Balance

Take Time to Savor Life’s Little Pleasures

September 27, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Happiness researcher Meik Wiking’s The Art of Making Memories (2019) observes that the Danes are famously happy despite “horrific weather and some of the highest tax returns in the world” because they take time to savor life’s little pleasures. It’s part of Hygge (pronounced “hue-guh,”) the Danish wellness mindset that encourages a spirit of contentedness.

When life gets busy, it’s way too easy to rush through the motions without paying attention to little experiences. Our lives ultimately consist of these tiny movements, one after the other. Fresh sheets. The smell of wet earth after rain. An old favorite song at the right moment. The kindness of a stranger. We take these gifts for granted and brush by them without really breathing in their grace.

Wiking suggests that you can truly rejoice in life by training your brain to focus on the positive in your day-to-day experiences. At the end of each month, reflect on the past month by celebrating the “Happy 10.” Look through the photos on your phone, choose your favorite ten memories, put them in an album or journal, and think about why you enjoy them.

Idea for Impact: Happiness isn’t determined by circumstances. Happiness is what happens when you decide to relish joy.

Savor the beauty and richness of simple pleasures. Take a moment at the end of each day/week/month/year to appreciate what you’re grateful for.

Do These Three Things In The Morning For A Better Day

August 12, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Mornings can be challenging to get up and get going, especially when work is home and home is work. If you want to hit the ground running each day, do these three simple things to make your mornings much less frenzied:

1/ Wake up to a clean space. Waking up to a disorganized home, overflowing trash, or a sink full of unwashed dishes can really put a damper on your day. The clutter and untidiness can wind you up if you have no clean cups and plates for your breakfast or you can’t find whatever you need to get your day started. Have a more pleasant and productive morning by taking care of all these chores the night before. Organize together everything you need for the next day.

2/ Make time to exercise. Exercising first thing in the morning doesn’t just perk up your body; it also boosts your spirit and metabolism and leaves you feeling invigorated. If you aren’t a morning-exercise kind of person, try to wake up 15 minutes earlier to do a few simple stretches, pushups, lift hand weights, and pace up and down the stairs a few times. You’ll kick off your day feeling a little more vibrant and refreshed.

3/ Make a to-do list. Start your morning by identifying what your day is going to look like. This way, you’ll feel more in control of your time and get more done. Ask yourself this question, “When the day is over, and I’m getting ready to go to bed, what would I have accomplished today to give me a tremendous sense of achievement?” Prioritize things that have to be at the forefront. Planning is easiest when your mental clarity is sharpest, which, for most people, is first thing in the morning.

A simple morning habit allows you to take control of your emotional state. It sets precedence and intent for the day.

Niksen: The Dutch Art of Embracing Stillness, Doing Nothing

July 26, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

Niksen - Dutch Technique of Doing Nothing, Just Being The Dutch have a practice they call Niksen, derived from “niks doen,” which literally means “nothing-ing.” It involves purposefully engaging in doing absolutely nothing, embracing a state of aimlessness.

Think of it as a sanctioned daydreaming session.

Niksen entails gazing out the window and allowing your mind to wander wherever it pleases. Unlike mindfulness meditation, where you observe your thoughts or focus on your breath, Niksen is about simply existing. Just being there. There’s no effort to return to the present moment or to analyze your thoughts.

In Niksen, you’re just being. You take a pause, practice stillness, and let your gaze drift to the horizon. It’s about being wherever you are, whether sitting or standing, without any deliberate action. When thoughts arise, you let them pass without scrutiny, allowing them to come and go naturally.

As a stress-relief technique, Niksen is gaining popularity. Embracing idleness means disconnecting from the constant buzz of connectivity and the pressure of stress, anxiety, and depression. Studies show that allowing your mind to wander activates different parts of the brain, maybe even tapping into some hidden wisdom.

Give Niksen a shot, even if it’s just for a minute or two every now and then. It can provide a much-needed break during moments of tension and worry. These brief escapes can add richness and intrigue to your life, expanding your horizons beyond the everyday.

