Stress

Crayons and Coloring Paper Aren’t Just for Kids

December 2, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Adult coloring books, composed of outlines of designs (geometric patterns, for example) that you can fill in with colored pencils or pens, have become hugely popular over the last few years.

Coloring books for adults have been around for decades. However, the publication of French publisher Hachette Pratique’s Art-therapie: 100 Coloriages Anti-Stress (2012) and Scottish artist Johanna Basford’s bestselling Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Coloring Book (2013) and Enchanted Forest: An Inky Quest and Coloring Book (2015) ushered in a social phenomenon. Adult coloring books are among the top sellers on Amazon, and completed colored-in sheets are trending on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. And according to a New Yorker article, coloring books are “also part of a larger and more pervasive fashion among adults for childhood objects and experiences.”

Therapeutic Benefits of Coloring: Concentration and Mindfulness

The emotional benefits of drawing, coloring, and other forms of expressive art was first promoted in the 1920s by the eminent Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung. He noticed that coloring mandalas (ritual symbols in Hinduism and Buddhism) had a calming effect on his adult patients. He journalized (compiled in Jung on Active Imagination (1997)),

I sketched every morning in a notebook a small circular drawing, a mandala, which seemed to correspond to my inner situation at the time. With the help of these drawings I could observe my psychic transformations from day to day … My mandalas were cryptograms…in which I saw the self—that is, my whole being—actively at work.

psychotherapeutic benefits of adult coloring books

Mindfulness Is Being Aware and Being Present on Purpose

Psychologists say that coloring within lines inspires mindfulness—being in the present moment rather than in the past (associated with depression) or in the future (associated with anxiety.) Besides, coloring books, like other forms of expressive art, can put you in a relaxed, absorbed, meditative state and help reduce anxiety, depression, and fatigue.

In an essay on “Coloring Your Way Through Grief,”New York Times columnist Jane Brody discussed the many psychotherapeutic benefits of coloring:

While art therapy has been used for decades to help people express what they can’t put into words, filling in the spaces of a coloring book has a different kind of benefit: enabling people to relax and be more focused…. Coloring within an outlined structure can help to contain and organize feelings of distress and helplessness. Today, there are adult coloring books to help alleviate stress and anxiety, release anger, induce calm and enhance mindfulness… [They can] help people with losses of every kind, including illness, divorce, financial ruin, post-addiction—anything that might force people to redefine their identity.

Idea for Impact: Try adult coloring books for emotional grounding and relaxation. Many colorists find that selecting colors is reassuring. The intentional focus on the coloring process and the repetitive movements can form the underpinning of many self-soothing activities.

Cope with Anxiety and Stop Obsessive Worrying by Creating a Worry Box

November 8, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Most worry is ultimately fruitless

Worries and concerns trouble us all. We waste valuable time worrying about things. As the American motivational author Leo Buscaglia once wrote, “Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.”

In a previous article, I suggested a mindfulness exercise to help you realize the temporal nature of worry. I also emphasized that most of your anticipated adversities will never occur.

Despite the transitional nature of anxiety and worry, mental anguishes can overwhelm your mind. Sometimes these negative emotions can spill over and seep into the fabric of your day.

Obsessive anxiety and worry can wreak havoc on your body. Stress from worrying about life’s many “what ifs” can actually manifest in physical and medical problems, if you let them. For instance, say you are troubled about an upcoming exam in your least favorite course at college. Your worrying could become so compulsive that your apprehensions about the exam could interfere with whatever else is going on in your life. If unchecked, your worry could manifest in higher acid levels in your stomach. Then, you may start worrying about developing stomach problems if you don’t stop worrying. Your worries thus snowball and consume even more of your time.

Writing about your anxieties and worries can help you cope with current concerns

An effective way to stop agonizing and let go of troubling thoughts is to keep a “worry box.”

