Productivity and stress aren’t necessarily two sides of the same coin, but they do go hand in hand, much more often than any of us would like. When you agonize over all the things you have to do, and make changes to your daily rhythms to help you accomplish more, it can take its toll on you; it can make you feel more anxious, more easily depleted. And that, in turn, reduces your productivity—a nasty cycle!

But is it possible to add to your productivity without compounding your stress? I think so, and I think it all comes down to eliminating unnecessary things from your life—tasks or obligations that only add to your workload without actually leading to meaningful achievement.

Let me show you what I mean with a few quick examples.

Be Productive Without Being Stressed

Set aside a few hours each morning to just do work. Make it as early as you need to, but when you have this work time, turn off all desktop and phone notifications. In fact, you might want to go into Do Not Disturb mode. Ignore your inbox and your email just for an hour or two, and let yourself get stuff done without interruption.

Set office hours. Similarly, set aside a couple of hours each day where your door is open and you’re available for any questions or discussions your staff members need to present you with. Encourage them to take advantage of this time, and hopefully reduce interruption during other parts of the day.

Allow yourself a Do Not Disturb buffer. Speaking of which, allow some time when you can be free of any incoming calls, emails, or texts. Set your phone for a recurring Do Not Disturb window, maybe from 9 in the evening until 8 the next morning. Use that time to be with your family, to invest in hobbies, or just to rest.

Set alarms for recurring meetings and daily wake-up times. Don’t fret about remembering standing appointments; let your phone do that for you.

Use an email management tool to cut out spam. Keep your phone from dinging around the clock with unwanted messages. Use a program like Unroll.me to achieve inbox Zen.

Learn how to say no. Don’t hesitate to decline those things you’re asked to do, but you know will cause more stress than they are worth.

Productivity doesn’t have to breed stress. Follow these tips to give yourself the peace of mind you need to really get things done.

Employee stress is serious business, and it can lead to any number of problems. Employees who are stressed tend to be less engaged in their work. Their morale is lower, which means your employee retention can suffer. Stressed employees are also less healthy, which can mean more sick days and higher insurance costs. And of course, employees who are under a lot of stress can make a lot more mistakes.

The thing is, work can be stressful for all of us—no matter our industry and no matter our position. The 9-to-5 life takes its toll. Stress is inevitable for your team members, and if it’s not managed properly it can lead to burnout.

But how can you, as a leader, keep that employee stress in check?

Know What Causes Stress

The first thing you can do is simply to step back and understand what leads to stress. Studies show that stress is caused by many factors, and they may be a little different from one employee to the next. Generally speaking, though, the factors that cause stress are workload, work-life balance, lack of job security, and relations with co-workers.

If you’re not sure why your employees are stressed, I recommend simply starting a conversation with them. Make this a conversation topic during annual reviews, and also check in at team huddles and meetings. Make it clear that your door is open, and that if people are feeling stressed out, you’re more than happy to hear them out, give them a chance to vent, and maybe work together toward some constructive solutions.

Find Constructive Solutions for Stress

As for what those solutions might look like, it can vary from employee to employee and from team to team.

Certainly, having a workplace culture in which people take breaks is essential. Set an example by making time for your own regular coffee breaks, and leave the office from time to time for a short walk. Encourage team members to do likewise. You might even take the step of bringing in an expert to demonstrate some breathing exercises or meditation techniques.

A final recommendation I’d make: Give your team members a sense of belonging. Let them feel like they are essential to your organization, and that what they do matters toward the ultimate goal. Helping them feel important can help them feel more secure, so be open about what the big-picture vision for your company is—and how each team member plays a role in it.

There are many challenges that come with working across cultural lines. You may be worried about what you’re saying is getting “lost in translation.” You may also be concerned over inadvertently stumbling over social etiquette, of saying or doing something that’s perfectly normal in your culture but may be frowned upon elsewhere.

But let me tell you the biggest problem that I see with leaders working across cultural lines: They talk too much. They’re eager to get their point across, to make it clear that they have done their homework—so eager that they effectively shut out their international collaborators.

Erin Meyer, writing for Fast Company, has a fascinating theory as to why this is such a common occurrence among American business leaders working with international peers. The reason, she says, “is the U.S. school system, among the only ones in the world where students are graded largely on how much they speak up and contribute, even if what they say isn’t particularly insightful. Compare that to China, where students learn in school only to speak if they’ve carefully prepared their contribution.”