Half-Size Your Goals

July 24, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

At the start of the year, if you’re like most people, you selected a bunch of lofty, impossible goals. Now, halfway through the year, you feel disappointed and let down with yourself. In fact, the longer your goals list, the more overwhelmed and off-track you’ve got.

As part of your mid-year review, reflect on the first six months of the year and adjust your goals for the rest of the year. Revisit your goals, assess your progress, evaluate your approach, and change your timeline. Break big ambitious goals down into more manageable decisions and improve the odds of achieving the type of outcome you desire.

Try half-sized goals. If you’re struggling to attain a goal that seems to be too challenging, set a less difficult version of the goal.

If you’re not getting good results, then you go back and tweak what you’re doing. Don’t feel the need to change everything in your life at once.

Don’t Quit Your Job Just Yet

June 28, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

As the pandemic subsides, many people are quitting their jobs after being summoned back to the office. A common motive is a life and career reorientation.

During the pandemic, many people started examining work in the context of meaning in life. Isolated from co-workers and customers, they started to feel like their jobs became just the work itself. Some are burned out and dread retreating to the daily life of distractions, commutes, and long office hours—often at the expense of flexibility and family and personal wellbeing.

Overall, people have used the space and time to reflect upon their lives and explore their life priorities. They’ve aspired to take some time off and figure out what they really want to do. Now, they feel like they can afford to take risks and try something new. The money they’ve saved up from lower everyday expenditures during the pandemic can tide them through the transition time.

If you’re thinking of taking a break from work now, don’t quit your job just yet. Give your employer a chance to address your concerns and preferences. Discuss your ambitions for change. Most managers are willing to make the necessary changes and explore hybrid work alternatives. Even if your current situation doesn’t fully jibe with your life’s goals, you could find a suitable sweet spot.

Idea for Impact: Don’t quit until you’ve established yourself in the future path. If you want to take some time off, have a plan ready. If you have the itch to become an entrepreneur, first get your stakes on a side hustle.

Don’t sacrifice that steady paycheck until you’re well positioned for what you want to do next. It usually takes you a lot longer than you think to find a new job, become self-employed, or prepare for a meaningful sabbatical.

How to Start a Hybrid-Remote Work Model

June 19, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

As the pandemic subsides (at least for now,) many companies are summoning employees back to the office. Some companies are giving workers a combination of remote and co-located work.

To initiate a hybrid-remote model for your workplace, first reconstruct how your team gets its job done. Ask, “What activities can be remote?” instead of “what roles can be remote?”

Not every activity can be equally performed in a remote setting. Take into account the level of human and physical interaction needed for every task.

Consider breaking down business activities that were formerly bundled into a single job. Mix and match responsibilities and tasks in keeping with employee competencies and individual needs.

Every employee responds to work circumstances differently. Some employees are eager to return to work—especially if they’ve struggled with blurring home and office during the pandemic, or if they fear disadvantages such as a lack of visibility for promotions.

This Hack Will Help You Think Opportunity Costs

March 29, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Making decisions is all about opportunity costs. For instance, every time you spend money to get something, you should ask yourself what else, perhaps of better value, you could get with that money—now or later.

The problem is, when forced to choose between something immediate and concrete and something else that’s comparatively abstract and distant, the opportunity cost could lack clarity.

Duke University behavioral economist Dan Ariely proposes the notion of “anti-goals” to help examine the trade-offs you’re forced to make. Ariely encourages pairing goals such that if you satisfy one, you’ll impede the other. For example, when choosing to spend $100 on an evening out today, you can consider a tangible anti-goal—say, saving for the family’s summer vacation—that’ll be held back.

Idea for Impact: Thinking about what you want to avoid—the anti-goal—is a potent tool. It allows you to focus on things that really matter.

When Work is Home and Home is Work

December 11, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

As much as you love lounging around all day in athleisure wear or plush robes, it’s easy to mix home- and work-life when working from home during the current pandemic.

Work is always available to you, and self-scheduling has caused work to spill over into non-work hours.

