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I Feel like I am Stuck in the Office
Sticky Learning Lunch #31: Feel Like Your Constantly Stuck in the Office?
When working from Home I Feel like I am Always Stuck in the Office. Discover ways to separate home & work, and be much happier in both.
You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:
Nathan Simmonds:
Good afternoon. Sticky learning lunches. Just waiting for the last couple of people to arrive. Looking forward to doing this session today. Good afternoon. Just waiting for people to get in. Good afternoon, Claire. Good to see you. Colin. Great to see you again. Thanks for being here. Fabian, wonderful to see you again, Gareth, splendid. Laura and Tim, thanks for being here. Just what given to give it 30 seconds as always, just as I'm having a mouthful of tea, before we dive into this, make sure we've got our phones up. Let's make sure our phones are on flight mode. Cancel out the distractions. Give yourselves a hundred percent attention right now. Let's see. Just gonna give it 30 seconds.
Nathan Simmonds:
Question for those that were already here. What is, we've been in lockdown for, what? 11 weeks, 12 weeks now? It feels like a long time. Maybe. Maybe I'm exaggerating that. Firstly, how long have you been in lockdown for? And secondly, what's the strangest randomest thing that you've actually, you know, learned to do or, or put your time into doing While you've had all this extra time, let me know in the questions box or the chat box, how long have you been in lockdown for?
Nathan Simmonds:
What's the strangest thing that you, or the newest thing that you've been learning to do since you had the all this extra time to play with. Just as we're waiting for the people to arrive. And let me know in the questions box and I'll share with you my new project in just a moment. Completely unwork related, sort of good last few people just arriving. Focus on them, the colleagues, always focusing on them.
Find out how to break the cycle of working from home
Nathan Simmonds:
Alright, pens in pockets ready to go. Welcome to today's Sticky Learning Lunch with me, Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM Making Business Matter. Excited to be here again. Been doing this for six weeks. I think I've worked out earlier, just over six weeks now. We've been delivering these lunchtime, learning these micro learnings to give you ideas that's gonna help you be the best version of you in what you do right now and prepare you for the return to work, whatever that might look like over the coming weeks and days and weeks.
Nathan Simmonds:
Welcome to this sticky lunch. So for those that don't know or maybe new to making business matter, MBM is the home of sticky learning. We are the leadership development and soft skills provided to the grocery and manufacturing industry. And I just wanna share some core ideas just to help you push your concepts in thinking forward. One of the most valuable things that we do at MBM is we make learning stick. And what does that mean for HR professionals and, and l and d professionals and leaders out there?
Nathan Simmonds:
Is the way that we deliver our training. Makes sure that the training and the learning is embedded and stays there and is getting used. Too many training providers go in one day, deliver a piece of content and then exit. And then maybe they do kind of their, their evaluation sheets or maybe they have a bit of a conversation a couple of months time, but they don't go back and revisit or address or support or tweak and adjust that content as those learning experiences start to adapt and evolve in the live environment.
Nathan Simmonds:
So, making business matter, the way that we structure our learning and development is all about making sure that these new skills, these new ideas and these new concepts stay in, get used and create results. One, one of these, you know, the elements of, of what we are doing here, right at the beginning of this situation in lockdown, we went through a model called mindset. And it was all about your mindset and, and how you are dealing with certain elements of the lockdown situation.
Nathan Simmonds:
And what we are doing today is we're coming back to revisit some of the core elements in there just to make sure you are refreshing and a and a and keeping that think and evolving about how you are interacting with this current circumstance. How you are making the most of it, how you are adapting to the new working world that we're in.
Nathan Simmonds:
And this session is about coming back to that, doing the revisit, doing the redress on it and making sure that we're recalibrating and pushing it forward. So what does mindset stand for? Well, the first part of mindset is about manage. It's about managing yourself and managing what you do and how you are working on a daily basis. Bear with me, my laptop is just decided to do something a little bit peculiar and it's about having routines.
