of remarks on web sites, they are certainly not almost competitive with you imagine. It can transform people out, by neglecting to incorporate personal touch factors inside your advertisements.

A lot of people consider the vouchers with gratitude and as another motivator to go back to a coupon to get anything they necessary or needed anyways.

To get a organization which offers wholesale, it’s vital to have 3rd-get together deal stability. There are plenty of great solutions you can use. VeriSign and McAfee are two instances of the applications that can help to help keep economic information safe. Though home security systems are expensive, they are definitely worth the cost in the long run.

How your site seems as well as the look it produces needs to be just as important as what you are marketing.Try out your website on a standard links, artwork, your and schedule check out program regularly.

Encourage followers to imagine daily life with your product or service. Your advertisements should ensure it is to enable them to appreciate special rewards boasting of your merchandise.

Use social media sites like MySpace or Facebook or myspace and send out information and facts consisting of hyperlinks to your company in your potential audience. Be cautious you never ever send out junk that people don’t want considering that MySpace has become using many people to judge to avoid it.

Since you’ve study these awesome tips, there is no doubt you know what an incredible instrument internet marketing might be from the right fingers. Make use of this article’s ideas to raise the revenue you are making from online marketing.

Take a look at our youtube video regarding ppc management services.

from Visible PPC Blog – Feed http://blog.visibleppc.com/how-you-can-efficiently-market-any-business-online-thought/

Friday, May 4, 2018

Local Seo Agency Coral Springs – Marketing Ideas

Search Engine Marketing Ideas That Everyone Need To Know

As being the throughout the world online expands, so does competition for sites.Getting excellent content articles are ineffective if there are no person reads it. The following article can give your site a steady stream.

Html coding is an important aspect in search engine optimisation if you are using Search engine optimisation.As an example, if your main web site relies on JavaScript and is badly coded, internet search engine spiders could not directory it.

There are several ways to improve your search engine optimisation. Should you be enhancing research efficiency, you will definately get probably the most productive outcomes. The increased performance is likely to make readers happier as well.

Seo Agency Coral Springs Seo Agency Coral Springs[/caption]

The initial phrases in your articles must have phrases that can even be useful like a Html code outline tag. There are search engines that use this data rather than the label by itself since the blurb for your website is about in their effects. Inadequate content here can hurt your rankings.

Be sure that your search engine marketing.While you need to consist of significant keywords that the bots are trying to find, understand that the bots are certainly not producing acquisitions by you, so that you can optimize the information soon after. The web page should be simple to read. If it’s not, you are sure to fall short.

You should make sure to utilize a service that fails to filter out your site management info. Yahoo may possibly flag you as sketchy and remove your web site.

ROI Results Marketing
7363 NW 113th Ave,
Parkland, FL 33076, United States
561-305-2253
http://roiresultsmarketing.com

If you use a shared server, make sure you’re not employing a proxy that offers with a website that’s been suspended. If you talk about your proxy using a web site that may be prohibited for spamming or another fake actions, your website can be punished, therefore reducing the visitors to your web site.

Search engines like yahoo could be a potent device with regards to driving a car world wide web visitors to your site seen. Generating your site online search engine spider helpful will produce fantastic results.Spiders can’t read graphics, so using a descriptive tag to them is essential. Make sure you create a information that may be rich in keywords.

You must have a site that may be special and unique. You should use these guidelines to find what you should maintain individuals returning. Make time weekly for adding the following tips to work.

Watch our video about ppc management.

from Visible PPC Blog – Feed http://blog.visibleppc.com/local-seo-agency-coral-springs-marketing-ideas/

Thursday, October 19, 2017

PACK YOUR SPIRITUAL TOOLBOX: 26 OF THE WISEST QUOTES EVER UTTERED.

By Kate Taylor

I’ve always liked the idea of a “spiritual toolbox,” a figurative vessel for holding everything that calms, inspires and enlightens.

That’s why several years ago I decided to create a physical spiritual toolbox. I found a funky wooden thrift store box and — in a flurry of paint, glue, material scraps and glitter — turned it into a nifty container for my favorite meditations, soothing stones, Buddha and White Tara statuettes and wisdom quotes (quotes from great spiritual thinkers).

The toolbox is now a permanent fixture on my alter, and has saved me from countless foul moods and nasty vibes.

Every item in it is essential, but the wisdom quotes are especially powerful medicine for blue moods.

They help me make decisions. They remind me to slow down, breathe and witness the beauty around me. They show me that this world has produced truly enlightened people who made the world a much better place.

If you could use a little extra comfort or inspiration in your life, read on to find 26 of the most universally-loved wisdom quotes from luminaries ranging from Buddha to Socrates. They’ll help to guide your thinking and decisions in life, work and love.

