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This month’s blog post comes from Christopher Littlefield. Christopher is an International Speaker, Trainer, and Founder of Beyond Thank You!

I hope this message finds you well and beginning to slow down for what I am sure is a much-needed holiday break.

As you prepare for the New Year, I want to share an end-of-year personal reflection activity to help you become present to all the ways you have learned and grown over the last year. Grab a cup of coffee, a glass of wine, a pen and paper, and carve out a little time to celebrate your year!

Answer These 5 Questions Before Wrapping Up Your Year!

Do you ever find that no matter how hard you work or how much you accomplish, you end up focusing on everything you didn’t do? No matter if your last year was the best or worst yet, before you mentally and emotionally reset and establish goals and resolutions for the year ahead, invest thirty minutes to an hour to reflect, learn from, and celebrate the last twelve months.

In this article I wrote for Forbes, I share a simple, personal reflection activity to support you in this process. You can read the full article via the link above, and I have included the questions below:

Questions:

1. What were my most interesting moments and unique experiences over the last year?

Did you attend a conference, start a new job, or get to sit in on a meeting with the boss? Did you attend a cool concert or a friend’s wedding or pick up a new sport? What moments or experiences defined your last year and why?

2. What challenges did I face in the last year, personally and professionally? How did I grow from these?

Did you start a new position that required more responsibilities? Did you or a loved one face a health issue? Did you go through a breakup or start a new relationship? How did you deal with these challenges and what did you learn in the process?

3. What new skills did I develop/improve last year?

Did you learn how to code, give presentations, or start learning a new language? Did you improve your ability to run meetings, coach employees, or increase the speed at which you write reports?

4. What have I learned about myself, how do I work, and what do I need to be at my best?

Did you develop any personal routines/processes that support you in and outside of work? Did you learn anything about the types of projects or topics you enjoy working on most/least? Did you learn anything about the types of people or work environments you enjoy most/least? Did you learn about what impacts your physical or mental health the most?

5. What am I most proud of?

After answering the above questions, reflect on what you are most proud of yourself for over the last year.

After, take a minute to reread and celebrate all that happened over the last 365 days. When you are done, schedule time to brainstorm what you want to make happen in the year ahead!

This month’s blog comes to us from Christopher Littlefield. Christopher is an International/TEDx speaker specializing in employee appreciation and the founder of Beyond Thank You. This blog is about focusing on gratitude, and we are grateful for his wisdom.

 

 

Taking care of our mental health during a pandemic isn’t easy. Since the outbreak began, we’ve all been feeling — understandably — a lot more stressed. One study found that 57% of people are experiencing greater anxiety, and 53% of us are more emotionally exhausted. These kinds of emotions tend to arise when we lose some form of stability in our lives. Right now, we just don’t know what comes next. Living in a constant state of uncertainty can feel like running a race with no finish line or completing a puzzle without a reference picture. Everything seems unclear, and the worst seems possible.

Of course, this not a fun state of mind to be in. So what can we possibly do to help minimize the impacts of uncertainty on our wellbeing? While it may not address the root cause, research shows that gratitude can help balance us out.

“Gratitude is an emotion that grounds us and is a great way to balance out the negative mindset that uncertainty engenders,” said Dr. Guy Winch, author of the book Emotional First Aid. When we express gratitude, our brain releases dopamine and serotonin — two hormones that make us feel lighter and happier inside. If we want to take care of our minds during this pandemic, understanding how to trigger this feeling is an important tool to have at our disposal.

Before you can trigger it, let’s understand why gratitude is so important. We experience gratitude when we shift our focus from what we don’t have to what we do, and when we take time to appreciate and be thankful for those who have contributed to the abundance in our lives. Nearly a decade of research by Dr. Robert Emmons — the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude — and others has found that people who have regular gratitude practices are healthier, happier, and have better relationships. Further research suggests that gratitude is also key in helping individuals and teams persevere in challenging tasks.

Think of your mind like your digestive system — what you put in it impacts how you feel. When you flood your mind with a constant flow of worry, envy, resentment, and self-criticism (compounded by a barrage of news and other media) it negatively impacts your mental wellbeing. A gratitude practice is like a workout and a healthy eating plan for your mind.

In his article Why Gratitude is Good, Dr. Emmons shares, “You can’t feel envious and grateful at the same time. They’re incompatible feelings, because if you’re grateful, you can’t resent someone for owning things you don’t.” He goes on to share that his research found that people with high levels of gratitude have low levels of resentment and envy. When we take time to focus on what we are grateful for, we choose positive emotions over negative, thus we take steps to nurture our mental health and wellbeing.

