Blackout day

You may be familiar with the concept of Blackout Days if you travel for business or pleasure. This is typically when your discounts, promotions or specials are unavailable, specifically around holidays or heavy travel times. We’ve taken the positive aspect of this, with the help of our business coach, and adapted the concept to our company culture. Blackout Days for us are not a negative; they’re an opportunity to thrive.

It’s very easy to get caught up in the answering game – answering emails, phone calls, internal questions, the meaning of life (ok, maybe that doesn’t cross our minds every day, but it happens). Every time we stop what we’re doing to answer a red dot and a ding, we are breaking concentration from what we’re intending to work on. That’s where Blackout Day comes into play.

The concept is for one day each month we eliminate all outside communication and solely focus on our success list. What needs our most attention? What have we been wanting to work on? What has a deadline that needs my focus on? Blackout Day is a chance to dig in our heels and get ahead. It allows us to better serve our clients.

There are 5 simple rules:

• No email – we close our emails for the entire day, eliminating the feeling, “I’ll just answer that quickly.”
• No phones – we turn off the ringer to the office and our cell phones.
• No meetings – with clients or with one another.
•  Create a success list – what do you want to accomplish during your time?
• Adhere to the rules – that means everyone, including the boss.

The result? Happy people who feel accomplished. We recap at the end of the day about what we each accomplished, celebrating each person. Everyone feels like they’ve put in a solid day and leaves feeling like they’ve gotten ahead. It clears our minds for the next day, knowing we’ve set one another and ourselves up for success.

When Blackout Day is not in full swing, we still try to practice similar habits. When there is a project or deadline that needs our full attention, we eliminate the distractions that would take us away from achieving those goals. Sometimes that means turning off our email for a few hours. Sometimes that means plugging in, listening to music and knocking it out. Each person has his or her own style.

I encourage you and your team to give it a shot. It may seem weird at first, but once you get in the groove of the day, you’ll experience just how much you actually can cross off your list. Don’t feel guilty for not answering people – you’re doing something to serve them better. You’re creating a healthy atmosphere for your team to thrive.

Banning The B Word

I can’t today.

I don’t have time.

I won’t make it…

I recently heard a wise man challenge me and my associates to ensure that we do not mistake busyness for productivity. In our Worx culture, we live to live less busy. To ensure that our answer for, “how are you?” is not busy. It’s a passive way of replying “I don’t have time for you; everything else is a priority before you.”

That’s when I realized words that once held the power of positive action, we’ve turned into negative connotations via one tiny stroke in the air. With this mark, we create contractions. I call them four-letter words.

As I was recently browsing on one of the greatest time wasters (and I say I’m too busy?) a post across the great Atlantic Ocean caught my attention:

“Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time,’ is like saying, ‘I don’t want to.'”  

-Lao Tzu

When I was younger, my brothers tried to convince me “they” [the government] were going to change time. Either they would add a day or elongate the days by hours. How would it affect us as humans? It would change our school schedule. In the negative. I almost believed them.

However, looking back I think how many times I hear myself and adults wish for more hours in a day. Because we don’t have time. Because we are too stressed. Because we are too busy.

So we can’t, we don’t and we won’t.

However, since working at Worx, I learned two invaluable practices:

Make the moments count: We must learn time isn’t about us; it’s about others. Everyone is allotted 24 hours a day no matter where his or her hour hand is. It’s not about borrowing, giving, taking, wishing away, looking back or speeding up time. It’s about sharing time.

Make the conversations intentional: Ban the apathetic four-letter words. Including the “B” word, busy. Be presumptuous. Someone at some point will be asking you, "how are you?" Prepare your answer. Assume that someone will ask for a favor or invite you to be part of his or her inner circle. Be imaginative and find a way to abstain from those pesky go-to contraction words.

Because you do have time. You just have to decide if you want to or don’t want to.

Are you going to let that tiny stroke in the air steal your action? Are you going to do or don’t?

Re-Evaluate Your Routine

How similar is your yesterday to your today? What about last week to next week? If your days are like a playlist on repeat, you are set into a routine. While exciting lives can be fun and fulfilling, having a routine lets your body know what to expect (good or bad). This can result in a healthier sleep schedule, controlled appetite and organized schedule. If the routine is not any of these from the beginning, then you’re practically scheduling a crash and burn.

Moving can really shake up this routine. Whether moving to a new house, changing jobs or getting a new car, you only realize how much everything is muscle memory and how you’re living on autopilot if something changes.

Take advantage of this otherwise inconvenient situation to re-prioritize your life and maximize your time.

1. Allow for extra time

It’s always that darn snooze button that gets me. Does it really even make a difference? No. It might feel like it at the moment you’re pushing the button, but 9 minutes later, you’re worse than before. Use those 9 minutes to be attentive to your morning routine. Slow down, think positive thoughts and enjoy preparing for the day ahead.