 

  • “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” ―Socrates

 

  • “Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.” – Henry van Dyke

 

  • “I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life.” – Corazon Aquino

 

  • “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor Frankl

 

  • If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito. — His Holiness the 14TH Dalai Lama

 

 

  • “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

 

  • “Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.” ―Socrates

 

  • “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” –Albert Einstein

 

  • “He who fears he will suffer, already suffers because he fears.” – Michel De Montaigne

 

  • “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

 

  • “If you decide that you’re going to be happy from now on for the rest of your life, you will not only be happy, you will become enlightened. Unconditional happiness is the highest technique there is. This is truly a spiritual path, and it as direct and sure a path to Awakening as could possibly exist.”
    ― Michael A. SingerThe Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself

 

 

  • “When you come to see you are not as wise today as you thought you were yesterday, you are wiser today.”
    ― Anthony de Mello

 

  • “The only way that we can live is if we grow. The only way we can grow is if we change. The only way we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we are exposed is if we throw ourselves into the open.” – C. Joybell

 

  • “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” – George Bernhard Shaw

 

  • “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.” – Bil Keane

 

  • “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Gandhi

 

 

  • “When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” – Helen Keller

 

  • “Most of us do not take these situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape — all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can’t stand it. We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain.” – Pema Chödrön

 

 

  • “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” – Viktor Frankl

 

  • “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

  • You can’t stop the water, but you can learn how to surf. — Jack Kornfield

 

  • “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius

 

  • “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” – Albert Einstein

 

  • “In seeking happiness for others, you will find it in yourself.” – Unknown

 

  • “You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. – Buddha

 

The post PACK YOUR SPIRITUAL TOOLBOX: 26 OF THE WISEST QUOTES EVER UTTERED. appeared first on .


Thursday, October 5, 2017

KEEP YOUR COOL: 20 TACTICS FOR DEALING WITH ANNOYING, DIFFICULT OR UNREASONABLE PEOPLE

By Kate Taylor

 

 

The yackaholic who hogs every conversation. The co-worker who gossips and tells lies about us. The in-law who comments on our every weight fluctuation.

Most of us have at least a few difficult, annoying or unreasonable people in our lives. People who jack up our blood pressure and set our teeth on edge. People we’d absolutely love to mute. Or better yet, delete.

Sadly, we’re not omnipotent. But we can be the next best thing: unflappable.

With the right arsenal of coping skills, we can prepare ourselves to handle any and all of those who would otherwise destroy our peace of mind.

 

Those gremlins include:

 

  • People who twist our words and claim that we’re lousy communicators.
  • People who make subtly or overtly demeaning comments to us, or disguise such comments as “jokes.”
  • People who don’t respect our boundaries and seem to enjoy stepping all over them.
  • People who aren’t willing to consider our points of view or listen to our opinions. These types typically respond to us by staring blankly, laughing or blowing up.
  • Bullies
  • Verbal or emotional abusers (these can also range from subtle to overt)
  • Manipulators
  • Liars
  • “Crazymakers.” In other words, people who try to provoke us into acting crazy or worrying that there’s something wrong with us.
  • Excessively charming people who are too good to be true and have ulterior motives.

 

 

The following 20 tried-and-true coping skills can help us avoid fruitless confrontations and survive all kinds of personal and professional situations with our happiness intact.

 

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-the-questions/201503/20-expert-tactics-dealing-difficult-people

 

 

  1. Listening is the number one step in dealing with “unreasonable” people. Everyone wants to feel heard. No progress can take place until the other person feels acknowledged. While you’re listening, really focus on what the other person is saying, not what you want to say next.

 

  1. Stay calm. When a situation is emotionally charged, it’s easy to get caught up in the heat of the moment. Pay attention to your breathing. Try to take some slow, deep breaths.

 

 

  1. Don’t judgeYou don’t know what the other person is going through. Chances are, the person who is being unreasonable is feeling some kind of vulnerability or fear.

 

 

  1. Reflect respect and dignity toward the other person. No matter how a person is treating you, showing contempt will not help productively resolve the situation.

 

  1. Look for the hidden need. What is this person really trying to gain? What is this person trying to avoid?

 

 

  1. Look for others around you who might be able to help.If you’re at work and there’s an irate customer, quickly scan to see if a colleague is close by.

 

  1. Don’t demand compliance. For example, telling someone who’s upset to be quiet and calm down will just make him or her irate. Instead, ask the person what they are upset about—and allow them to vent.

 

 

  1. Saying, “I understand,” usually makes things worse.Instead, say, “Tell me more so I can understand better.”

 

  1. Avoid smiling, as this may look like you are mocking the person. Similarly, humor can sometimes lighten the mood, but more often than not, it’s risky and it may backfire.

 

 

  • Don’t act This is tough. You’re naturally not enjoying the other person saying nasty things or things that you know aren’t true. You’re going to want to defend yourself. But the other person is so emotionally revved up, it’s not going to help. Remember, this is not about you. Don’t take it personally. (I know, easier said than done.)