Find a box and designate it as your worry box. Keep it in a handy location. (A “worry journal” may be just as effective.)
Whenever you feel drowned in worries or have anxious thoughts circulating ceaselessly in your mind, take a piece of paper and jot down each worry as it arises. Write down as much about your worries as you feel like writing.
Drop your note into the worry box. Try to imagine mentally letting go of your concerns. Turn your attention to other matters.
Every so often, empty your worry box and throw away your worry notes without looking at them. If you want, you could read them—you will be surprised to see how many of your worries feel unfounded in hindsight, but were in fact seriously troubling in the immediate storms of distress.

Idea for Impact: Maintaining a “worry box” to deposit your anxieties and worries can help you break free from them and prevent them from disrupting your life.

How to Leave Work at Work

November 1, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

Employees are expected to be 100% on

There was once a time when people went to work, clocked in, put in their hours, clocked out, and forgot all about work until the next day. They fully disconnected from work and took real vacations. They maintained a healthy separation between their work time and their personal time.

Alas, those good times are long gone. Today’s challenging and competitive workplace demands of people not only their stamina to work exceptionally hard but also their hearts-and-minds’ commitment to bring creativity and insight to their efforts.

The pressure to constantly prove themselves is also exacerbated by how modern society judges people by their professional and financial successes—what they do, what they’ve accomplished, and how quickly they’ve accomplished it.

People are expected to be 100% on, take work home, and check in during their vacations. The upshot is that many people have real trouble turning work off. Work-related thoughts encroach upon their off-work hours. Some even lose sleep or wake up in the middle of the night thinking about their work.

Don’t bring work home in your head

Get a Life. Have a life to go to after you leave work. Develop a rich social life. Invest more time in your relationships. Get involved in absorbing activities, events, and hobbies. Schedule fun activities—you’ll have something to look forward to at the end of your workday.
Organize your workday. Structure your schedule to prevent hustling through work towards the end of the day. Be realistic about what you want to accomplish. In the middle of the afternoon, review the tasks ahead. Prioritize, reorganize, and pace yourself to wind down your workday. Do not answer phone calls or email during the last hour.
Organize and prioritize your next day’s schedule before you leave your office. Clean off your desk at the end of each day. This not only brings about a feeling of order and completion, but also helps you tune down and free up your mind.
Create a buffer between work and home. Stop by a gym, go shopping, or visit a friend. After you get home, change clothes, go for a walk, or do something relaxing to mark the transition and create a relaxed mindset for the evening.
Vent if necessary. Ask your loved ones to give you a few minutes to “let it out.” Expect them to just listen and be non-judgmental.
Don’t bring work home. Leave your briefcase, laptop, reports, and work-related reading at your desk.
Disconnect. Modern technology makes it easier for you to stay connected, but also makes it more difficult than ever to leave work at work. Leave your laptop at work. Turn off email and instant messaging on your phone. Resist the temptation to check your email on the family computer. Don’t visit the business center at the hotel when you’re on vacation.
Delegate and cross-train your staff to handle some of your responsibilities while you’re away.
Stop checking in with the office, especially when you’re on vacation. Your team will get along fine without you around. Crises will get managed, production will continue, customers will continue to be satisfied, and you’ll still have your job when you return. Let your team know how to find you in a dire emergency, but ask them not to bother you with the inconsequential stuff.

Idea for Impact: Don’t let work take over your life. Establish boundaries.

Don’t let your work run you. Don’t take work home literally (in your bag/briefcase or on your laptop) or figuratively (in your head). Enjoy your downtime.

Learn to disconnect from work unreservedly and spend time with your family. Play with the kids. Quality time with your loved ones is often more rewarding than your time at work. And perhaps by doing less work, you may end up loving your job more.

Lessons from the Princeton Seminary Experiment: People in a Rush are Less Likely to Help Others (and Themselves)

June 16, 2015 By Nagesh Belludi 3 Comments

Vincent van Gogh's The Good Samaritan (after Delacroix)

In the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29–37 in the New Testament,) a Samaritan helps a traveler assaulted by robbers and left half dead by the side of the road. Prior to the Samaritan, a priest and a Levite pass the injured traveler and fail to notice him. Conceivably, the priest and Levite’s contempt was because they didn’t sincerely follow those same virtues they espoused as religious functionaries. Possibly, they were in a hurry or were occupied with busy, important—even religious—thoughts. Perhaps the Samaritan was in less of a hurry since he wasn’t as socially important as the priest or Levite and was therefore not expected to be somewhere.