How to Keep from Talking Too Much

Meyer goes on to offer some tips for overcoming this problem, and for truly being a good collaborator with international peers. It all boils down to graciously and effectively moderating the conversation, ensuring everyone has their chance to speak.

I think these are good and useful tips, and you may even find them helpful in meetings with your own team at your home office.

To summarize:

1. Provide people with a list of questions/points to consider in advance of your meeting. Understand that in many cultures, people are trained not to speak until they’ve formulated a thoughtful response. As such, getting your collaborators to weigh in may require you to give them a heads up about some of the topics and questions you’d like to address.
2. Once you’ve given everyone the chance to prepare, call on them frequently. Rather than letting one person monopolize the discussion, pass the microphone to others in the meeting. Meyer recommends saying something like this: “Thanks for those great comments you made earlier, Joe. Now I’d love to hear from some of you who haven’t had a chance yet. Taka, we haven’t heard from you yet this morning. Your thoughts on this topic?”
3. Be mindful of body language. Your colleagues from other countries may not raise their hand to indicate they want to speak, but you may see some subtler cues in their body language—like if they turn to look at the moderator. Be vigilant about such things, and make sure you yield the floor to those who look like they are ready to speak.

Give everyone in your meeting time to shine. Use these suggestions to make sure the meeting is a true gathering among peers.

You can lay all the necessary groundwork, and make all the necessary plans, for the world’s best conference—but if nobody actually shows up for it, all your effort is for nothing.

And taking an “If I plan it, they will come” approach to your conference simply won’t work. As with anything else you do, a little bit of promotion is needed to get the word out, to attract the best kind of attention for your seminar or event.

So when you’re planning a conference, how do you ensure that people show up for it? Let me provide you with just a few tips on basic conference promotion.

Using Social Media to Promote Your Conference

Harnessing the power of social media is a no brainer; the question is, how do you do it effectively?

• To begin with, make sure you’re using the right platforms. Twitter and LinkedIn are the two big ones for professionals, and I’d probably recommend Facebook, too. Meanwhile, most professional conferences don’t really need Snapchat coverage.
• Establish a hashtag for your conference—something fairly short and easy to spell—and start using it on all Facebook and Twitter posts. Encourage others who are attending the conference to do likewise.
• Create content that people will want to share on social media—not just ticket/registration info, but summaries of the content, profiles on the speakers, supplemental materials, etc.
• Be sure your conference website has social sharing buttons, making it really easy for people to connect with your conference online.

Other Ways to Promote Your Conference

Social media alone isn’t enough, and one thing I’d recommend for all conference promoters is using email marketing. Connect with the people on your email list using a catchy subject line—one that immediately conveys the value of your conference. An email marketing program like MailChimp can be great, too, as you can really make your email message look nice, include plenty of easy-to-spot links, etc. Composing a message that comes across as personal, and including a strong call to action, are also recommended.

One more thing: Write a press release, and distribute it through online newswires such as PR Newswire. This will get you some good Google traction, if nothing else. Though PR marketing isn’t as fashionable as it used to be, it’s still invaluable when you have an actual event to promote.

The bottom line: Remember that if you want people to show up to your conference, you’ve got to be proactive in generating buzz—and there are a number of good ways to do so.

We all want to be liked, and that includes being liked by our workplace peers. And being liked at work isn’t just a matter of feelings or of ego. When you’re not liked, it’s hard to be an effective leader; it’s difficult to collaborate; it’s frankly a challenge to get much of anything done within the context of the team.

So my question today is: Are you unlikeable?

Do you do things that make it difficult for other people to respect or get along with you?

Let me offer some food for thought… some traits that are common among unlikeable people. If you’re guilty of any of these things, you may want to really stop and think about how your peers perceive you, and brainstorm some ways to make yourself a more likeable team member.

Signs of Unlikeable Team Members

Name-dropping. Nobody likes it when you constantly mention the famous or interesting people you know, or rub it in that you’ve worked on a special project with the boss or with a higher manager. Name-dropping reeks of insecurity.

Humble bragging. Backdoor brags are still brags, and they’re still annoying. Giving yourself phony “criticism” for working too hard or being too invested in the team’s success can be a real turn-off.

Close-mindedness. Being likeable requires you to let other people talk and contribute—and at least considering their ideas without shutting them down immediately.