Have a designated workspace away from your personal life and personal tasks. That’ll create not only a physical barrier but a mental and social one as well.

When you practically live in your office, it’s hard for your brain to recognize when it’s okay to entirely shut down. Create some boundaries. Maintain regular office hours, switch off your computer and put it away, and disconnect completely.

Idea for Impact: Mindfully uphold boundaries from morning until evening. Follow a routine similar to the one you had before COVID-19 to accomplish your goals without losing your mind.

“Less is More” is True. 4-Day Workweek Is Better For Everyone.

December 7, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Unilever New Zealand announced last week that it would begin a one-year experiment to allow its staff of 81 to work four days per week while earning their full salaries: “The whole premise is not to do 40 hours in four days … Our goal is to measure performance on output, not time. We believe the old ways of working are outdated and no longer fit for purpose.” If successful, Unilever will roll this initiative out to 155,000 workers around the world.

Microsoft Japan tried 4-day workweeks for a month two summers ago and reported a 40 percent jump in productivity as measured by sales per employee (I think that isn’t a suitable metric.)

People aren’t entirely productive all the time.

I’m a big fan of letting employees think about how they can work differently and encouraging them to develop their own productivity measures. As British historian C. Northcote Parkinson posited in 1955, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

Although, switching to four 10-hour days has its disadvantages. When Utah had its state employees work four 10-hour days from 2008 to 2011, many reported that they lost energy and focus in the last third of their workdays.

A reduced or even compressed week can give employees the benefits that matter the most—notably, the flexibility to organize their lives based on what matters most to them. Employers, in reality, borrow employees from everything else in their lives (hence the word ‘compensation.’)

Idea for Impact: Society needs to ratchet down the time people spend at work.

Once people come to terms with the fallacy of valuing work as an end in itself, the 4-day workweek’s appeal will spread, and it’ll springboard to bigger things. Karl Marx, Bertrand Russell, John Maynard Kaines, even recent U.S. presidential aspirant Andrew Yang have argued the merits of reducing the working week to help alleviate over-consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, overwork, unemployment, and other entrenched sociopolitical inequalities.

Some employers will undoubtedly use four-day workweeks as a pathway to get five days of work in four, push unpaid work, or reduce pay (58% of Americans are paid by the hour.)

Not all business models make the 4-day workweek possible, but businesses will become accustomed to the practicalities of ensuring customer needs are dealt with on all five days.

Make a Habit of Stepping Back from Work

November 10, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

“Busyness” often initiates as a lack of focus. Our culture has been seduced into thinking that we can achieve anything if we try harder and work longer.

Besides, good jobs are overwhelming. Many company cultures count on employees to compartmentalize their lives and prioritize work over all else. Managers expect that employees become what sociologists have identified as “ideal workers”: folks who are entirely dedicated to their jobs and are always on call, sometimes at great expense to their personal life. Such dedication is detrimental not just to employee wellbeing but also to the bottom line.

Being productive requires acknowledging that you can’t work for extended periods and maintain a high-performance level.

Make a habit of stepping back. Taking your mind off work can help you overcome mental blocks. Being productive requires creative thinking more than perseverance.

You’re more likely to find breakthrough ideas when you temporarily remove yourself from the grind. The best solutions uncover themselves when you step into the shower, go for a run, have lunch away from your desk, or set off on holiday.

Up the Good Stuff. To feel less burned-out, do a little more of the things you love and a smidgen less drudge work.
Seek Breathing Room. That’s a metaphor for space to catch up with yourself, regroup, think over whatever’s happening, and know how you feel and what to do next.
Thwart Decision Fatigue. You have a limited capacity for concentrating over extended periods. You can restore your executive function and overcome mental fatigue through interventions—short rest, engaging in creative purists, and increasing the body’s glucose levels.

Idea for Impact: If you want to get more done, start taking breaks. Busyness is very different from effectiveness.

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Balance

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People aren’t entirely productive all the time.

Idea for Impact: Society needs to ratchet down the time people spend at work.

Wondering what to read next?

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