The Princeton Seminary Experiment

Inspired by the parable of the Good Samaritan, Princeton social psychologists John Darley and Dan Batson conducted a remarkable experiment in the 1970s on time pressure and helpful behavior. They studied how students of the Princeton Theological Seminary conducted themselves when asked to deliver a sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan.

The students were to give the sermon in a studio a building across campus and would be evaluated by their supervisors. The researchers were curious about whether time pressure would affect the seminary students’ helpful nature. After all, the students were being trained to become ordained priests; they are presumably inclined to help others.

As each student finalized his preparation in a classroom, the researchers inflicted an element of time constraint upon them by giving them one of three instructions:

“You’re late. They were expecting you a few minutes ago…You’d better hurry. It shouldn’t take but just a minute.” This was the high-hurry condition.
“The (studio) assistant is ready for you, so please go right over.” This was the intermediate-hurry condition.
“It’ll be a few minutes before they’re ready for you, but you might as well head on over. If you have to wait over there, it shouldn’t be long.” This was the low-hurry condition.

As each student walked by himself from the preparation classroom to the studio, he encountered a ‘victim’ in a deserted alleyway just like the wounded traveler in the parable of the Good Samaritan. This victim (actually an associate of the experimenters) appeared destitute, was slouched and coughing and clearly in need of assistance. The seminarians were thus offered a chance to apply what they were about to preach.

“Conflict, rather than callousness, can explain their failure to stop.”

Researchers were interested in determining if their imposed time pressure affected the seminarians’ response to a distressed stranger. Remarkably, only 10% of the students in the high-hurry situation stopped to help the victim. 45% of the students in the intermediate-hurry and 63% of the students in the low-hurry situations helped the victim.

The researchers concluded, “A person not in a hurry may stop and offer help to a person in distress. A person in a hurry is likely to keep going. Ironically, he is likely to keep going even if he is hurrying to speak on the parable of the Good Samaritan, thus inadvertently confirming the point of the parable… Thinking about the Good Samaritan did not increase helping behavior, but being in a hurry decreased it.”

In light of their training and calling, the seminarians’ failure of bystander intervention is probably not due to indifference, self-centeredness, or contempt. (Compare with the plot of the series finale of American sitcom Seinfeld, where Jerry and friends are prosecuted for failure of duty to rescue.) The dominant cause is time pressure. Most of the students who believed they had enough time to stop did so. In contrast, the vast majority of those who thought they were late did not stop to help. In other words, the perception of time pressure or “having limited time” resulted in behaviors incongruent to their education and career: the devotion to help others. Time pressure triggered these well-intentioned students to behave in ways that, upon reflection, they would find disgraceful. The weight of a time constraint caused the students to put their immediate concern of being on time before the wellbeing of someone in need.

We’re in such hurry that we don’t stop to help ourselves

“I’m Late, I’m Late for a very important date,
No time to say hello. Goodbye.
I’m late, I’m late, I’m late, and when I wave,
I lose the time I save.”
—White Rabbit in the Disney musical “Alice in Wonderland” (1951)

The Princeton Seminary Experiment offers an even more personal lesson. As the researchers in this experiment expound, when we speed up and feel rushed, we experience a phenomenon known as “narrowing of the cognitive map.” That is, we miss details, we are not present enough in the moment to notice what is really important and we do not make the most beneficial choices for ourselves.

As we make our way through life, not only do we not stop to help others—we also do not stop to help ourselves. We neglect our own needs. We fail to nurture ourselves. We surrender, we settle, we lose hope. We compromise ourselves and become what we often settle for.

Our noisy world and busy lives constantly make us hurry as somebody always depends on us being somewhere. We constantly rush from place to place as if our lives depended upon it. We rush while doing just about everything. We are at the mercy of commitments often imposed by others.