Over-seriousness. It’s fine to be passionate about what you do, or to be absorbed by your work—but don’t let it detract from social interaction with your teammates. Allow yourself some time for small talk, or for just getting to know people over lunch or at company parties.

Gossiping. There’s little that needs to be said here: If you talk badly about other people in the office, it’ll get back to them sooner or later, and a reputation as a gossip is hard to shake.

Failing to ask questions. If you’re so consumed with that you’re going to say next, in a meeting or a conversation, you’ll come across as self-absorbed.

Being unlikeable will make it hard for you to advance your career—so if you fall into any of these camps, you might think about ways to turn over a new leaf. That might even mean working with an executive coach—and of course, I’m here to help if that’s something you want to try!

As a leader, manager, or entrepreneur, you undoubtedly have a lot on your plate—so how can you possibly be expected to make time for healthy habits? That’s a question I get asked often, and what I keep coming back to is this: Developing healthy routines will keep you focused and energetic. It will significantly decrease the number of sick days you have to take. It will make you a more effective and productive person. It’s something you must treat as a priority, and as a non-negotiable in your daily routine.

Treat Your Health Like a Client

A practical way to do this is to treat your personal wellbeing like it’s a client. That means scheduling time for it. Block out an appointment on your calendar each morning to go to the gym. And don’t stop there. Schedule vacation time and “mental health days,” too.

You can’t just hope for your good intentions to carry the day. Most of us live and die by our calendars, so that’s where you need to show that your wellness time is truly important.

Build Healthy Habits into Your Day

Another suggestion is to work some healthy rhythms into your daily routine. Yes, this might mean waking up a little earlier and hitting the gym—but that’s not all it means.

How about this: As you sip your first cup of morning coffee, don’t dive straight into work emails. Instead, have something positive you can read—a good book, maybe—that will help you ease into your day feeling optimistic and refreshed. Those are the kinds of little habits that make a big difference!

Something else you might consider is finding exercises you can do throughout your day—like doing a little plank in your home office, or going for a quick walk around your office building. Again, these little pockets of physical activity, when worked into your day consistently, can add up.

Think about your health today—and about what you can do to prioritize it, even in the midst of a busy work life.

There’s a lot riding on your choice of conference speaker. In a very real way, it could make or break your event. After all, the main speaker effectively sets the tone and provides much of the actionable advice that participants will take away. Pick the wrong speaker for your audience and the entire conference could be a dud.

The question is, how do you ensure that the speaker you pick is a good one? Of course, a little bit of vetting is essential. Let me offer just a few ways in which you can vet your potential speaker.

Vetting a Keynote Speaker

Ask for video footage. Always ask to see some clips of your speaker in action, before you sign on a dotted line. Don’t worry—any reputable and experienced speaker will have some footage they can pass along. If your speaker seems hesitant to share video clips—well, that tells you everything you need to know right there.

Ask about credentials. There is such a thing as a certified public speaker, and inquiring about different accreditations and professional affiliations can give you some sense of the speaker’s bona fides.

Ask for referrals. You might also inquire as to where the speaker has worked before, and call some past clients to see if they are willing to leave a positive review. Again, a speaker who is hesitant to list past clients is likely not someone you want to do business with.

Ask for thought leadership. Most speakers are also publishers, and checking out your speaker’s blog posts and e-books is a good way to feel out how well he or she knows the industry.

Ask your gut. Your intuition is not something you want to ignore. You need a speaker you’ll feel good about working with—and if your gut tells you that a particular speaker just isn’t the one, that’s reason enough to continue the search.

Looking for a Speaker?

As a footnote, let me affirm that I’m more than willing to chat with you about my own experience and credentials; get in touch with me about your next conference or event!

I’ve written a few articles about productivity, and I’ve read many more. I’m always struck by one particular challenge that seems to accompany these articles. Simply put: We’re all different. And different things help us to be productive. While I try to offer guidelines that are fairly adaptive, I know that most productivity hacks are only going to be right for some people. There’s usually not a one-size-fits-all approach.

As such, one of the best things you can do for your own productivity is to dispense with some of those allegedly universal productivity tricks—to acknowledge that some of the things that work well for others may not work as well for you.

Let me show you what I mean.

Common Myths About Productivity

“The really productive people are the ones who wake up at the crack of dawn and begin their days early!”