 

  • Don’t return anger with anger. Raising your voice, pointing your finger, or speaking disrespectfully to the other person will add fuel to an already heated situation. Use a low, calm, even monotone voice. Don’t try to talk over the person. Wait until the person takes a breath and then speak.

 

 

  • Don’t argue or try to convince the other person of anything. Unreasonable people are un-reasonable.

 

  • Keep extra space between you and the other person.Your instinct may be to try to calm the other person down by putting your arm on theirs, or some other similar gesture that may be appropriate in other contexts. But if someone is already upset, avoid touch, as it might be misinterpreted.

 

 

  • Saying, “I’m sorry,” or, “I’m going to try to fix this,” can go a long way toward defusing many situations.

 

  • Set limits and boundaries. While some of the above tips have encouraged listening and letting the angry person vent, you also have the right to be assertive and say, “Please don’t talk to me like that.”

 

 

  • Trust your instincts. If your gut is saying, this is going downhill fast, be ready to do what you need to do to remain safe. Look for an exit strategy.

 

  • One response does not fit all. You must remain flexible. Although these guidelines have proven effective in de-escalating tough situations, every person is unique and may respond differently.

 

 

  • After the situation is over, talk to someone about what happened.

 

  • Discharge your own stressYou had to put your natural reactions on hold for a while. Now is the time to discharge some of that pent-up adrenaline. Go for a run. Take your dog for a walk. Don’t let the emotions stay stuck in your body.

 

  1. Give yourself credit for getting through an uncomfortable situation. It takes a lot of energy not to act like a jerk when someone else is behaving badly. Don’t skip this step!

 

 

The post KEEP YOUR COOL: 20 TACTICS FOR DEALING WITH ANNOYING, DIFFICULT OR UNREASONABLE PEOPLE appeared first on .


Monday, October 2, 2017

OBSESSED WITH THAT NEW WRINKLE? OR THAT NEW WHITE HAIR?

By Kate Taylor

 

“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.”

 

That’s what Eleanor Roosevelt had to say about aging.

Her words are famous. Celebrated. Loved by so many over the years that it’s possible to buy posters, t-shirts and even underwear inscribed with them.

And yet, few of us seem to view our own aging with the pride and open-mindedness expressed in that quote. Instead, many of us behave as if we’re ashamed of our age.

For example: I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard someone denigrating their middle-aged muffin top, beer belly or arm “wings.”

Conversely, I’ve never seen someone lean toward a mirror, notice a new line or white hair and exclaim “Awesome! Now I’m even hotter!”

When it comes to our own faces, figures and hair, many of us fight like street cats to stop time in its tracks.

We shell out big bucks for cosmetic procedures, steam it up in spa treatments, slather on expensive anti-aging lotions, sunscreens and make-up. We divorce entire food groups and blend strange ingredients into gray-green smoothies. And we dress to flaunt our most attractive (read: youthful) assets.

For most people, the former lady’s beloved quote might as well be “…but beautiful old people (other than me) are works of art.”

Yet there’s a terrible price that comes with all that striving, psychology experts say. Our efforts to stay young are often accompanied by feelings of “age shame,” says Harriet Lerner, psychologist and author of many books including “The Dance of Anger.” This shame, she adds, is especially acute in women.

As an example, Lerner points to the old “don’t ask, don’t tell” social policy regarding women’s ages. That policy, she says, is alive and well in many social circles.

“Women have long been shamed for growing older—which is, after all, everyone’s wish,” she says. “Women have actually been taught to conceal their age, to joke and even lie about it, to treat it as a shameful little secret.”

And that little secret can be toxic to our souls.

“By hiding our age, we perpetuate the notion that there is something shameful or lesser about growing older,” Lerner says. “We further shame and disempower ourselves and all women by agreeing that it is best to conceal the number of years we have been alive.”

One way to start breaking free from age-shame is to be straight-forward about your age, she insists.

“To invite joy and happiness in, we can break the vicious circle of shame, silence, stigma and secrecy that surrounds who we truly are.  And that includes how old we are.”

Though society’s youth-obsession continues to rage, voices like Lerner’s are slowly helping to shift our negative views on aging.

“We’re beginning to see hints that people are recognizing that there’s beauty at any age,” said Pamela Mayberry, associate director of the Ithaca College Gerontology Institute in Ithaca, New York.

She points to the Dove “Real Beauty” advertising campaign – which features photos of women of all ages, skin tones and body types — as an example of this trend.

To explore this idea, I Googled “Gorgeous Oldsters” and was heartened by the images that popped up. There, as expected, were the glamorous, gravity-defying faces of Jane Fonda, Helen Mirren and Denzel Washington. But there also were the weathered, spirit-filled faces of everyday strangers from around the world.