How do we trigger gratitude in ourselves? It’s simple. We take time to shift our focus.

How to Trigger Gratitude in Ourselves

Have you ever noticed that when you are looking to buy a new phone or a jacket all of a sudden everyone around you has it? That’s because, consciously or unconsciously, whatever we are focused on is what we see. If we want to trigger gratitude in ourselves, we need to intentionally shift our focus to that which we are grateful for. The simplest way to do this is through questions and prompts and a few daily rituals.

Pause and reflect

When you find yourself stuck in a constant state of worry, or hyper focused on what is not working around you, try to pause for a second and ask yourself one or two of the following questions.

1.  What have I gotten to learn recently that has helped me grow?
2.  What opportunities do I currently have that I am grateful for?
3.  What physical abilities do I have but take for granted?
4.  What did I see today or over the last month that was beautiful?
5.  Who at work am I happy to see each day and why?
6.  Who is a person that I don’t speak to often, but, if I lost them tomorrow, it would be devastating? (Take this as a cue to reach out today!)
7.  What am I better at today than I was a year ago?
8.  What material object do I use every day that I am thankful for having?
9.  What has someone done for me recently that I am grateful for?
10.  What are the three things I am grateful for right now?

By taking time to write down our answers, we consciously redirect our attention to that which we are grateful for. It’s also a great way to look back and realize what we may have thought of as insignificant was actually the things that brought us joy.

Write a gratitude journal

One common practice is to keep a daily gratitude journal. Jae Ellard, the founder of mindful-based consulting company Simple Intentions, recommends book-ending your day with thoughts of gratitude. She recommends carving out a few minutes at the beginning of the day and end of the day for reflection. Maybe it is the fresh pomegranate you had with your yogurt or gratitude for the health of one’s families. Dr. Winch suggests starting the practice of “writing one paragraph every day about one thing for which we’re truly grateful and why that thing is meaningful to us.” He says, “This introduces positive thoughts and feelings into an emotional climate that is tipped too much toward the negative.” We can also focus our gratitude exercise toward the meaningful things in our lives of which we are certain, such as our friendships, passions, or family, thereby reminding ourselves that while uncertainty exists in some aspects of our lives, certainty still prevails in many others.

Build it in like a routine

Since the start of the pandemic, my wife, our four-year-old daughter, and I start every meal by going around the table and sharing one thing we are grateful for. It may be our health, the food on our table, or getting to play with Legos for an hour earlier that day. Although my daughter resisted the practice at first, she is the first one to remind us if we now eat a bite without sharing our thoughts.

I recently came across someone who has taken on the practice of sharing one picture a day on LinkedIn of something he is grateful for and tells his audience the reason behind it. His daily practice not only helps him focus on the positive but inspires others to do the same.

Another way to create a ritual around gratitude is to start or end each virtual meeting or co-study session with a grateful minute. Pick any one or two questions outlined above and invite a few team members or friends to share their answers.

If we want to be able to keep running in this race with no clear finish line, we need to learn to take better care of the runner. Although there is no one solution, learning to trigger gratitude may help us cope along the way.

Jacobs Gardner carries a wide variety of journals to begin your own Gratitude Journal: www.jacobsgardner.com

 

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• Christopher Littlefield is an International/TEDx speaker specializing in employee appreciation and the founder of Beyond Thank You. He has trained thousands of leaders across six continents to create cultures where people feel valued every day. He is the author of 75+ Team Building Activities for Remote Teams—Simple Ways to Build Trust, Strengthen Communication, and Laugh Together from Afar. You can follow his work through his weekly mailing The Nudge.

Happy Holidays!

Our last blog of the year comes from Christopher Littlefield of BeyondThankYou.com. Christopher has lots of thoughtful questions to ask yourself as the year comes to a close, and the New Year unfolds.

Answer These 5 Questions Before Wrapping Up Your Year!

Do you ever find that no matter how hard you work or how much you accomplish, you end up focusing on everything you didn’t do? No matter if your last year was the best or worst yet, before you mentally and emotionally reset and establish goals and resolutions for the year ahead, invest thirty minutes to an hour to reflect, learn from, and celebrate the last twelve months. In my latest article in Forbes, I share a simple, personal reflection activity to support you in this process. You can read the full article on Forbes, and I have included the questions below.

Questions:

1. What were my most interesting moments and unique experiences over the last year?

Did you attend a conference, start a new job, or get to sit in on a meeting with the boss? Did you attend a cool concert or a friend’s wedding or pick up a new sport? What moments or experiences defined your last year and why?