Sometimes—but sometimes not. You may find early mornings to be particularly energizing, but then again you may find them to be tiring. You may drag in the mornings, and get your best ideas in the evening. And that’s okay! Try to get your work done in the hours that are optimal for your own creative thinking. You don’t have to conform to any particular timetable.

“True productivity arrives when you reach Inbox Zero!”

You know, if having a messy or untamed inbox doesn’t stress you out, then why mess with it? There’s no need to waste your time on it unless you find it to be a problem.

“The most productive people are always very messy/ very neat.”

I hear this one both ways, which is proof enough that there’s no one right way to do things. Let your desk get messy, or tidy it up at the end of each day—whichever method works best for you.

“Truly productive people don’t procrastinate.”

I know a lot of people who work best under pressure—and they really get a lot done when they run up against the clock!

Find Your Own Path to Creativity

So what’s my point? Simply this: Your best bet is to carve out your own path toward creativity—and by the way, that’s something a coach can help you with. Contact me to learn how I can guide you through your own best productivity methods!

It’s often said that, in order to be successful, you’ve got to surround yourself with the right people—the best people. The smartest people. I don’t necessarily think this is wrong, but it might be misleading. You see, all this focus on finding the best people puts a lot of emphasis on what they can do for you.

Yet if you really want to find the best people, you’ve also got to think about what you can do for them.

That’s really what networking boils down to—positing some value of your own. And if you start with that as your guiding principle, you’ll be well on your way to networking greatness.

How Networking Usually Goes

Networking greatness is something that eludes most of us—and if you have ever attended a networking event before, you know what I mean.

The typical scenario is something like this: You cross the room to shake hands with someone. He tells you his name and he explains what his business is. He lists the different things he does. He hands you a business card. You do likewise. You part ways, and probably never think about each other again.

That is not a meaningful connection, because there was no discussion of mutual value—not really.

A Better Way

Now consider this alternative scene.

You walk across the room to shake someone’s hand—but instead of going into your sales pitch, you ask a question. How did you get into this line of work? What first made you interested in this industry? What’s your favorite part of what you do? Something along those lines.

This creates a chance for real conversation—and more likely than not, you’ll find some common ground together. At the end of the conversation, you shake hands again—and that’s a real connection, one that the other party is likely to remember.

See, with that second handshake, you make it clear that you have a real understanding of each other, and of the value you each can bring—and that’s the kind of connection that leads not just to names in your contact list, but to people you might actually call on for help—and vice versa.

The next time you’re at a networking event, think about how you shift the conversation away from the networking norms. Throw away your sales pitch, and try to stake out real connections.

It’s no fun to go through a work day with insufficient sleep—let alone several work days in a row. But sleep deprivation isn’t just a bummer. It can have a negative impact on your mood, your stress levels, and your productivity.

In other words, you may think that burning the midnight oil is helping you to get more done—but actually, when you compromise sleep, you diminish your own ability to do your best, most engaged, and energetic work.

It’s in your best interests, professionally as well as physically and emotionally, to get eight hours of shut-eye each night. Here are a few practical tips to help you accomplish that.

Things to Avoid for a Better Night’s Sleep

For starters, here are some things to steer away from in the evenings.

• Alcohol, which might help you fall to sleep but can also cause sleep disturbances later in the night.
• Nicotine, which can lead to restlessness.
• Caffeine, which can stay in your system for up to 14 hours—so try to cut yourself off by lunch time if at all possible!
• Cell phones, tablets, and other blue light-emitting devices, which can interfere with your natural sleep rhythms; turn them off at least an hour before bed!
• Late-in-the-day naps, which most experts would term anything after 3:00 in the afternoon.

Ways to Fall Asleep More Quickly

As for some more positive steps you might take, here are some sleep aids to try:

• Late-evening exercise.
• A soothing bath.
• Small snacks—try a slice of avocado or a spoonful of almond butter.
• A white noise machine.

I’d also recommend that you ensure your room offers an environment well-suited for sleep—and that means a relatively cool temperature, a firm mattress, and an absence of light.

The bottom line? Anything you do to boost your sleep also boosts your productivity. Try to get better, more restful sleep each night. It can only help your professional life!

Millennial workers differ from previous generations in several respects—but I’d argue that the most significant is this: They don’t take jobs solely on the basis of benefits, nor even career advancement. Both of those things can be important, but more than anything else, the workers of today want to align themselves with the right company culture. They want to be a part of a business whose values and mission they can respect.

