Work Smart Live Smart with Beverly Beuermann-King

We are missing out on living life, the more we have our noses buried in our phones or spend time chronicling our every move through Facebook and Instagram. Not to mention that constant connectivity negatively affects your sleep, takes a toll on your mental health and can lead to burnout. Ditching your devices gives your brain a much-needed rest.

Have you tried to disconnect, but FOMO took over? Could you go unplugged for 24 hours? Do you check your phone or social media out of boredom or procrastination?

Maybe it is time for a detox?

Tips For Building Resiliency and Celebrating National Day Of Unplugging:

Unplugging allows us to connect with ourselves, our loved ones and our communities in real time. 

Take a walk out in nature today. Check out the parks, countryside or stroll along a beach, even if there is still snow on it.

Share a meal with friends or family.

Play together. Try a board game or use conversation starters like ‘would you rather’ to create some fun.

Write a gratitude list.

Meditate and fully relax. This can leave you feeling less stressed, and positively change your brain.

Immerse yourself in the moment. Take in the awesomeness of a sunset without Instagramming it.

Looking for more ways to build your resiliency? Take my free on-line vulnerability test at worksmartlivesmart.com under the resources and courses tab.

An effective leader shows their employees and their team that they appreciate all their hard work and loyalty. When an employee goes above and beyond on a project, a supportive leader shows their appreciation. When the team achieves a difficult objective, a great leader celebrates

Wondering what you can do for your staff to thank them for all their efforts?

Tips For Building Resiliency and Celebrating Employee Appreciation Day:

Celebrate with food. It may be a breakfast, a catered lunch, or a smoothie break during the afternoon slump. What about a team cooking challenge? Provide each team with various ingredients and see what they can put together and enjoy the fun.

Give the gift of time. Give your team a time off coupon that they can use at their choosing.

Shout it out. Give a shoutout to a member who has completed a task or gone above and beyond to meet a deadline.

Send it. A hand-written note, sent to the employee’s home, is an unexpected and genuine way of showing appreciation.

Bring in a massage therapist to do 15-minute chair massages. A little bit of pampering goes along way.

Your employees are your most precious asset, let them know that they are valued and appreciated!

Looking for resources to build your healthy workplace? Check out my top 10 tips under Resources and Courses at worksmartlivesmart.com

Everyone has problems that they need to deal with. Because problems can cause anxiety, many people will try to avoid, ignore or procrastinate when dealing with difficult issues in their lives. Ignoring them is useful sometimes. Unfortunately, with most problems, avoiding them just causes them to come back, and a small problem can become a big problem over time.

Tips For Building Resiliency and Celebrating Do Something Day:

The most difficult step in problem solving is getting to the doing part. To help you carry out your solution, make an action plan. If you know how you are going to carry out your solution, you are more likely to follow through.

Don’t let your own voice derail you. Be aware of and challenge negative self-talk that can stop you from moving forward.

List all the obstacles. Great problem solvers take a high-level view of the issues and list of all the potential factors that could get in the way of implementing their solution so that they don’t get taken off task.

Want to find more strategies to coping with stress? Check out my website at worksmartlivesmart.com

What kind of customer service do you give?

You might be thinking, “I don’t do customer service”.

The reality is that we all DO customer service. Most interactions that we have today are ones where someone is supplying another person, with something.

Customer service is the act of satisfying another’s needs through assistance or service. Some of us deal with external to our company customers, some of us deal with internal to our company customers.

Tips For Building Resiliency and Celebrating Stop Bad Service Day:

We interact with a company because it delivers quality products, great value, or a compelling brand. We leave one, more often than not, because it fails to deliver on customer service.

Whether you are dealing with external or internal customers, know that:

The Customer is not dependant on you - you are dependant on the Customer

The Customer is not an interruption to your work, they are the purpose of your work.

You are not doing the Customer a favour by serving them.

The Customer is deserving of the most courteous and attentive treatment you can provide.  They are not someone to argue with.

Research shows that delighting customers, doesn’t build loyalty.

Reducing their effort and the work they must do to get their problem solved, does.

If we keep at least these four rules in mind, we will be able to stop bad service from ruining ours, or someone else’s day.

Looking for resources to build your resiliency? Check out my Live Smart blog at worksmartlivesmart.com

It’s not a bird. Nor a plane…It’s the Telecommuter!

A survey of employees who telecommute three days a week experienced a

• 46% decrease in stress,

In addition, telecommuting provides an opportunity to create a more harmonious balance between home and work commitments. Three-quarters of employees polled said the ability to work from home was their most desired family-friendly job perk.

Tips For Building Resiliency and Celebrating Telecommuter Appreciation Week:

For some, telecommuting may be a viable option that allows for an increase in productivity and more sense of control over when tasks get accomplished.

If you think that this is for you, sit down with your work team and discuss how this may be implemented.  If telecommuting isn’t the answer, at least you have opened the door to looking for other alternatives to maintaining work and life balance.

Though I am not a true telecommuter, I am an entrepreneur with a home-based office.  I appreciate the flexible work arrangements that I have.  Some days, I work all day and into the evening.  On other days, I may find myself helping out a family member or pulling the weeds from my gardens.  This flexibility gives me the balance that I want and need.

Want to find more strategies to coping with stress?

Check out my website at worksmartlivesmart.com.