2. What challenges did I face in the last year, personally and professionally? How did I grow from these?

Did you start a new position that required more responsibilities? Did you or a loved one face a health issue? Did you go through a breakup or start a new relationship? How did you deal with these challenges and what did you learn in the process?

3. What new skills did I develop/improve last year?

Did you learn how to code, give presentations, or start learning a new language? Did you improve your ability to run meetings, coach employees, or increase the speed at which you write reports?

4. What have I learned about myself, how I work, and what I need to be at my best?

Did you develop any personal routines/processes that support you in and outside of work? Did you learn anything about the types of projects or topics you enjoy working on most/least? Did you learn anything about the types of people or work environments you enjoy most/least? Did you learn about what impacts your physical or mental health the most?

5. What am I most proud of?

After answering the above questions, reflect on what you are most proud of yourself for over the last year.

After, take a minute to reread and celebrate all that happened over the last 365 days. When you are done, schedule time to brainstorm what you want to make happen in the year ahead!

Happy New Year from all of us at Jacobs Gardner

This month’s blog comes to us from author Pamela Bump and our friends at HUBSpot. They have a huge selection of resources to help balance your work and personal life.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “If you love your job, you’ll never have to work again.”?

Well, that myth is both false and incredibly misleading. In fact, research shows that the more passionate you are about a job, the more work you’ll actually do.

The truth is a successful career takes time, initiative, and hours of hard work. And, while some companies enable employees to successfully execute on their roles within 40 hours each week, you’ll occasionally need to work later or longer to excel at other organizations

When you think you have the perfect job, you might tell yourself, “I clock in 70 hours a week because I’m doing what I love,” or “The family dinners I’m missing will be worth it in the long run.” But, while your role might not “feel” like a job, working long hours without making time for yourself eventually takes a major toll.

In fact, research shows that throwing yourself into work too heavily could cause stress, burnout, and — commonly — a lonely personal life.

Yes — Managers value employees who take initiative and put in extra effort when needed. However, your personal life is important to your

physical, psychological, and emotional well-being

.

So, how do you continue to excel in your career while making time for yourself and your loved ones?

The truth is there’s no simple trick to achieving an ideal work-life balance. But luckily, there are a handful of strategies that can get you pretty close.

To help you juggle your work and personal life, even if you work remotely, here are six tips that I collected from a few highly motivated HubSpot marketing managers.

While the tips below work well for in-office employees, these can be especially helpful if you’re working remotely and finding it hard to separate your work life from your personal life.

6 Tips for Achieving Work-Life Balance

1. Set hard-stops for each workday.

Despite the thought that successful employees will work late into the night, studies show that you’re least productive at night. Additionally, working late hours can make you tired in times of peak productivity during the day.

If your role revolves around large projects or long to-do lists, you might be tempted to work late or on weekends to get more done. However, our marketing managers suggest setting hard stops so you don’t overexert yourself.

“When working on a long-term project, it’s very easy to keep going into the night thinking, ‘I can get the whole thing done today,’ which was obviously bad for work-life balance,” says Joe Mayall, an associate product marketing manager at HubSpot. “Setting hard stops for myself in the evening really helped me balance things out.”

“Set (and abide by) your own boundaries and accept that a task is usually not THAT important that it can’t wait until tomorrow,” advises Lisa Toner

To prevent any tasks that you can’t plausibly complete in normal work hours, Toner says, “You should manage expectations with your manager about how much can actually be done during business hours.”
When you’re working remotely, setting hard stops can be even more import.

My blog colleague Christina Perricone explained that knowing when to stop working is a common struggle of remote employees who usually work where they live.

“Since you miss out on the social cues to head out for lunch or end the workday that are inherent in in-office settings, you have to create them,” says Perricone. “Set calendar appointments for lunch or a walk or a midday workout. Otherwise, you might find yourself sitting in front of your computer for 10+ hours a day.”

2. Make time for self-care and breaks each day.

Whether you’re working remotely or in an office, you can take steps towards managing your personal life without getting distracted from work. If your schedule allows, one way to do this is by blocking time for breaks or short self-care activities, such as taking a walk, on your calendar.

“Schedule personal things in your calendar like workouts, phone calls with family or friends, or coffee breaks. Then honor those commitments. This will force you to take a break in your workday and do the things that will recharge and fulfill you,” says Jennifer Stefancik, a marketing manager in our acquisitions department.

“When I get back to work after doing something personally fulfilling, like going on a run, I always feel more focused and energized.” Stefancik shares.

