Let’s face it, the workday can be daunting prospect for the average office worker. Endless hours cooped up in a cubicle or sharing a space with a number of colleagues, hunched over your laptop or PC or glued to the phone, dealing with endless issues and difficult, demanding people.
It is no wonder that at the end of the work day, many office workers feel unmotivated, uninspired, and just exhausted and burnt out.
But friends, the reality is, that unless we are amongst the lucky few who do not need to work for a living, there is not much that can be done. For better or worse, we do need to work (most of the time, for someone else), and so we do need to put up with situations, personalities and circumstances that are not to our liking in the office. It “comes with the territory” so to speak.
So, is there nothing we can do?
Are we confined to a life of misery as we struggle through one work day after another, desperately hoping for weekends and public holidays so that we can avoid the office? No! As with everything in life, we always do have a choice. Instead of just reacting to everything that happens at work and feeling burnt out, try taking control of your responses to everything that happens at your office and keep yourself constantly recharged.
Here are some tips and ideas to get you started on your new “Staying Re-Charged” programme at work.
1. Improve your people management skills.
The single most important thing to do in order to stay recharged at work is to identify difficult people who are draining your energy at work, and identifying how you can improve the way you manage them. They could be your subordinates, colleagues or bosses. They could even be customers or clients.
While some people are fundamentally better at managing people than others, everyone can still improve on this from their current level. One way of doing this is to make a list of all the characteristics of the person that you dislike, and/or the ways in which the person has negatively impacted you at work, and work out how you could better manage communications in order to block or pre-empt that negative behavior from impacting you again.
For example, let us say that your boss keeps piling additional work onto you which you do not have the resources to complete on time. Taking charge of communications might see you approaching your boss with a comprehensive list of your existing projects and workload, together with an estimate of time and resources required to complete it.
With this list in hand as tangible evidence of what you are currently working on, you could try to negotiate your way out of additional work, instead of helplessly saying “Er, yes, uhm, ok…”
2. Take time off
Yes, much more difficult than it sounds… Malaysian companies are not big on employee time off, are they? J
Ever applied for annual leave only to be told “Application for leave not approved – Boss needs you here for Project X or Meeting Y!” Ah well, we’ve all been there. One possible solution is to go for mini-breaks instead of so-called “long” leave, as it is harder to take several days off given the push-back you are likely to receive from your office.
Instead, try to apply for 1 day, say on Friday or Monday, thereby extending your weekend by a day and using that day, to do something special for yourself. You’ll find that you feel fairly recharged just by that 1 or 2 extra days to yourself, while not having fallen that far behind on your work.
3. Take breaks and exercise during the day
Now this, is something that even the most harassed and stressed-out employee can do. If you sit at your desk for long periods of time, schedule breaks every 1 hour. Get up, walk around the office, go outside for some fresh air, go make a cup of coffee at the pantry or go visit a colleague. Research has established that there are clear benefits in getting up and moving around periodically instead of sitting for hours on end in a chair.
Also, schedule regular stretching during office hours even while sitting in your office chair. You can easily stretch your hands above your head and stretch your neck periodically, as well as your fingers and wrists. You could also bend down and touch the floor, from a seated position as this will help with circulation and give your back a stretch as well. It’s amazing how much better and more re-charged, a little bit of movement can make you feel.
4. Perceive your workday as contributing to YOUR own professional development
Obviously, working for the boss or the company is not nearly as inspiring and motivational as working for yourself. But for a variety of reasons, not everyone aspires to be an entrepreneur because of the risk factors. Instead, there is much to be said for the security and stability of full time employment.
So to combine the benefits and get the best of both worlds, why not look upon your day job as something that contributes to your own professional development by adding on to your own personal resume/cv, instead of just something that you do for someone else.
Use this style of thinking to increase your technical skill, learn more about every aspect of the business, volunteer for new projects, take on more work, look for opportunities to shine and outperform your colleagues. Not only will this have the effect of enhancing your personal resume/cv and establishing your reputation as the “expert” in your area, it could even earn you better bonuses and increments at work! J
Hopefully, the above tips have left you feeling recharged and ready to blaze into your office with renewed energy! J