Nathan Simmonds:
It's about how you manage yourself in the process of what we're doing. One of the key things I wanted to talk to you about today and just remind you in this first part is making sure that you have a to-do list and also making sure that you have a to don't list because it is really easy. When we are in isolation, which is the other part of the mindset model, it's really easy that we start to lose focus on things.
Nathan Simmonds:
We don't want to get involved in new projects and we may still be feeling that now. We may be challenged by certain situations are work, home, life balance and whether we are homeschooling or how that's working. And because of some of these things we get thrown off kilter, off, off balance and our routine starts to get taken, takes a bit of a knock. How many people here have a really robust routine on a scale of one to 10, one being terrible, 10 being phenomenal, what is your daily routine like right now? Let's see what we've got. So 10 weeks, 10 weeks in lockdown so far leading teams and keeping them around up from a distance.
Nathan Simmonds:
Absolutely. It's a, it is a skillset in itself. Hmm, good. So morning routine seven some days three on others. That's good. I like there, there's a varying there, you know, a couple of other sevens coming in. What's the thing question here, you know, going into, into the, into the group, what's the thing then that really knocks your daily routine off? What's, you know, what really really take, you know knocks your attention and really kind of throws the whole day out for you? What are the things that made that happen?
Nathan Simmonds:
Got an average of 8.5 surprises, unplanned events. Good. So it's the ad hoc stuff, the curve balls that come in. The routine and establishing that routine is making sure that we have the breaks. It's making sure that we have the to-do list so we know what we need to do tomorrow. We know what we're starting. We know when we start the day, we give ourselves 10, 15 minutes at the beginning of the day just to go back over the things that we know we need to do and making sure we're documenting them. Also going back in there and, and like I say, having that list and having the to don't list and making sure you are putting things on there that you are guaranteed that you are gonna say no to.
Nathan Simmonds:
Because the question from me to you is if you say yes to them, what are you actually saying no to? This makes sense. If you say yes to the things that you know that are not gonna be productive, that are gonna hold you back or cause a problem. If you say yes to those things, what are you actually saying no to? To think about that for a moment. When we look at the things like surprises and events, if we go back to that Brian Tracy analogy, which is about eat the frog.
Nathan Simmonds:
And for some of you that may have heard this phrase before, do eat the frog. Why? Because it's probably the most repulsive, disgusting thing you can think about today. Eating a frog, that's disgusting. I'm not doing it. The idea, come on though, when you do your to-do list, what is the most difficult thing on that list? What is the thing that you are procrastinating about? What is the thing that you're trying to avoid doing and wish someone else would do?
Nathan Simmonds:
And in truth, if you're working from home and you're on your own, no one else is gonna do it. So what you need to do is make sure that you eat the frog first. Get your to-do list, get your todo list. See what the most difficult thing is challenging thing that you need to get done first on that list and get it done. 'cause Then what happens is when the surprise comes in, when the unplanned event comes in, you are guaranteed to still feel success 'cause you did the difficult thing that's still not weighing down on you.
Nathan Simmonds:
The idea is that when we end the day, we don't feel like atlas. I'm not sure if it was the Greek or Roman gold with the whole world on our shoulders being weighed down in truth, you know, potentially it's just a giant frog. We just need to chop it up into small bite-sized chunks and just eat it. Hope this is useful to do List to don't list. Eat your frogs. This is the first part I wanted to go back over with it just to help you deal with some of those surprises. The second thing I wanted to get in there was around structure.
Nathan Simmonds:
So the, the one of the biggest challenges that we have in isolation is going through the guilt part of it is we suddenly feel guilty because we've got all this spare time and then so we're going do more work and then we feel like we're going into overwhelm and doing too much and we go back and we're not sure. So we're going busy, busy, busy freedom, freedom, freedom. And we're still going through little waves of that depending on the projects et cetera that we're working on. So it's really important that we are taking time to breathe and, and we're structuring our day.
Nathan Simmonds:
Again, it comes back to that routine.