2. Environment

How can this new environment serve you better? How can you use this new routine to be more efficient, organized or fulfilled? Think about the things that feel unnatural as you adjust your routine to be different. Do you have more organization in a new apartment? Maybe your new car has a remote-starter. Observe the environment and use it to your benefit.

3. Awareness

You spend time doing things you don’t even realize. How often do you reach for your phone out of habit? A friend of mine recently forgot her phone at home and after the anxiety of forgetting it subsided, the peace she felt during her day was unusual and surprising. (In her words: Two glorious hours where no one could find her.) During that time, she found herself reaching for her phone. The frequency of which was alarming and disappointing to her. Being hyper-aware of your habits can help you to be more intentional of what should and shouldn’t be habitual.

So are you in a transitional time? Or are you in the middle of a long playlist on repeat? Either way, re-evaluate your routine. Is it healthy, happy and realistic? If not, adjust accordingly for a happier playlist of life.

Midnight Means Good Morning

“There’s no such thing as midnight because after 12 it’s a new day already.”

When a six-year-old tells you something so profound, you listen. And whenever 12am obnoxiously flashes across any digital devices, or the hour and minute hand perfectly overlay each other in a vertical position, these words will be sparked.

At that moment, however, I shook my head in wonder at how a mind so young could look at a world so large and complex and come to that conclusion. For him, 12am is an exciting time. For him it’s the promise that whenever mom said tomorrow, 12:01am marked a whole new journey. A clean slate. New possibilities. Endless possibilities

Meanwhile, we try to wrestle with the 24-hour time zone, going so far as to bargain with it through inventions such as fast-food, dishwashers, microwaves. All in an effort to speed up productivity rate while we can slow down our routine.

All it has done, however, is allowed for us to fill more hours with more fast-food mentality productivity. And we’re fried, no pun intended. See, time is one of the most coveted and yet casually treated commodities we can claim. Time has become a billable asset.

But to one little six-year-old kid, it was a discovery. He could recognize Sunday-Saturday, knew what yesterday, tomorrow and before or after meant. For a young guy, his reminiscing was sharp, but for as much as he lived in the now, he was always eager to live in the what’s next.

So much so, that that when trying to get him to sleep throughout the night he asked half-asleep and 100% disgruntled, “Why is it taking so long to wake up?” In other words, why wasn’t it time to get up?

All he wanted was for the morning to come so he could punch the possibilities in the face and conquer yet another day.

The only thing I want to punch in the morning is my alarm clock. (Did you know there’s actually a national holiday for this?) Regardless, we all have different schedules. We all live different lifestyles. But we all have developed a unique relationship with our bed that is hard to sever come wakey-wake time. But wouldn’t it be nice to develop some element of sentiment in which we look forward to getting up? 

Wouldn’t it be nicer if we got up in the morning and half the work was already done?

A Few Simple Ways to Kick-Start Your Day Wisely:

• Don’t Be an “I Have Nothing to Wear” Victim

Lay it all out…Our mom’s did this for us for years; it’s time we adopted the habit. This task includes more than matching an argyle vest with a checkered shirt. It’s about checking the weather to verify whether our clothing will be compatible with adverse weather conditions.

• Plan an Emergency Exit Strategy

Don’t get mad, get even? Yes, that doesn’t really work when you’re behind schedule, stuck in traffic or are still at home and unintentionally tried to give yourself a double shot of espresso via osmosis by spilling it down your front. No, don’t get mad, get up even earlier. Plan an exit strategy that will give you plenty of time to make your real entrance right on time.

• Block Time for Breakfast

For some of you that may not be food. But we all need to begin our day by digesting what energizes us. Maybe it’s exercise, maybe it’s reading, spending a few minutes with your children before they head off to school - maybe it is physical food. But what is the first portion of your day?

When we get up in the morning, we far too often see just another hour, another number and the endless tasks. I challenge you to see endless possibilities and that no matter what, 12:01am marks a whole new journey. A clean slate. New possibilities. Endless possibilities.

Glasses Of Life

It all starts because we have a vision impairment.

We get asked if we have really have vision impairments or if the glasses on our faces are a fashion statement or accessory.

No, they are a necessity.

And when we wear them:

• We have to wipe the fog off when it’s warm or wet

• We get lost behind a veil of smudge. Don’t let any sales rep tell you differently- they are not smudge proof.

• Once we wear them, we have to stay committed to them all day since they ruin our makeup.

• We suffer injury on the bridge of our nose

• We can’t lie in bed on our sides to read

• We have a constant, pinching pain behind our ears

• We feel them slide down when we bend over

• We feel them slide up when you lean back

• We learn the hard way they are not foot or butt resistant

• We are expected to let everyone try them on

• We give ourselves whiplash as soon as children are placed in our arms so they can’t grab them

• We lose them and then sometimes we have to replace them even when they aren’t lost at this little inconvenient thing called an annual check-up.