Elderly Ukrainian women with twinkly eyes and color-soaked headscarves. Elderly Indian men with coffee-dark skin and heart-melting smiles. People who look their age but are being presented as indisputably beautiful.

 

If you’re feeling shame, guilt or stress about your own aging, it may be time for some self-exploration.

The following five questions can help you start identifying where your aging-negativity is coming from, and start to release it. Then you’ll be able to re-focus on what you love most in life.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-grown/201502/obsessing-over-wrinkles-depressed-about-aging

  1. “Am I really bothered by my wrinkles, or am I following someone else’s script?

Maybe your mother thought that growing older was terrible, and shared her thoughts with you. Over and over.

But do you really believe that?

You might be following a script delivered to you from society, the media, cosmetics companies, or even your parents. A script that tells you how you are “supposed” to feel about aging.

Question that script.  Ask yourself, “What do I really believe?”

Don’t let other people’s negative scripts become your own.

  1. “What makes me feel alive?” 

 Do whatever it is, if you can. Don’t let your age stop you. Age is a privilege, not a disability.

Doing what makes you feel energized and alive is a form of self-care—and when you take extra-special-good care of yourself, it’s much easier to let go of negative feelings when they arise.

(Think: the difference between zipping down the highway with a full tank of gas, versus crawling through gridlock, running on empty.)

  1. “Is there a part of me that needs to be comforted or soothed? What would feel good right now?” 

Soothe that part of you that feels depressed about aging with a hug, a walk, or a few words of reassurance.

In order to comfort yourself, you may first need to release some of the negative emotions that are getting in the way. One way to do this is by thwacking a pillow with a hand towel that’s been knotted on one end, safely, in private—while simultaneously expressing (aloud) all the things you’re angry about.

Imagine all those negative feelings leaving your body. Feel yourself growing lighter and less burdened with every thwack.

  1. “What kinds of thoughts repeatedly run through my head? Are those thoughts helping me or undermining me?”

 Perhaps you’re constantly allowing your inner critic to run rampant, filling your mind with thoughts like, “Ugh, my wrinkles are gross!”

are those kinds of thoughts helpful to you—or anyone else, for that matter?

Remember that you have the power to change your thoughts.

Choose thoughts that are helpful, not undermining.

  1. “What can I do, right now, to make the world a better place?”

Focus on your inner light—the Love that’s inside you—and let that light radiate out into the world.

Don’t let perceptions about aging dim your brilliance.

Share yourself with the world, right now.

Remember, too, that you don’t have to do anything “big” to make the world a better place.

You can write a letter to a friend. You can be present and attentive when someone is speaking. You can smile. You can remain calm in a crisis. You can be a good parent or grandparent, loving a child unconditionally.

The best antidote to feeling “invisible” or “unimportant” is to treat yourself with love and respect.

When you do this, your inner light grows even brighter. You feel naturally inspired to give love to others, to help, and to serve. You don’t have to “try.” It just happens.

Love has no age limit. So don’t let age limit your Love.

 

QUESTION: Do you worry a lot about lines and wrinkles or other perceived “flaws?”

What helps you to chuck the negativity and re-focus on what really matters?

We want to hear from you! Please write in and tell us your thoughts!

 

 

 

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Sunday, September 17, 2017

HOW TO STAY MINDFUL AT WORK

 

By Kate Taylor

 

In the corner office, a woman scans her email, talks on the phone and intermittently sips from a giant coffee cup. In a nearby cubicle, a man listens to hold music while stapling paper stacks and squinting across the room at a wall clock. Up at the reception desk, another man plays online Solitaire while eating soup and preparing office supply orders.

This is a snapshot of an office where I once worked. Indeed, it’s what most of my past workplaces looked like. And according to social psychologists, it’s what most American workplaces (those with cubicles, desks and chairs, anyway) look like.

Everybody multi-tasking. Nobody giving their full attention to a single task.

“The bottom line is we are all constantly self-distracting,” says Larry Rosen, Ph.D., author and research psychologist.

Rarely, he says, do we “focus and attend” any task for more than three to five minutes. We’re perpetually distracted — primarily by emails, texts and other social media.

No wonder it’s so hard to be mindful at work.

But don’t give up just yet!

Above all, mindfulness requires practice, and the following expert tips are all you need to keep off autopilot and stay mindful throughout your work day.

 

 

 

https://www.mindful.org/10-ways-mindful-work/

 

 

  1. Be Consciously Present

Mindfulness is about being aware and awake rather than operating unconsciously. When you’re consciously present at work, you’re aware of two aspects of your moment-to-moment experience — what’s going on around you and what’s going on within you.

If you’re mindfully writing a report, for example, you give it your full attention. You choose the words you type with care. You remain aware of how your chair supports you and how the keyboard keys feel beneath your fingertips.