View all episodes
By Darren A. SmithSticky Learning Lunch #31: Feel Like Your Constantly Stuck in the Office?
When working from Home I Feel like I am Always Stuck in the Office. Discover ways to separate home & work, and be much happier in both.
You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:
Nathan Simmonds:
Good afternoon. Sticky learning lunches. Just waiting for the last couple of people to arrive. Looking forward to doing this session today. Good afternoon. Just waiting for people to get in. Good afternoon, Claire. Good to see you. Colin. Great to see you again. Thanks for being here. Fabian, wonderful to see you again, Gareth, splendid. Laura and Tim, thanks for being here. Just what given to give it 30 seconds as always, just as I'm having a mouthful of tea, before we dive into this, make sure we've got our phones up. Let's make sure our phones are on flight mode. Cancel out the distractions. Give yourselves a hundred percent attention right now. Let's see. Just gonna give it 30 seconds.
Nathan Simmonds:
Question for those that were already here. What is, we've been in lockdown for, what? 11 weeks, 12 weeks now? It feels like a long time. Maybe. Maybe I'm exaggerating that. Firstly, how long have you been in lockdown for? And secondly, what's the strangest randomest thing that you've actually, you know, learned to do or, or put your time into doing While you've had all this extra time, let me know in the questions box or the chat box, how long have you been in lockdown for?
Nathan Simmonds:
What's the strangest thing that you, or the newest thing that you've been learning to do since you had the all this extra time to play with. Just as we're waiting for the people to arrive. And let me know in the questions box and I'll share with you my new project in just a moment. Completely unwork related, sort of good last few people just arriving. Focus on them, the colleagues, always focusing on them.
Find out how to break the cycle of working from home
Nathan Simmonds:
Alright, pens in pockets ready to go. Welcome to today's Sticky Learning Lunch with me, Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM Making Business Matter. Excited to be here again. Been doing this for six weeks. I think I've worked out earlier, just over six weeks now. We've been delivering these lunchtime, learning these micro learnings to give you ideas that's gonna help you be the best version of you in what you do right now and prepare you for the return to work, whatever that might look like over the coming weeks and days and weeks.
Nathan Simmonds:
Welcome to this sticky lunch. So for those that don't know or maybe new to making business matter, MBM is the home of sticky learning. We are the leadership development and soft skills provided to the grocery and manufacturing industry. And I just wanna share some core ideas just to help you push your concepts in thinking forward. One of the most valuable things that we do at MBM is we make learning stick. And what does that mean for HR professionals and, and l and d professionals and leaders out there?
Nathan Simmonds:
Is the way that we deliver our training. Makes sure that the training and the learning is embedded and stays there and is getting used. Too many training providers go in one day, deliver a piece of content and then exit. And then maybe they do kind of their, their evaluation sheets or maybe they have a bit of a conversation a couple of months time, but they don't go back and revisit or address or support or tweak and adjust that content as those learning experiences start to adapt and evolve in the live environment.
Nathan Simmonds:
So, making business matter, the way that we structure our learning and development is all about making sure that these new skills, these new ideas and these new concepts stay in, get used and create results. One, one of these, you know, the elements of, of what we are doing here, right at the beginning of this situation in lockdown, we went through a model called mindset. And it was all about your mindset and, and how you are dealing with certain elements of the lockdown situation.
Nathan Simmonds:
And what we are doing today is we're coming back to revisit some of the core elements in there just to make sure you are refreshing and a and a and keeping that think and evolving about how you are interacting with this current circumstance. How you are making the most of it, how you are adapting to the new working world that we're in.
Nathan Simmonds:
And this session is about coming back to that, doing the revisit, doing the redress on it and making sure that we're recalibrating and pushing it forward. So what does mindset stand for? Well, the first part of mindset is about manage. It's about managing yourself and managing what you do and how you are working on a daily basis. Bear with me, my laptop is just decided to do something a little bit peculiar and it's about having routines.