If you want to attract the best young workers, then, it’s important to turn your company culture into an asset—a selling point. But this isn’t just about getting the best talents. It’s about attracting talents who will fit within your organization, and align with its purpose and its objectives.

All that’s well and good—but how exactly do you use your culture in the recruiting process? Let me provide just a few brief recommendations.

Recruiting with Your Company Culture

Use Your Website

One thing I like is when company websites go into detail about the culture. This will require you to be specific and transparent. Saying, “Our team members work hard and play hard” doesn’t really reveal anything. Talking about specific team-building activities, showcasing the ways in which meetings are run to give all team members their say… those are the kinds of detailed accounts that can make your website a powerful showcase for your culture.

Embrace Reviews

Another way to be transparent about your company culture: Link directly to your company’s Glassdoor reviews, where past and current employees offer their feedback about what it’s like to work at your company. Don’t be afraid of your employee feedback; lean into it. (And if you are afraid, that might mean it’s time to make some changes at your business!)

Involve Your Team

You might also consider getting your full team involved in the hiring process. Rather than just having managers do the interviewing, get other employees who will be working with the new hire to sit in and provide their own feedback. They can be really helpful in answering culture-related questions that new recruits might have.

Make Culture an Asset

Of course, before you can really use your culture advantageously, you need to know what your culture is—and I’d love to talk more with you about how to define that. Contact me any time to learn more about my executive coaching sessions, where we can really hone in on culture.

As a motivational speaker, I am constantly working to make my own presentations better—crisper, clearer, funnier, more actionable, all-around stronger. So naturally, I gravitate toward any new article I see that claims to offer insight into the art of the speech.

A recent Fast Company article, written by Neil Pasricha, claims that any good speech should do three things—entertain, educate, and empower. That’s certainly catchy, and I love the three-point alliteration. How accurate is it, though? Let’s look at Pasricha’s breakdown in a bit more depth.

Motivational Speaker 101: Building a Great Speech

Here, according to the Fast Company article, are the three things every motivational speaker should do:

Entertain

This is foundational, Pasricha says—and I very much agree with him. Bottom line: If people aren’t actually paying attention to your speech, they’re not going to get anything out of it. You can’t’ just give something dry, boring, or rote. You need to engage them, and that means entertaining.

Now, you may wonder how you can possibly compete with other forms of entertainment—like YouTube videos or podcasts. The secret here is that you’re there in the room, and that means that your audience will give you about 30 seconds to snag their attention.

This, Pasricha says, is something you have to capitalize on. “Reward it immediately,” he says. “Show the audience the bonus they get by paying attention to you. Raise interest as you get onstage, create a laugh, but most importantly, be the most into your speech of anyone there.”

Educate

People are coming to your speech to learn things; to expand their minds and their points of view. You can’t just tell jokes and funny stories the whole time. You’ve really got to feed them, intellectually.

The Fast Company article recommends writing out the gist of your speech—the main takeaway point—in 140 characters or less. I agree. Have a tweet-sized summary, an elevator pitch of what you’re saying, to ensure clarity and substance.

Empower

But you can’t just educate, Pasricha says; you also have to provide something actionable that your audience members can take back to their offices with them.

“Yes, you’re the one on stage,” the article states. “But they have to feel like they own the message if they’re going to take it with them—and, ultimately, change their minds or behavior.”

The goal of the motivational speaker is to send people out with more than they came in with—including some specific action steps to improve their personal or professional lives. That certainly sounds good to me. Ultimately, I agree with this breakdown—with the idea that speakers must first engage, then educate, and ultimately provide something actionable to the audience.

As a healthcare keynote speaker, corporate wellness is something that always interests me. I am continuously encouraged to see companies where fitness is intrinsic to the culture—and where the leadership clearly values the physical and emotional wellbeing of each employee.

What’s the Big Deal About Wellness?

Focusing on wellness isn’t merely a nice thing to do. It actually underscores the health of the business itself. That’s because emotional, physical, and mental wellbeing are all critical to workplace happiness and workplace productivity.

You see, when your team members are fit—when their wellness isn’t just affirmed through lip service, but through the actual workings of the company itself—they are more energetic. They do better creative thinking. They take fewer sick days. They are better able to cope with stress and anxiety. And perhaps most significantly, they feel as though the company cares about them, and about their future. What is wellness, after all, if not planning for the future?