Life moves quickly. And we’ll have missed it.

We fail to nurture ourselves We’re too busy, we’re too hurried and we’re too rushed. When people place demands on our time, our first resort is to cut out that which is most valuable. We are so busy meeting deadlines that we cannot make time for our loved ones. We abandon physical exercise to get to meetings on time. We avoid medical checkups critical to our well-being. We engage in behaviors that can put ourselves at risk for negative consequences in the future.

As our world continues to accelerate and our pace of life picks up speed, the clock’s finger turns inescapably. Life moves on by quickly, and soon enough we’ll have missed it entirely.

Idea for Impact: Be ever-conscious of the fact that time is the currency of your life

The German theologian and anti-Nazi descendent Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) wrote in his “Letters and Papers from Prison”, “As time is the most valuable thing that we have, because it is the most irrevocable, the thought of any lost time troubles us whenever we look back. Time lost is time in which we have failed to live a full human life, gain experience, learn, create, enjoy, and suffer; it is time that has not been filled up, but left empty.”

Make the best use of your time. Interrupt your busy life to help yourself by living more fully in the present. Nurture yourself. Your needs belong to the top.

A Timeout from Busyness // Book Summary of Pico Iyer’s ‘The Art of Stillness’

January 27, 2015 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Escape from the Mayhem

Our everyday lives are so busy. Our days are so full. Our world is so noisy.

We fill our lives with activities. We are at the mercy of our commitments. We have an incessant need to be occupied. We hasten. We seek to do something—anything.

Often, our identities are defined by mere ‘doing,’ not ‘being.’ Many of us struggle to find a few minutes to just sit quietly and clear our heads. We cannot afford some space to think and just be. We hardly ever pause to contemplate our experiences or reflect on the life we’ve been missing in a world overwhelmed by distractions.

Distractions disrupt our peace. The French scientist and Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote in Pensees, “Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries, and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries” and added that “the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.”

To counter all of our exhilarating movement, we must balance it with an escape. We need space and stillness. When we remain still, we are struck by the realization that our noisy outer world is nothing but a reflection of our cluttered inner world.

Stillness: “Clarity and Sanity and the Joys that Endure”

Celebrated globetrotter and travel writer Pico Iyer’s “The Art of Stillness,” an expansion of his TED talk, is an inspiring analysis of the need to escape the persistent distractibility of the mundane. Iyer makes a persuasive argument for the startling pleasures of “sitting still as a way of falling in love with the world and everything in it.”

Pico Iyer and his family lives in a modest home in the countryside near Kyoto without internet, television, mobile phones, or even cars.

The book’s promo includes excerpts from Iyer’s talk:

We all know that in our undermined lives, one of the things most undermined is ourselves. Many of us have the sensation that we are standing about two inches away from a huge canvass. It’s noisy. It’s crowded. And it’s changing every second. And that screen is our lives. It’s only by stepping back and holding still, that we can begin to see what the canvass means.

One of the first things you learn when you travel is that nowhere is magical unless you can bring the right eyes to it. I find that the best way I could develop more attentive and more appreciative eyes was, oddly to go nowhere … just by sitting still.

In the age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still.

The Importance of Taking a Timeout From Busyness

Subtitled “Adventures in Going Nowhere,” Iyer’s insightful 64-page book provides several examples of stillness in practice. Iyer gives us glimpses into the lives of a privileged few who have found peace.

For example, legendary singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen discovered the supreme seduction of a monastic life. In 1994, after constant indulgence as an incessant traveler and international heartthrob, Cohen moved to the Mt. Baldy Zen Center in California, embarked on five years of seclusion, served as an aide to the now-107-year-old Japanese Zen teacher Kyozan Joshu Sasaki, and got ordained as a Zen Buddhist monk.

