Be Mindful Every Moment

Mindful

Mindfulness is about consciousness in knowing what you are doing at the moment. It means your mind is on the job at hand and you are not thinking of something else. How do you promote mindfulness?

• Solve your problems: One of the major obstacles in getting mindfulness is unsolved problems. You may be working on something but your mind is thinking about some outstanding problems. Problems disturb your peace of mind, do the best you can to overcome them and free your mind so that you can regain your mindfulness.

• Daily exercise: Daily exercise such as jogging gives you more than just physical health. You feel good about yourself and you also get the energy and calmness.

• Sleep well: Lack of sleep is irritable. There will be a lack of energy and concentration and focus is curtailed.

• Be interested in the things that you do: The easiest way to be mindful and without knowing the passage of time is to do things you are interested in. You will be fully engaged or in a state of flow.

• Be organized: Advance planning is the only way to get organized. A to-do list is a wonderful tool just for that. Things get done smoothly without you worrying about not able to finish all tasks on time.

• Daily meditation: This is the way to cultivate mindfulness and peace of mind. Daily meditation promotes your ability to stay present. You will be composed and relaxed to work under demanding situations. 

• Do one thing at a time: Doing more than one thing at a time is counter-productive, stressful and defeat mindfulness.

• Take breaks: Taking breaks is to clear the clutter in your mind and refresh your brain so that you can continue to work with renewed energy and mindfulness.

• Conducive environment: Avoid disturbances and interruptions to interfere with your mindfulness when you are at work.

Be mindful and be happy every moment.

How do you apply the 7 Principles of Learning in the Workplace?

According to educational psychologists, there are 7 principles of learning:


• Readiness
• Exercise
• Effect
• Primacy
• Recency
• Intensity
• Freedom


How can we apply these principles in the workplace?


Readiness: Does the job give you meaning in life? Are you physically, mentally and emotionally ready for the job? Are you fit and healthy to work? Do you have personal problems to disturb your peace of mind at work? When you are ready for the job, things get done smoothly and easily with full concentration and focus.

Exercise: Practice makes perfect. When you do more of the same thing you will develop ways to do it more efficiently and in less time.

Effect: Are you happy at work? Do you find satisfaction in what you do? Enjoying your work will provide positive emotions to reinforce your motivation to work better and smarter.

Primacy: Starting a new day right will positively affect your overall performance for the day. Advance planning and using tools like to-do list will facilitate getting things done the right first time and every time.

Recency: As an example, if you are interrupted by a telephone call and if you do not write down the message immediately it will be most likely forgotten. The thing is that you will remember now but not later.

Intensity: The more you give yourself to the job the better you will perform. When you do not like what you do, you will try and get it done quickly and forget about it. When there is no relationship between you and the job, there is no quality output from you. Enjoy what you do by immersing yourself in it.

Freedom: When you like what you do you take the initiative to do what is expected of you without being told. You enjoy the freedom of getting things done according to your way to getting the desired results. As an effective executive, you get ahead and stay ahead of others by taking action proactively.

The principles of learning are equally applicable to the workplace

Do You Write Things Down?

Putting things down in writing has two advantages. You remember clearly what you need to remember and the act of writing it down reinforces your memory even without looking at it. Instead of referring to your memory, you are able to see the full picture clearly when it is recorded in black and white. What are the things that you should put in writing?

1. Goals: Written goals demonstrate your determination to achieve your dreams. When it is written you can view it every now and then. You can measure your performance, check your progress, make adjustments to changing situation and remind yourself the steps you need to take every day to bring you closer to your objectives.

2. To-do list: You are an effective and organized person when you carry a to-do list. You don’t want to burden your mind when you can have a list with you. A list facilitates getting things done in an orderly manner by doing first thing first.  The greatest satisfaction is to cross out each and every item that you have done for the day.

3. Ideas: Ideas, which are elusive, come in a flash and you need to capture it in writing or else it will be forgotten in the next moment. A pen and a note pad is all you need.  Ideas will occur when you are walking, driving or doing something else. 

4. Telephone messages: Telephone calls are always an interruption to what you do at the moment. The easier thing to do is to write down the telephone messages and continue with your work. If there is something to do and it takes only a few minutes just do it right away and get done with it.