That’s why you see more major companies instituting nap rooms, group exercise classes, and juicing areas. It’s why junk food is being removed from vending machines, replaced with healthier snacks. It’s why stress management training is so prevalent, and in companies of all sizes.

Bringing Wellness to Your Company

As a motivational speaker, I try to encourage companies to lean into wellness, to make it vital to their culture. Here are a couple of ways in which your business can start emphasizing a culture of wellness today.

• Affirm the importance of boundaries. Remember that a 24/7 lifestyle really isn’t sustainable, and that your team members need time to unplug, to be with their families, and to simply not think about work. Be respectful of boundaries, and of balance. Don’t be the kind of company that’s “always on.”
• Focus on relationships within your company. Team building exercises can be a great way to help your people gel as a team—and to nourish them on emotional and relational levels. This is every bit as important as physical wellness endeavors!

You can have a culture that values wellness—and in doing so, you can invest in your own future, and the future of your employees.

Are you a morning person?

I am, I confess. I like to be up fairly early in the morning to check emails and get ready for my day, but also to catch up on blogs and news headlines, to go rollerblading, to get some things accomplished before the onset of phone calls and other distractions.

Not everyone is built that way, and I understand it. As an entrepreneur or a manager, though, it’s generally expected that you’re firing on all cylinders by 7:00 or 8:00 AM, if not earlier. So even if mornings don’t come easily to you, it’s worth developing some positive early-in-the-day habits to try and make the most of things.

Let me mention just a few such habits that I’d recommend—some things well worth attempting first thing in the morning. Take it from a motivational speaker like me—these habits can really invigorate your day!

Morning Habits for Busy People

Avoid reaching for your phone. I know—it’s tempting to immediately grab your phone to check your social feeds and your email inbox. But the last thing you want is for your day to begin with an email from an angry customer or a frustrated colleague. Instead of launching straight into digital communication, take some time to set your personal priorities for the day, to spend a few minutes with family, etc.

Do something for your health. The early morning is an ideal time to exercise, meditate, or simply go for a peaceful walk—something that can get your body active but allow your mind a peaceful transition into a new day.

Eat a healthy breakfast. No, not donuts and pastries—something high on lean proteins, dairy, fruits, vegetables, and grains, without overdoing it on the carbs. Give your body the fuel it needs for an energized day, without setting yourself up for a mid-morning sugar crash.

Be positive. What I mean by this is simply to engage in something that makes you happy—something that lifts your spirits and elevates your mental health. Taking a few minutes to read, draw, journal, or play guitar may really start your day off on the right foot.

Set your goals. Review your to-do list, and make a game plan for your day before you turn on your phone and greet your work day in earnest.

Start Your Day Off Right

Start your day with some healthy habits, and lay a foundation for success. Consider these habits, or any others that strike you as valuable. And if you need any help reorienting your work days, don’t hesitate to reach out to me to ask about my services as a motivational speaker or leadership coach.

As a motivational speaker and leadership coach, I encounter a lot of professionals who are looking to crack the code.

They’re looking to figure out how they can get more done, while working less.

I don’t mean working less hard. I mean working fewer hours. I mean making the most of your time in the office so that you can actually make it home to be with your family at a reasonable time of day. I mean eliminating the need for late nights and weekend work days.

Impossible, you say? I don’t think so. Many people do it, and some of them have shared their secrets with me. I’ll list a few of the tips I’ve gleaned in the next section of the post.

How to Get More Done While Working Shorter Hours

Plan your day—the night before. Before leaving the office for the evening, map out a to-do list of all the things you need to accomplish that day. Prioritize them as best you can. Make sure that, when you get to work the next morning, you can really hit the ground running, getting plenty of stuff done in the morning.

Collaborate well. If you’re working on a project with a group of collaborators, it’s smart to use an online program like Basecamp or Slack so that you can communicate efficiently.

Don’t try to multi-task. Mono-tasking is where it’s at! Rather than divide your attention over several activities, invest everything you’ve got in getting a single task completed.

Take breaks. No, really—you’ll be more productive in the long run if you allow yourself to get up, stretch your legs, and clear your head between projects.

Manage meetings effectively. Have set start times and end times, and stick with them. Also make sure there is a set agenda to keep everyone on task.

Turn off your email. No, not all day—but for chunks of time that you want to block out to truly get stuff done. Turning off social media notifications is also a smart step.