Sounds easy, right?

Perhaps, if you’ve spent the last five months on a silent retreat. Most people, however, are used to giving far less than 100 percent of their attention to work. As they write a report, a third or even half of their attention drifts with music coming through their earphones. Or wanders to last night’s Game of Thrones episode. Or rumbles about needing some fries.

If you’re trying to boost your mindfulness at work, don’t let your undisciplined thoughts discourage you. Staying present requires practice. Lots of practice. ‘When you catch your thoughts slipping away to global warming or Kim Kardashian-land, just acknowledge what’s happening and usher them back to the task at hand. Here are some extra mindfulness tips to boost your chances of success:

 

 

  • Make a clear decisionat the start of your workday to be present as best you can. Pause for a few moments before you start your work to set this intention in your mind.

 

  • Make an effort to work more consciously, even if that means that you need to work more slowly at first—doing so pays off in the long run.

 

  • Keep the advantages of being presentin mind to motivate you. Mindfulness brings a powerful sense of calm and focus to your day and will help you produce your best work.

 

  • Give your full attention to seemingly mundane taskslike typing, loading the copy machine and dialing phone numbers. If you’re just waiting in a meeting room, just focus on your breathing. These little moments can energize you and bring unexpected pleasure and peace.
  1. Use Short Mindful Exercises at Work

 

Mindful exercises train your brain to be more present. The more you do, the easier your brain finds it to drop into a mindful state, thus optimizing your brain function.

In a busy workplace, it might seem impossible to find time for mindful exercises. No worries — they can be as short as you want them to be. In fact, just a minute of consciously connecting with one of your senses qualifies as a mindful exercise. You don’t need to make is obvious to others by assuming a lotus position or closing your eyes. You don’t even need to be sitting down. So be creative! Find the time for several mindful exercises every day.

 

Quick way to fall in love with mindfulness:

Try a mindful exercise when work-stress is driving you to your limit. Just closing your eyes and tuning everything out for two minutes can help rebalance your nervous system, tone down the fight-or-flight response and engage the wisest part of your brain. Once relaxed, you’ll be far less reactive and better equipped to make smart decisions.

  1. Be a Single-Tasker

Single-tasking means doing one thing at a time. Multi-tasking means trying to do two or more tasks at the same time or switching back and forth between tasks.

Multi-tasking is a myth, scientists say. We may think we’re multi-tasking, but in reality, our brains are madly switching from one thing to the next, often losing data in the process.

So why do we keep trying to do it? Multi-tasking makes us feel more productive. And that false feeling of productivity, experts say, is addictive.

Here are a few ways to kick the multi-tasking habit for good and become a paragon of single-tasking:

  • Keep a time journalof what you achieve when single-tasking or multi-tasking. Note the time each time you measure, and write down what you achieve in both modes. See whether you can notice your productivity rising when you single-task. Noticing the benefits can motivate you to switch permanently to single-tasking.

 

 

  • Switch off as many distractions as you can.Silence your phone, log off from your email account, and so on. Then set a timer for whatever amount of time you need to work, and record how much you get done.

 

  • Practice mindfulness during breaksbetween tasks. Once you’ve completed a task, get up, stretch, take some deep breaths or go for a mindful walk.
  1. Use Mindful Reminders

Remembering to be mindful is challenging, even for veteran meditators and mindfulness students.

Here’s why: the brain’s normal (default) mode is to be lost in thought while running internal narratives. As we go through our routine daily activities, our brains automatically switch into this unmindful state.

One Harvard study showed that people spend nearly half of each day lost in thought, performing many actions automatically. And though we often think of day-dreaming as pleasant, this study also showed that unmindful thoughts frequently take us into negative or unproductive ruts and sabotage our well-being.

Operating on auto-pilot means that you’re not fully present and awake to the opportunities and choices around you. You’re unable to be creative or thoughtful, you can’t come up with new ideas or solutions – some of the best parts of owning a mind are simply unavailable to you.

 

Reminders can help bring you back to mindfulness. Here are some effective reminders to try:

Set an alarm on your phone – a vibrating alarm that doesn’t disturb others can work well.

  • Add mindful exercises in your daily schedule – set an appointment with yourself, and keep it.
  • Post a small note or picture on your deskto remind you to be mindful.
  • Associate certain activities with mindfulness, such as meal times or meetings or when finishing one task and starting another.
  • Use the sound of bellsand rings in the workplace as “bells of mindfulness.”
  1. Slow Down to Speed Up

By slowing down, you can become more efficient, productive, happy, resilient and healthy at work.

Chronic rushing is a misuse of energy and leads to bad decisions. Instead, pause, focus on listening, stroll rather than run, and generally take your time at work.

Effective leaders, workers, and entrepreneurs slow down and reflect to make the best decisions—they slow down to speed up. That’s a mindful way of working.