5. Be efficient: In meetings and conferences, you get useful insights. Be ready to record the pertinent points. In a discussion at work or among friends the only way to remember is to put in writing about things your need to do

  

6. Journal: This is the place to record the highlight of the day, your feelings, thoughts and hopes among the blunders and achievements in a day. Review and learn from the journal to avoid making the same mistakes and do more of the right things.    

7. Don’t burden the brain: Don’t stress the mind and try to remember a list of things to do. Use the brain for what it should be – to think creatively and get new and unique ideas. I have the habit of writing things down. I remember what I need to and yet I have a carefree mind. I feel calm and I am happy about it.     

The old fashion way is the most useful and effective way. All you need to remember something is a piece of paper and a pen. A memo pad and a pen beside the telephone will be very handy. Keep a diary to record your journal. Put the to-do list for the day in your shirt pocket plus a pocket notebook to jot down a sudden surge of ideas and things to remember.  Bring along a note pad with you to record important issues in a meeting or discussion.

Do more of these 10 Things to Bring you Happiness and Success

What are the right things you can do more to bring you happiness and success? Check out the following simple things you can do to transform your life for the better.

• Listen more: Listening more is to pay attention to the person who is talking to you and understand him more. Listen carefully to your children, your spouse, your co-workers and whoever is talking to you. When you listen more and talk less, people will appreciate that you care. 

• Act more: You have learnt and understood all the bright ideas in the world to be effective and successful in life and now it is time to take action.  You have not achieved what you want in life it is because you have not taken action to do the right things.

• Move more: Watch less TV and exercise more to be fit and healthy.  You will feel a world of difference in you when you are physically active every day.

• Create more: Think and be more creative so that you can be outstanding by having original and unique ideas. This is the way to move and stay ahead of others.

• Go slow more: When you go slow you rush less and suffer less stress and incur fewer mistakes. You are mindful of what you do when you live in the moment and enjoy more of what you do

• Save more: When you save more you spend less. You accumulate more wealth to enjoy more financial freedom and peace of mind.

• Hope more: Life is more hopeful when you look more at things on the bright side. Worry less and be more positive about the future by living more fully in the present.

• Appreciate more: Appreciate and value more of your capabilities. Be more contented with what you have in life. Express more gratitude in what others have done for you.

• Smile more: Project a positive image by smiling more to people you meet. When you are happy you bring more happiness to others too.

• Learn more: To learn more is to know more, understand more and conceive better ideas. You will be more alert and responsive to changes that are taking place around you.

Get more out of life by doing more of the rights things.

10 Simple Ways to be Successful and Happy

Happiness is about doing what you like and is successful.  Success is getting happiness in what you do. Success and happiness go hand in hand. How do you go about getting happiness and success?

• A job that you are interested in and good at:  Work is no longer work when you enjoy the job that you are doing. You are happy at work and you are always looking for ways to be more productive. Invariably what you do brings success to your career.

• Mindful: You are mindful of what you do when there are no other issues to disturb your peace of mind. You think of the job at hand instead of thinking of something else.  Mindfulness is about working at ease with calmness, concentration and focus. Mindfulness promotes happiness and brings you success in what you do.

• Set written goals: Goals are your dreams and aspirations. People with written goals are more likely to achieve success. It is because they can see their goals clearly. They are able to monitor their progress from time to time. They rejoice at each small success along the way.

• Think positive: Positive thoughts lead to positive emotions such as cheerfulness, delightfulness, hope and optimism. All these mean you are confident of yourself to get things done successfully.

• Keep fit: Fitness and happiness are connected. When you exercise every day you feel good about yourself. You are full of energy and you feel calm and happy inside out. It boosts your confidence and getting success in whatever you do.

• Go slow: When you are angry you express your negative feeling by getting things done quickly and loudly. When you enjoy what you do, you do it painstakingly and slowly to indulge in what you do.  You are happy and as a result, you produce quality work and it spells success.

• Creative: Creativity is the way to get ahead and stay ahead. You get unique and original ideas out of your creative thinking. You get success and happiness out of your own thinking.