Nathan Simmonds:
It's about how you manage yourself in the process of what we're doing. One of the key things I wanted to talk to you about today and just remind you in this first part is making sure that you have a to-do list and also making sure that you have a to don't list because it is really easy. When we are in isolation, which is the other part of the mindset model, it's really easy that we start to lose focus on things.
Nathan Simmonds:
We don't want to get involved in new projects and we may still be feeling that now. We may be challenged by certain situations are work, home, life balance and whether we are homeschooling or how that's working. And because of some of these things we get thrown off kilter, off, off balance and our routine starts to get taken, takes a bit of a knock. How many people here have a really robust routine on a scale of one to 10, one being terrible, 10 being phenomenal, what is your daily routine like right now? Let's see what we've got. So 10 weeks, 10 weeks in lockdown so far leading teams and keeping them around up from a distance.
Nathan Simmonds:
Absolutely. It's a, it is a skillset in itself. Hmm, good. So morning routine seven some days three on others. That's good. I like there, there's a varying there, you know, a couple of other sevens coming in. What's the thing question here, you know, going into, into the, into the group, what's the thing then that really knocks your daily routine off? What's, you know, what really really take, you know knocks your attention and really kind of throws the whole day out for you? What are the things that made that happen?
Nathan Simmonds:
Got an average of 8.5 surprises, unplanned events. Good. So it's the ad hoc stuff, the curve balls that come in. The routine and establishing that routine is making sure that we have the breaks. It's making sure that we have the to-do list so we know what we need to do tomorrow. We know what we're starting. We know when we start the day, we give ourselves 10, 15 minutes at the beginning of the day just to go back over the things that we know we need to do and making sure we're documenting them. Also going back in there and, and like I say, having that list and having the to don't list and making sure you are putting things on there that you are guaranteed that you are gonna say no to.
Nathan Simmonds:
Because the question from me to you is if you say yes to them, what are you actually saying no to? This makes sense. If you say yes to the things that you know that are not gonna be productive, that are gonna hold you back or cause a problem. If you say yes to those things, what are you actually saying no to? To think about that for a moment. When we look at the things like surprises and events, if we go back to that Brian Tracy analogy, which is about eat the frog.
Nathan Simmonds:
And for some of you that may have heard this phrase before, do eat the frog. Why? Because it's probably the most repulsive, disgusting thing you can think about today. Eating a frog, that's disgusting. I'm not doing it. The idea, come on though, when you do your to-do list, what is the most difficult thing on that list? What is the thing that you are procrastinating about? What is the thing that you're trying to avoid doing and wish someone else would do?
Nathan Simmonds:
And in truth, if you're working from home and you're on your own, no one else is gonna do it. So what you need to do is make sure that you eat the frog first. Get your to-do list, get your todo list. See what the most difficult thing is challenging thing that you need to get done first on that list and get it done. 'cause Then what happens is when the surprise comes in, when the unplanned event comes in, you are guaranteed to still feel success 'cause you did the difficult thing that's still not weighing down on you.
Nathan Simmonds:
The idea is that when we end the day, we don't feel like atlas. I'm not sure if it was the Greek or Roman gold with the whole world on our shoulders being weighed down in truth, you know, potentially it's just a giant frog. We just need to chop it up into small bite-sized chunks and just eat it. Hope this is useful to do List to don't list. Eat your frogs. This is the first part I wanted to go back over with it just to help you deal with some of those surprises. The second thing I wanted to get in there was around structure.
Nathan Simmonds:
So the, the one of the biggest challenges that we have in isolation is going through the guilt part of it is we suddenly feel guilty because we've got all this spare time and then so we're going do more work and then we feel like we're going into overwhelm and doing too much and we go back and we're not sure. So we're going busy, busy, busy freedom, freedom, freedom. And we're still going through little waves of that depending on the projects et cetera that we're working on. So it's really important that we are taking time to breathe and, and we're structuring our day.
Nathan Simmonds:
Again, it comes back to that routine.