 

  1. Feel Gratitude

Human beings have what psychologists call a “negativity bias.” That’s a tendency to react more intensely to negative stimuli than equally strong positive stimuli.

We owe this tendency to our primitive ancestors, who made life and death decisions all the time.

Makes sense, right? Back then, it was far more important to remember the poisonous striped snake by the river than the tree with super-sweet plums on the hill.

In modern times, however, that negativity bias is basically a useless buzzkill. It dampens our happiness and pre-disposes up to fear and anxiety.

 

Having a negativity bias “is a great way to pass on gene copies, but a lousy way to promote quality of life,” says Dr. Rick Hanson, psychologist and senior fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.

Our work places are full of things to worry about, from possible future layoffs to perceived bad vibes from the boss. That’s why it’s so important to fight our faulty programming.

“Be mindful of the degree to which your brain is wired to make you afraid, wired so that you walk around with an ongoing trickle of anxiety (a flood for some) to keep you on alert,” Hanson says.

Remember that we tend “to tune out or de-emphasize reassuring good news, and keep thinking about the one thing that was negative in a day in which a hundred small things happened, ninety-nine of which were neutral or positive.”

The antidote to all this predisposed negativity?

Gratitude!

Being grateful helps us realize how many blessings we truly have. It helps us step away from fear and anxiety and feel better. It helps us stay positive and put problems in perspective. It boosts our creativity, health, working relationships and quality of work.

Of course, this brings up another problem with our troublesome minds: we’re not hardwired to be grateful. For the same reason we focus on negative stimuli, most of us don’t spend enough time reflecting on how lucky we are.

Not to worry – we can recover from gratitude-deficit. Try these tricks to bring more gratitude into your life:

 

 

 

http://www.dailygood.org/story/1166/10-ways-to-become-more-grateful-robert-emmons/

 

 

  • Keep a Gratitude Journal. Establish a daily practice in which you remind yourself of the gifts, grace, benefits, and good things you enjoy. Setting aside time on a daily basis to recall moments of gratitude associated with ordinary events, your personal attributes, or valued people in your life gives you the potential to interweave a sustainable life theme of gratefulness.
  • Remember the Bad. To be grateful in your current state, it is helpful to remember the hard times that you once experienced. When you remember how difficult life used to be and how far you have come, you set up an explicit contrast in your mind, and this contrast is fertile ground for gratefulness.

 

  • Ask Yourself Three Questions. Utilize the meditation technique known as Naikan, which involves reflecting on three questions: “What have I received from __?”, “What have I given to __?”, and “What troubles and difficulty have I caused?”

 

  • Learn Prayers of Gratitude. In many spiritual traditions, prayers of gratitude are the most powerful form of prayer, because through these prayers people recognize the ultimate source of all they are and all they will ever be.

 

  • Come to Your Senses. Through our senses—the ability to touch, see, smell, taste, and hear—we gain an appreciation of what it means to be human and of what an incredible miracle it is to be alive. Seen through the lens of gratitude, the human body is not only a miraculous construction, but also a gift.

 

  • Use Visual Reminders. Because the two primary obstacles to gratefulness are forgetfulness and a lack of mindful awareness, visual reminders can serve as cues to trigger thoughts of gratitude.

 

  • Make a Vow to Practice Gratitude. Research shows that making an oath to perform a behavior increases the likelihood that the action will be executed. Therefore, write your own gratitude vow, which could be as simple as “I vow to count my blessings each day,” and post it somewhere where you will be reminded of it every day.

 

  • Watch your Language. Words are powerful and often reflect the way we think. That’s why grateful people often use happy words like gift, giver, blessing, blessed, fortune, fortunate and abundance. Try using a few and see if it doesn’t add to your happiness.

 

  • Fake it until….. As a last recourse, go through the motions of gratitude — it’s very likely to trigger true gratitude. Motions of gratitude include smiling, saying thank you, and writing grateful letters and notes.

 

 

 

The post HOW TO STAY MINDFUL AT WORK appeared first on .


HOW TO STAY MINDFUL AT WORK

 

By Kate Taylor

 

In the corner office, a woman scans her email, talks on the phone and intermittently sips from a giant coffee cup. In a nearby cubicle, a man listens to hold music while stapling paper stacks and squinting across the room at a wall clock. Up at the reception desk, another man plays online Solitaire while eating soup and preparing office supply orders.

This is a snapshot of an office where I once worked. Indeed, it’s what most of my past workplaces looked like. And according to social psychologists, it’s what most American workplaces (those with cubicles, desks and chairs, anyway) look like.

Everybody multi-tasking. Nobody giving their full attention to a single task.

“The bottom line is we are all constantly self-distracting,” says Larry Rosen, Ph.D., author and research psychologist.