3. Be transparent with your manager and colleagues about your personal-life boundaries.

While you need to set work-life balance boundaries for yourself, you should also be transparent about boundaries you’ve set with your team or manager.

One way to do this is by noting your work and off-work hours on your company’s internal calendar. Additionally, you should also talk to your manager to come up with a schedule that enables you to experience and manage important moments in your personal life.

One HubSpot manager who’s transparent with his team and creates a public schedule to embrace his life as a parent is Victor Pan, HubSpot’s Head of Technical SEO.

“I cherish the small talk I do when I drop off my daughter at school and with other parents. To do this, I talked to my manager about blocking out time in my work calendar — which is shared externally to my peers and colleagues,” Pan explains.

However, Pan notes that establishing a flexible schedule with managers won’t always be doable at other companies.

“Being able to engage in work-life design is a privilege for teams with safe spaces, but it’s also something someone engaged in part-time work can consciously control,” says Pan. “At the end of the day, we’re here to make the most out of the time we have given to us.”

4. Prioritize and audit your to-do list.

Along with establishing a transparent schedule that fits in both time for life and work, you can prevent yourself from instances where you’ll need to work overtime by taking on prioritization tactics and auditing your to-do list to ensure that you’re working efficiently.

“So many of us get bogged down by never-ending to-do lists and as you check off one item, three more gets added. In today’s world, it’s more important than ever to focus on the high impact activities and reduce or cease the activities that do not drive significant results,” says Toner.

To help her prioritize her tasks so that the most important items fit smoothly into her work hours, she draws out an “Impact/Effort Matrix”: a four-by-four chart where you list all your tasks on scales related to the effort needed to complete them and the impact they’ll create.

Once she’s done filling out her matrix, Toner follows these steps:

• Review the activities in the high effort low impact bucket and assess if you can simply stop doing them — these are usually not worth your time.

• Take the activities in the low impact, low effort bucket. Determine if you need to keep doing them or if they can be delegated to someone else.

• Look at the high impact, high effort bucket and research more efficient ways to achieve the same results. If so, move those items into the high impact, low effort square.

When you’re done using the matrix, “you should have one to two items remaining in the high effort, high impact bucket that you continue to work on over a longer period of time,” says Toner.

“Everything in the low effort, high impact bucket should be the work you prioritize,” Toner adds. “By doing this exercise regularly you can learn if your to-do list is actually worth the time it takes to do it. Then, you can decide if you should stop, delegate, improve efficiency, or keep going.”

5. Schedule time off as needed.

In a recent blog post where HubSpot marketers revealed how they prevent burnout, Irina Nica, a community and influencer relations manager, noted that taking time off can help you eliminate stress while also adhering to your personal life.

“I was one of those people who would rarely take any time off because ‘there are so many things to be done,'” Nica said. “Even when I did, I still let some work slip into my day, even if that meant only checking my emails.”

“Over time, I’ve changed my views on time off and it’s been great for my productivity,” Nica explained, adding, “I learned to disconnect in the evenings and during weekends. Now, aside from the regular summer and winter holidays, I take long weekends off every now and then. That helps me relax and refreshes my perspective.”

Taking time off doesn’t necessarily need to be devoted to vacations or travel. For example, if you live with family, time off can be used for staycations, where you stay in and spend time with loved ones. Or, if you live alone, you could simply take a few days off to relax, video call friends, binge some TV, and perform self-care.

6. Physically separate work from your personal life.

If you occasionally or regularly work from home, the lines between work and life can get incredibly blurry. Because of this, you might find yourself working too late or thinking about work when you try to relax in your home. Luckily, one strategy that can help with this is creating a workspace for yourself.

“Try to designate a space in your home exclusively for work,” Perricone advised. “Taking calls from your bed or writing memos in front of your TV likely won’t be very effective. You need a space that allows you to focus and be productive. That way, you can keep your work and home life as separate as possible.”

Finding a Good Balance

While the five tips were all slightly different, they all followed just a few major themes that you can keep in mind when aiming to achieve a work-life balance:

• Time off: Everyone needs breaks or time to disconnect from work. Even if you work remotely, be realistic with yourself about when you’ll need a break from work and schedule break times in your day or longer PTO accordingly.

• Setting boundaries: Schedule hard stops and breaks for yourself, while also setting boundaries related to your work hours with your team and manager.

• Prioritization: Recognize the tasks you can save until tomorrow and how to complete your weekly to-do list more efficiently.

• Separate work from life at home: When you work from home, the lines between work and life can get blurry. Be sure to use the tips above to help separate your work life from your personal life at home.