Leonard Cohen had come to this Old World redoubt to make a life—an art—out of stillness. And he was working on simplifying himself as fiercely as he might on the verses of one of his songs, which he spends more than ten years polishing to perfection. The week I was visiting, he was essentially spending seven days and nights in a bare meditation hall, sitting stock-still. … Sitting still, he said with unexpected passion, was “the real deep entertainment” he had found in his sixty-one years on the planet. “Real profound and voluptuous and delicious entertainment. The real feast that is available within this activity.” … “This seems to me the most luxurious and sumptuous response to the emptiness of my own existence.”

Typically lofty and pitiless words; living on such close terms with silence clearly hadn’t diminished his gift for golden sentences. But the words carried weight when coming from one who seemed to have tasted all the pleasures that the world has to offer.

…

Sitting still with his aged Japanese friend, sipping Courvoisier, and listening to the crickets deep into the night, was the closest he’d come to finding lasting happiness, the kind that doesn’t change even when life throws up one of its regular challenges and disruptions.

…

Going nowhere, as Cohen described it, was the grand adventure that makes sense of everywhere else.

From the Mayhem of Thought & Action to The Stillness of Being

Iyer contends that the best place to visit in these frenzied, over-connected times is nowhere:

At some point, all the horizontal trips in the world stop compensating for the need to go deep, into somewhere challenging and unexpected; movement makes most sense when grounded in stillness. In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing could feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.

…

Going nowhere … isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply.

…

It’s only by taking myself away from clutter and distraction that I can begin to hear something out of earshot and recall that listening is much more invigorating than giving voice to all the thoughts and prejudices that anyway keep me company twenty-four hours a day. And it’s only by going nowhere—by sitting still or letting my mind relax—that I find that the thoughts that come to me unbidden are far fresher and more imaginative than the ones I consciously seek out.

Iyer’s “The Art of Stillness” isn’t a self-help manual and doesn’t give specific, actionable advice on how to achieve stillness. Quiet reflection and mindfulness meditation could move one’s mind in the direction of uplifting tranquility and natural stillness.

Idea for Impact: Occasionally, Try to Not Do Anything and Just Be

Take a break from your day to reflect, to recharge and to reassess. Take a vacation from your accelerated life. Just be with yourself, genuinely center, and quiet the mind.

You can achieve this centered state and contemplate when your exterior is noiseless. Then, during those still and silent moments you can come to terms with your experiences and struggles, your hopes and despairs, your ideas and judgments, your fears and fantasies.

When Work Becomes Alibi: Turtle Workaholism and Excuse-making

December 19, 2012 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

When we think of workaholics, we tend to conjure up images of people slaving away for their paycheck, either out of necessity or ambition. But what about the elusive “turtle workaholics”—those who use their jobs as a way to escape personal problems and evade domestic responsibilities?

These workaholics submit to work as a distraction and seek refuge in the routine and structure of their jobs, finding solace in tangible results and recognition from colleagues. Meanwhile, they neglect the conflicts brewing at home with their spouses or children. It’s a classic case of out of sight, out of mind—except it’s their personal lives that’re out of sight.

The problem with this approach, of course, is that “turtle workaholism” isn’t a real solution. While it might provide temporary relief, it doesn’t address the underlying issues. So if you find yourself gravitating towards work as a means of escapism, take a moment to examine your motivations. Confronting conflicts might be uncomfortable, but it’s the only way to truly resolve them. Don’t be a turtle—face your problems head-on.

Stressed, Lonely, or Depressed? Could a Pet Help?

December 11, 2012 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Getting a pet may be just what a doctor might order to help overcome stress, loneliness, and depression.

For reasons not completely understood, we need animals as much as they need us.

Scientific studies have confirmed anecdotal evidence that pets can play a role in taming physical responses to stress. Blood pressure is shown to drop sharply when people merely rub a cat or a dog. The presence of a loved pet can have a calming influence on blood pressure and heart rate, especially when performing a task that might induce physical and mental stress. Even watching fish in an aquarium can reduce anxiety in dental patients waiting for oral surgeries.
Pets can be great buffers against everyday stress, thereby improving long-term physical and mental health. After a hard day at work, playing with a pet can be an effective way of unwinding and reducing stress. Around the world, more delighted frenzies are welcoming people at the end of their hard days at work. An estimated 63% of American, 43% of British, 20% of Japanese, and 60% of Australian households have pets. The proportion of households with pets is growing in India, China, and other developing countries as the burgeoning middle-classes have greater disposable incomes.