Listen to your body. You’ll feel it when it’s time to eat, to get a little fresh air and exercise, or simply to call it a day—and you should heed those physical warnings.

Make the Most of your 9-5

Forming the right habits can help you to make the most of your work day—without having to stretch it too far. Use these tips to get started.

I’m a motivational business speaker by trade, which means that productivity is something I hear about pretty regularly. Basically, everyone wishes they could be more productive, but not everyone knows how to make that happen. The conventional wisdom is that, to truly make yourself more productive, you’ve got to institute some big changes—waking up at 4 am, working on Saturdays, or something similar.

But that’s not the case at all, and in fact, the best productivity boosters tend to be the little tweaks to your daily routine. Let me offer you some examples of what I’m talking about.

Quick Tips for Improved Productivity

Segment your time. What if, instead of staring at your screen for hours at a time, you broke your day up into segments of activity—say, 25 minutes of focused work followed by five or 10 minutes of break? You could actually be so serious as to invest in a kitchen timer for your office to make this happen. Work as hard as you can, but then allow your body and mind some time to breathe. Get up and walk around, have a glass of water, or even do some brief meditation before you get back to your desk.

Make an anxiety list. Instead of a to-do list, write down all the things that are causing you anxiety—the big projects looming over your head. Review the list and decide which item is upsetting you the most. Make that your big focus for the day. Tackle it head-on!

Don’t have any zero days. When you have a day where you feel like you haven’t accomplished anything, that really stalls your momentum. If you’re approaching the end of your work day and haven’t crossed anything off your to-do list, pick a small, quick project you can handle before calling it quits. The psychological benefits of this can be massive.

Schedule a block of uninterrupted work time. On your calendar, mark out a full two-hour window in the morning to turn off your email and your phone, close your office door, and just get stuff done. You can worry about meetings and returning emails afterward.

Make Little Changes

You don’t have to totally restructure your work days to be productive; little shifts in your perspective can go a long way. As a motivational business speaker, I’ve picked up a lot of great productivity tricks, and these are some of the best.

Do you have a great workplace culture?

Maybe you do, and maybe you don’t. Some workplace cultures are truly excellent, while others are utterly lousy. My perspective, based on years of experience as an executive leadership coach, is that most company cultures fall somewhere in the mediocre-to-good range—not bad by any means, but also not great.

Good vs. Great Cultures

A recent article from Gallup makes a similar point, asserting that these middling company cultures are prevalent—and that they exist because leaders simply don’t know how to do any better.

These company cultures are “well-meaning,” Gallup suggests, but don’t have a clear sense of how to transform themselves. “So they do what is easy — they deliver ‘satisfaction’ to the troops. Latte machines and volleyball and flex hours and so forth. These are fine — but they have no statistical relationship to creating new customers.”

So how do you build a great culture—one that empowers team members and helps bring new customers into the fold? According to Gallup, “You have to believe any star team leader, on any given day, can create new customers and save the company with an idea or breakthrough.”

A true team dynamic can only be attained when there’s a strong leader in place. “Remarkably, 70 percent of the variance between lousy, good and great cultures can be found in the knowledge, skills and talent of the team leader,” Gallup says. “Not the players, but the team leader.”

Transform Your Culture Today

The Gallup article goes on to make a few recommendations—basic principles to take a culture from that mediocre-to-good territory to true greatness. Let me summarize them:

1. Change your leadership philosophy. Rather than try to micromanage and control, try to empower, to develop team members according to their strengths. Gallup describes this leadership style as “high development, high purpose and strengths-based coaching.”
2. Make structural changes. Specifically, change your expectations for team managers. Make it a priority for them to actively coach their employees, and to touch base with them at least once weekly.
3. Get buy-in from the Board/executive leadership team. Let them know you’re moving from a controlling leadership style to an empowering one—and that you’re doing so, ultimately, because you believe that’s how to grow the company.

That may sound like a tall order, but it’s achievable—especially when you consult with an executive leadership coach.

Building a cohesive team can be challenging, even when you have all your employees together under one roof. When your team is spread out across multiple office locations, though, that only makes things harder—challenging, yes, but by no means impossible.

As an executive coach and leadership keynote speaker, I’ve worked with a lot of entrepreneurs and managers to develop tight-knit company cultures—and that includes some companies that have multiple offices or campuses. Let me share with you a few basic recommendations.