• Continuous learning: Learning is a great joy. It stimulates your mental faculty and satisfies your curiosity. Happiness is gaining new knowledge and success is applying what you have learnt in life.

• Love and be loved: To love is to show gratitude and appreciation and when you do good to others, in return you get more love. Happiness is to express your loving feelings and getting the same in return. Success is the ability to nurture relationships.   

• Connected with the right people: Networking with happy and positive thinking people will enhance your happiness, you get inspirations and insights from them to propel you to greater success in life.

Do the right things and behave the right way to capture success and happiness.

Do You Want to Migrate from Blogspot to Dotcom?

I started this blog http://allaboutlivingwithlife.blogspot.com (a free hosted blog) in 2007 and recently I switched to http://www.allaboutlivingwithlife.com ( my own domain) but I am still using the Blogger platform to run my blog. This article is to share with you things that have happened since I switched over.


• Going to my site: The best thing about switching to dotcom is that it does not affect the usual traffic that is coming to my site. It is because when someone keys in the old domain name he will be automatically directed to my site via the new domain name. As far as traffic goes it is the same like before. Google Analytics and Statcounter continue to track my statistics without any problems. Posted articles and everything else is still there. However, you must expect drastic changes to take place for your various rankings

• Traffic Rank: In order to minimize the impact of the change, notify Alexa to merge the date of the two domains. Still, your traffic will be down but will pick up fairly quickly to your previous levels. However, the details of your blog are no longer there, it has to build up like a new domain.

• PageRank: Be prepared to forgo the PageRank when you migrate from Blogspot to dotcom. Previously I have a PageRank of 3, now I have nothing. I have to start all over again to gain my PageRank

• Technorati Rank: Like PageRank, all my Technorati Authority that I have built up over the years is gone. In fact, I can keep my old domain name with the Technorati Authority, but Technorati will not be able to capture links to my blog with the new domain name. So, I delete my old domain and claim my new domain. Now I have started my Authority with just 1

The cost of keeping a dotcom domain is only US10/= per year. Are you willing to sacrifice what you have built up and start all over again? For me, it is a challenge to see how fast I can regain my lost ground.

9 Ways to Jeopardize your Career at the Workplace

Employers are looking for productive people who are able to do more in less time. A productive person is a trusted team player with a cheerful disposition who is creative in solving problems. In order to be a valued employee you have to avoid these negative attitudes: 

• Not punctual: You are always late for meetings. You think that being late for a few minutes is all right. It shows that you have no respect for others. Time is a precious commodity at work. Things need to be carried out in a timely fashion so that workflow is not interrupted. Do not be late for work. If you are unable to arrive at work on time it only shows that you don’t care much about yourself and your work.

• Not creative: Don’t just follow the usual ways to get things done. Think and come up with better ideas to add more value to your work. Be curious and be innovative to explore more efficient and effective ways of doing things. 

• Happy with the way you do things: You have a closed mind. You refuse to consider and make necessary changes for the better. When there is no change there is no progress and so there is no improvement.

• Behave like a Lone Ranger: Working as a part of a team is very important in a large organization. Each head of a department must work cohesively with other heads of department to run an establishment effectively and smoothly. There is no room for an individual to act like a hero. 

• Afraid to ask: You don’t ask things you don’t know and you pretend you know. This may jeopardize your work because you are not clear about the concept and it may affect the objectives of the company.

• Not willing to admit mistakes: To err is human. Do not afraid to admit that you have made a mistake. People will respect your true character for what you are instead of pointing finger at others.

• Low EQ: Do not pull a long face at work, always wear a smile and greet others cheerfully. Learn to know your emotions and able to control them. Get to know the mood of others so that you will approach them at the right time to get things done smoothly

• A person without trust: Do not promise just for the sake of making a promise and cannot deliver. At the workplace, it is crucial to be trusted. The motto is promised to deliver and deliver as premised the first time and every time.

• Reactive instead of proactive: You are expected to do what you need to do in your capacity as an executive If you are to be told what to do every now and then you are just a clerical staff, an order taker.

  

Get rid of all these negative behaviours and be a trusted and valued employee to secure your job.