Pets can be a great source of nurturance for children. Pets can provide children with many formative experiences in caring for others, including, possibly, the first glimpse of death and the chance to cope with the loss of a loved one.
Pets are non-judgmental and accept their owners without qualification. They provide unconditional love and companionship. Having dogs encourages their owners to get out often, exercise, and meet more people. One study showed that people in wheelchairs got much friendlier responses in public places when they brought along their dogs.
Pet ownership can be a gratifying surrogate for human companionship, especially for people with limited social support systems. People with pets cope better with the impacts of adverse life events. At nursing homes, visiting therapy dogs lift the spirits of elders who tend to be sad or withdrawn.
The mere presence of somebody—even a pet—that one can care about can bring about a sense of purpose and great joy. [Look at this touching chronicle of an 87-year old grandmother in Japan and her beloved cat.]

Idea for Impact: Consider adopting a pet

Plenty of cats and dogs at humane shelters may die if not adopted. Choose a pet that fits your lifestyle. Understand that owning a pet is not for everyone; pets involve additional responsibility, which can be added-on stress. If your circumstances do not allow you to own a pet, offer to walk a friend’s dog regularly, babysit a vacationer’s cats, or volunteer at an animal shelter, clinic, or pet store.

The Nature of Worry

August 25, 2010 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

“When you stop to examine your thoughts you start to see that they have a life of their own, they come and go, generally in a random, idiosyncratic way. Recognizing the constancy of our endless thinking process is said to be one of the important early steps we take on the meditation path.”
—Bob Sharples, Do the Thoughts Ever Stop

Have you ever realized that most of your anticipated misfortunes never occur, that some of life’s difficult scenarios never come to pass, or that most of your worrying is ultimately fruitless and life goes on?

Below, I present a simple exercise to help you discover the lifecycle of worry. I encourage you to sit down at a quiet place, somewhere you can relax and reflect. If necessary, fetch yourself a journal, special notebook, or a piece of scratch paper.

Mindfulness Exercise

Consider a recent upheaval or stressful event. Go back in time and experience that moment for a minute. How do you feel? What preoccupies your mind?

Under the direct influence of your anguish, your mind is bewildered. You feel disoriented. Your mind is filled with apprehension. Bearing the burden of this stress, you cannot take your mind off the imagined ramifications. The wounds of your sorrow seem incurable.

Now, fast forward to a few days following the stressful event. What do you experience now? Your troubles no longer hold a grip on your life as before. You feel released from that moment’s immediate affliction. As you reflect the situation’s progress, you feel amazed by how your feelings have changed. What happened to the irreparable hardship?

Storms of Distress

Allow another interval of time to elapse. How do your feelings compare now? The original despair is diminished further. The event feels formless; your apprehensions are no longer recognizable. You may even find humor in your past misfortune.

A few days later, you are surprised by how easily these storms of distress passed. You wonder how these depressing emotions could have possessed you. The events are not undone and the external circumstances remain unchanged. What has changed is your mind’s condition?

Idea for Impact: “This too shall pass”

“Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.”
—Benjamin Franklin

It is your mind that relates external circumstances to your internal being. Joy and sorrow, hopes and despairs, elation and desolation, pleasures and annoyances are nothing but outcomes of your sensibility. Outside forces are challenging to conquer—our control over the exterior world is narrow, and merely illusory. However, the evolution of your thoughts and feelings and your responses to distressing situations are within your power.

The next time you experience a hardship—a conflict, a distressing situation, or annoyance, recall what happened with your prior hardships. Recognize that everything happening in your external environment is but impermanent. Say to yourself, “This too shall pass.”

Four Telltale Signs of an Unhappy Employee

March 30, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

A skilled manager understands how to get work done through her staff under all circumstances. She makes herself available, delegates effectively and provides appropriate feedback. She works hard to sustain an effective work environment in which her staff feels motivated and takes pride in their achievements.