Building Culture Across Campuses

Have an All-Company Retreat

Nothing brings people together like a big, fun event, planned for somewhere other than your company headquarters. Spend a Saturday going somewhere off-site to mingle, get to know each other, do some team-building activities, or perhaps even listen to a motivational speaker. Realign everyone in your company to the broader goals and values of the business.

Schedule Interoffice Visits

Set aside some opportunities for employees from one office to collaborate with employees at another office—and make sure they do their collaborations in person! Moving people around a bit is a great way to break down some of those barriers that tend to exist between different offices.

Have a Standardized Orientation

Something else I’d recommend is that as you onboard new hires, you have a truly standardized orientation process—one that ensures everyone who works for your company, no matter which office or campus, knows what the ultimate values and mission of the company are. This common ground is crucial for fostering team unity!

Promote Equality

Ultimately, it’s critical to ensure that all your employees have equality of experience—that employees at different offices feel like they are working toward the same goals and that they are held accountable to the same standards.

Create Cohesive Culture

As you try to bridge any cultural gaps between different offices, I’d love to offer my services—either as an executive coach or as a motivational speaker. Connect with me today to find out how I can help!

As a motivational speaker, I’m constantly telling leaders and entrepreneurs about the importance of emotional intelligence—or EQ, as it’s sometimes called.

Why is EQ important? Because EQ is what allows you to identify and categorize your own emotions—and thus, to control them.

Moreover, EQ allows you to better understand the emotional drivers of others—your employees, colleagues, and customers—and to predict their responses to emotional stimuli.

So are you someone with high EQ? Let me offer some quick questions you might consider as you take a self-inventory.

Understanding Your Emotional Intelligence

You’re able to articulate your emotions with precision. Most people are able to tell you when they’re happy or sad, but someone with high EQ can dig deeper—explaining that they are feeling wistful, or overwhelmed from stress, etc.

You’re aware of emotional strengths and shortcomings. Someone with high EQ is adept at identifying the strengths and weaknesses of others. Plus, emotional EQ empowers you to fairly assess your own skillsets.

People confide in you. If you’re the kind of person to whom people come when they need advice, guidance, or understanding, that certainly attests to your EQ.

You’re a good judge of character. Are you usually proven correct in your initial assessments of people? If so, that’s probably a sign of high EQ.

You don’t hold grievances. Those who have emotional intelligence are usually able to move on from grudges, rather than let ill feelings fester.

You’re comfortable accepting alternate experiences and perspectives. The person with high EQ is tolerant of the fact that other people are different, and that they have feelings and opinions that are perfectly valid.

Build Your Emotional Intelligence

Whether you fared well in that little checklist or not, there are always steps you can take to develop better EQ. One step I recommend? Enlisting an executive coach.

stevepb / Pixabay

Nobody likes receiving bad news—especially not about their own workplace performance. Being told by a boss or a superior that you’re on thin ice can be daunting, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the end of your career. There are always ways to bounce back from workplace blunders and bad performance reviews.

Let me offer some suggestions for dealing with a few common workplace mishaps.

You Missed a Major Deadline

Failing to complete a project on time makes you look irresponsible—no matter how many legitimate excuses you may have. So, I’d recommend skipping the excuses altogether and instead focusing on taking responsibility. Let your supervisor know that you understand how the missed deadline impacts the business’ bottom line, and be proactive in coming up with some ways to prevent missing any deadlines again. You might even try to take on some smaller, easier projects to give yourself a few wins—lest you become known around the office for missing deadlines or turning in tardy work.

You Argued with a Client

“The customer is always right.” That’s a difficult truism to live up to when you have a client who’s being unreasonable, yet it’s still vital to not let yourself sink to that level. You just can’t get into unruly fights with clients—but if you do, here’s how I’d recommend coming back from it. First, try to size up the damage—there’s a difference between arguing with one of 1,000 clients, or arguing with one quarter of your total business. Then, be candid with your boss about why the argument happened, all the while making it clear that you understand the impact on the company. Don’t lie—just lay out the facts of the incident. In many cases, supervisors will be glad for your candor.

Your Performance is Sloppy

Finally, what do you do when your boss tells you that your work simply hasn’t been up to par? There are a few options here, but the most important thing you can do is take an honest self-inventory. Where are the areas you’re falling flat—and can you identify the reasons why? You may need to develop a whole new work routine or rhythm to help improve your performance—installing Facebook-blocking software, starting your work day a little earlier, taking lunch at a different time, or something similar.