Rarely, he says, do we “focus and attend” any task for more than three to five minutes. We’re perpetually distracted — primarily by emails, texts and other social media.

No wonder it’s so hard to be mindful at work.

But don’t give up just yet!

Above all, mindfulness requires practice, and the following expert tips are all you need to keep off autopilot and stay mindful throughout your work day.

 

 

 

https://www.mindful.org/10-ways-mindful-work/

 

 

  1. Be Consciously Present

Mindfulness is about being aware and awake rather than operating unconsciously. When you’re consciously present at work, you’re aware of two aspects of your moment-to-moment experience — what’s going on around you and what’s going on within you.

If you’re mindfully writing a report, for example, you give it your full attention. You choose the words you type with care. You remain aware of how your chair supports you and how the keyboard keys feel beneath your fingertips.

Sounds easy, right?

Perhaps, if you’ve spent the last five months on a silent retreat. Most people, however, are used to giving far less than 100 percent of their attention to work. As they write a report, a third or even half of their attention drifts with music coming through their earphones. Or wanders to last night’s Game of Thrones episode. Or rumbles about needing some fries.

If you’re trying to boost your mindfulness at work, don’t let your undisciplined thoughts discourage you. Staying present requires practice. Lots of practice. ‘When you catch your thoughts slipping away to global warming or Kim Kardashian-land, just acknowledge what’s happening and usher them back to the task at hand. Here are some extra mindfulness tips to boost your chances of success:

 

 

  • Make a clear decisionat the start of your workday to be present as best you can. Pause for a few moments before you start your work to set this intention in your mind.

 

  • Make an effort to work more consciously, even if that means that you need to work more slowly at first—doing so pays off in the long run.

 

  • Keep the advantages of being presentin mind to motivate you. Mindfulness brings a powerful sense of calm and focus to your day and will help you produce your best work.

 

  • Give your full attention to seemingly mundane taskslike typing, loading the copy machine and dialing phone numbers. If you’re just waiting in a meeting room, just focus on your breathing. These little moments can energize you and bring unexpected pleasure and peace.
  1. Use Short Mindful Exercises at Work

 

Mindful exercises train your brain to be more present. The more you do, the easier your brain finds it to drop into a mindful state, thus optimizing your brain function.

In a busy workplace, it might seem impossible to find time for mindful exercises. No worries — they can be as short as you want them to be. In fact, just a minute of consciously connecting with one of your senses qualifies as a mindful exercise. You don’t need to make is obvious to others by assuming a lotus position or closing your eyes. You don’t even need to be sitting down. So be creative! Find the time for several mindful exercises every day.

 

Quick way to fall in love with mindfulness:

Try a mindful exercise when work-stress is driving you to your limit. Just closing your eyes and tuning everything out for two minutes can help rebalance your nervous system, tone down the fight-or-flight response and engage the wisest part of your brain. Once relaxed, you’ll be far less reactive and better equipped to make smart decisions.

  1. Be a Single-Tasker

Single-tasking means doing one thing at a time. Multi-tasking means trying to do two or more tasks at the same time or switching back and forth between tasks.

Multi-tasking is a myth, scientists say. We may think we’re multi-tasking, but in reality, our brains are madly switching from one thing to the next, often losing data in the process.

So why do we keep trying to do it? Multi-tasking makes us feel more productive. And that false feeling of productivity, experts say, is addictive.

Here are a few ways to kick the multi-tasking habit for good and become a paragon of single-tasking:

  • Keep a time journalof what you achieve when single-tasking or multi-tasking. Note the time each time you measure, and write down what you achieve in both modes. See whether you can notice your productivity rising when you single-task. Noticing the benefits can motivate you to switch permanently to single-tasking.

 

 

  • Switch off as many distractions as you can.Silence your phone, log off from your email account, and so on. Then set a timer for whatever amount of time you need to work, and record how much you get done.

 

  • Practice mindfulness during breaksbetween tasks. Once you’ve completed a task, get up, stretch, take some deep breaths or go for a mindful walk.
  1. Use Mindful Reminders

Remembering to be mindful is challenging, even for veteran meditators and mindfulness students.

Here’s why: the brain’s normal (default) mode is to be lost in thought while running internal narratives. As we go through our routine daily activities, our brains automatically switch into this unmindful state.

One Harvard study showed that people spend nearly half of each day lost in thought, performing many actions automatically. And though we often think of day-dreaming as pleasant, this study also showed that unmindful thoughts frequently take us into negative or unproductive ruts and sabotage our well-being.

Operating on auto-pilot means that you’re not fully present and awake to the opportunities and choices around you. You’re unable to be creative or thoughtful, you can’t come up with new ideas or solutions – some of the best parts of owning a mind are simply unavailable to you.