The skilled manager accurately discerns what her employees think and how feel about their work; she also assesses their happiness on the job. She recognizes unhappy employees through these four noticeable behavioral changes over time:

Tardiness: The unhappy employee tends to arrive late, leave early and takes longer breaks. He is often elusive and hard to pin down.
Disdain: The unhappy employee can be grouchy, whining, or may complain excessively. He tends to be oversensitive: he sulks at even the slightest criticism, gets defensive, or accuses supervisors of picking on him.
Indifference: The unhappy employee cannot focus on his responsibilities. Consequently, his work tends to be disorganized and incomprehensible. His workload is a struggle. He fails to update management on a regular basis, rarely has a say in important matters, and resists new assignments.
Aloofness: The unhappy employee is inclined to distance himself physically, socially and emotionally from his coworkers. He is likely to be uncooperative and refuses to accommodate others’ requests.

Fight Clutter and Simplify Life

October 28, 2008 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Classic Clutter-Busting Strategies

This ‘Unclutterer’ blog article lists essential strategies to get and stay organized. Below is an abridgment; see full article here.

A place for everything, and everything in its place. If an object doesn’t have an official home, then it will always be out of place. Once you’re finished using an object, immediately put it back in its place.

Establish routines. Set up a regular schedule for tasks that have to be completed daily and weekly: laundry, cleaning, cooking, organizing, filing, home and auto maintenance, etc. The more methodical you are, the simpler it is to maintain your home and office.

If you don’t use it, need it, love it, or feel inspired by it, get rid of it. Just because you might have space to store something, doesn’t mean you have to keep it. Your home and office should be filled with useful and inspiring things, not objects that cause you stress and anger. Plus, the less you own, the less you have to worry about, clean, organize, finance, and maintain.

Call for Action

One of the primary drivers of the feeling of not being on “top of things” is disorder and clutter. Given our busy lives, we tend to let things get out of hand. This can frequently lead to a chronic preoccupation over the lack of orderliness in our lives.

Set aside some time, perhaps just 30 minutes, and

Eliminate. Toss out things you have not used in the last two years. If you are not using something on a regular basis, you probably do not need it. Consider donating to charity or let somebody else have things you do not need.
Organize. After eliminating unneeded and unwanted things, store articles close to where you use them. Consider investing in filing cabinets, cupboards or storage boxes.
Simplify. One of the biggest hindrances to “getting things done” is complexity and redundancy. In today’s consumer driven societies, we tend to buy things we don’t need or, worse, things we already have and cannot remember. Use common sense to prioritize what you will own and what you will do and fight complexity.

Control your ‘stuff’—do not let them control you.

« Previous Page

Stress

Therapeutic Benefits of Coloring: Concentration and Mindfulness

Mindfulness Is Being Aware and Being Present on Purpose

Wondering what to read next?

Most worry is ultimately fruitless

Writing about your anxieties and worries can help you cope with current concerns

Wondering what to read next?

Employees are expected to be 100% on

Don’t bring work home in your head

Idea for Impact: Don’t let work take over your life. Establish boundaries.

Wondering what to read next?

The Princeton Seminary Experiment

“Conflict, rather than callousness, can explain their failure to stop.”

We’re in such hurry that we don’t stop to help ourselves

Life moves quickly. And we’ll have missed it.

Idea for Impact: Be ever-conscious of the fact that time is the currency of your life

Wondering what to read next?

Escape from the Mayhem

Stillness: “Clarity and Sanity and the Joys that Endure”

The Importance of Taking a Timeout From Busyness

From the Mayhem of Thought & Action to The Stillness of Being

Idea for Impact: Occasionally, Try to Not Do Anything and Just Be

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Idea for Impact: Consider adopting a pet

Wondering what to read next?

Mindfulness Exercise

Storms of Distress

Idea for Impact: “This too shall pass”

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Classic Clutter-Busting Strategies

Call for Action

Wondering what to read next?