But when we wear them all these things matter not, because we can read, walk without tripping; we can stop (we may choose not to) at red lights and we can experience life with our vital fifth sense.

And so goes the same with the glasses of life.

When we wear the metaphoric glasses of life, we are enabled to see things clearly. It may be through listening to a friend, slowing down, speeding up, traveling abroad, staying at home, thinking outside the box.

The pain that comes along with it, like the smudges, are worth it when what we envision from afar is suddenly close. When what was near or far sighted suddenly becomes a tangible success.

It’s just a matter of if you’re willing to wear the glasses. You see, when a vision impaired individual slips on their glasses, they do so knowing they are being compared to the trendsetters.

When the envisioned impaired decide to challenge themselves and wear the glasses of life, they might be compared to the trendsetters of life.

Speed up, slow down, travel abroad, stay at home, think outside the box: Others may be doing the same, and you may be called a copycat. It doesn’t matter because we can all look at the same thing, but what we see won’t be the same thing.

So, no matter what people think of you or say, never let the smudge keep you from wearing your glasses. Never let a vision impairment keep you from seeing. From living.

Six Signs I Might Be A Social Media Addict (and all other things online)

Social media is the sweet ‘n salty of technology, and I’m absolutely okay with that. It’s the caloric and sugar cane intake that I have to watch. No, I don’t count calories. Portion control? Yes, that’s more like it.

Extremes are fatal either way. If you want to live off the grid and go all George Orwell 1984 on us, then more power to you, but I think I’m just going to cut back and be realistic.

But here’s six signs you, er I, may need to consider pulling the power plug and intentionally allowing the battery to die once in awhile.

1.    You’re on Your Mobile Device During a Live-Event

You’re at a concert but are catching it behind your 3.5-inch screen. Or maybe you and your friends are out for supper, and your heads are bowed in reverence…to wait, what...Yelp? Instagram? Fandango? Minecraft?

Confession: My life is pretty mundane, but the few times I hashed out my #livetweet I missed out the good, gritty content and guess what. I misquoted. Everyone else, millions, where tweeting that same message. What’s one more? Moreover there are the times I missed out on the real-time conversations around me because I had to check the virtual comments.

2.    You’re All About Numbers and Not the Names

You collect virtual people and care more about how many Facebook friends you have and only know Twitter followers by their handles. Did you know that LinkedIn has more security than Facebook?

Confession: I took a break from Facebook for awhile because it fed my ego more than Ensure fed my intestines could. Also, my posts were not that interesting, despite how hilarious I thought, um think, I am.

3.    You Use Your Phone as Your Swiss Army, E-reader Alarm Clock

Remember the days when the Swiss Army Knife was the all-in-one tool? Now you struggle to turn your phone off at night for fear you will miss out on an important message, will be unable to read from a print edition book or hear a traditional alarm.

Confession: I used to work at a Verizon retail store when Android first launched their smartphones. I had what I thought was a great idea to sell more phones: I took an acrylic display box and went on an eBay-shopping spree, buying an internally broken digital camera, keyboard, Kindle, mp3 player and flashlight. I threw in a couple of games: a deck of cards, scrabble, etc. and a few other gadgets. Ah, and then the crowning glory. Atop the lid I placed a sleek, new demo phone showcasing how everything in that box was in that phone.

Unfortunately, I’ve taken that a bit too literal. I have the world in my hands, on the go in my pocket that I can always be in the know. Thank you dear WebMD and Wikipedia.

4.    Thunder ONLY Threatens You for Fear of Losing Internet Connection

You dim the light on your phone and hoard it like it’s December 31st 1999. You perspire at the thought of not being able to Pin.

Confession: My life’s in my Mac. I like to say I’m married to it, to Him. One time when there was a terrible storm I woke up abruptly and within 2 seconds jumped up from bed like a mummy, unplugging my laptop from a non-surge protectant plug.

The next day I informed my family that one day I would make a great mom; should ever there be an event where I would have to save my kids first, I would do so. (They didn’t agree.)

5.    You’re a “Workaholic”

(When you just love having an excuse to check your emails and have them synced.) There is a certain thrill when a notification sound comes through your purse or pocket.

Confession: On a day off I felt I missed too many emails –both personal and professional - in 24 hours so I set my notification to push messages, vibrate, blink and ping with an almost obnoxious notification ringtone. I successfully managed to respond to every message.

6.    Everything Online Seems Pinteresting

Your browser bar has a widget, your phone has an app and you know how to upload a picture from your computer: you are a Pinterest ninja, and no one knows your likes, pins, boards and re-pins better than you.

Confession: I pin a lot. I say it’s therapeutic. Ipso facto, the sixth sign I might be a social media addict.