 

Reminders can help bring you back to mindfulness. Here are some effective reminders to try:

Set an alarm on your phone – a vibrating alarm that doesn’t disturb others can work well.

  • Add mindful exercises in your daily schedule – set an appointment with yourself, and keep it.
  • Post a small note or picture on your deskto remind you to be mindful.
  • Associate certain activities with mindfulness, such as meal times or meetings or when finishing one task and starting another.
  • Use the sound of bellsand rings in the workplace as “bells of mindfulness.”
  1. Slow Down to Speed Up

By slowing down, you can become more efficient, productive, happy, resilient and healthy at work.

Chronic rushing is a misuse of energy and leads to bad decisions. Instead, pause, focus on listening, stroll rather than run, and generally take your time at work.

Effective leaders, workers, and entrepreneurs slow down and reflect to make the best decisions—they slow down to speed up. That’s a mindful way of working.

 

  1. Feel Gratitude

Human beings have what psychologists call a “negativity bias.” That’s a tendency to react more intensely to negative stimuli than equally strong positive stimuli.

We owe this tendency to our primitive ancestors, who made life and death decisions all the time.

Makes sense, right? Back then, it was far more important to remember the poisonous striped snake by the river than the tree with super-sweet plums on the hill.

In modern times, however, that negativity bias is basically a useless buzzkill. It dampens our happiness and pre-disposes up to fear and anxiety.

 

Having a negativity bias “is a great way to pass on gene copies, but a lousy way to promote quality of life,” says Dr. Rick Hanson, psychologist and senior fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.

Our work places are full of things to worry about, from possible future layoffs to perceived bad vibes from the boss. That’s why it’s so important to fight our faulty programming.

“Be mindful of the degree to which your brain is wired to make you afraid, wired so that you walk around with an ongoing trickle of anxiety (a flood for some) to keep you on alert,” Hanson says.

Remember that we tend “to tune out or de-emphasize reassuring good news, and keep thinking about the one thing that was negative in a day in which a hundred small things happened, ninety-nine of which were neutral or positive.”

The antidote to all this predisposed negativity?

Gratitude!

Being grateful helps us realize how many blessings we truly have. It helps us step away from fear and anxiety and feel better. It helps us stay positive and put problems in perspective. It boosts our creativity, health, working relationships and quality of work.

Of course, this brings up another problem with our troublesome minds: we’re not hardwired to be grateful. For the same reason we focus on negative stimuli, most of us don’t spend enough time reflecting on how lucky we are.

Not to worry – we can recover from gratitude-deficit. Try these tricks to bring more gratitude into your life:

 

 

 

http://www.dailygood.org/story/1166/10-ways-to-become-more-grateful-robert-emmons/

 

 

  • Keep a Gratitude Journal. Establish a daily practice in which you remind yourself of the gifts, grace, benefits, and good things you enjoy. Setting aside time on a daily basis to recall moments of gratitude associated with ordinary events, your personal attributes, or valued people in your life gives you the potential to interweave a sustainable life theme of gratefulness.
  • Remember the Bad. To be grateful in your current state, it is helpful to remember the hard times that you once experienced. When you remember how difficult life used to be and how far you have come, you set up an explicit contrast in your mind, and this contrast is fertile ground for gratefulness.

 

  • Ask Yourself Three Questions. Utilize the meditation technique known as Naikan, which involves reflecting on three questions: “What have I received from __?”, “What have I given to __?”, and “What troubles and difficulty have I caused?”

 

  • Learn Prayers of Gratitude. In many spiritual traditions, prayers of gratitude are the most powerful form of prayer, because through these prayers people recognize the ultimate source of all they are and all they will ever be.

 

  • Come to Your Senses. Through our senses—the ability to touch, see, smell, taste, and hear—we gain an appreciation of what it means to be human and of what an incredible miracle it is to be alive. Seen through the lens of gratitude, the human body is not only a miraculous construction, but also a gift.

 

  • Use Visual Reminders. Because the two primary obstacles to gratefulness are forgetfulness and a lack of mindful awareness, visual reminders can serve as cues to trigger thoughts of gratitude.

 

  • Make a Vow to Practice Gratitude. Research shows that making an oath to perform a behavior increases the likelihood that the action will be executed. Therefore, write your own gratitude vow, which could be as simple as “I vow to count my blessings each day,” and post it somewhere where you will be reminded of it every day.

 

  • Watch your Language. Words are powerful and often reflect the way we think. That’s why grateful people often use happy words like gift, giver, blessing, blessed, fortune, fortunate and abundance. Try using a few and see if it doesn’t add to your happiness.

 

  • Fake it until….. As a last recourse, go through the motions of gratitude — it’s very likely to trigger true gratitude. Motions of gratitude include smiling, saying thank you, and writing grateful letters and notes.

 

 

 

The post HOW TO STAY MINDFUL AT WORK appeared first on .