6 Quick Ways to Be Happier at Work

I've written about workplace happiness in the past, but many of my suggestions require consistent effort. Here are five sure-fire, incredibly easy actions that will immediately improve your workplace experience:

1. Take a "quiet minute" each morning.

Within your morning routine, carve out a minute--60 seconds--to be silent, by yourself. Don't think about work. Read a poem or say a prayer. Or just rest your brain. You'll be amazed at how much extra energy it will create for the rest of your day.

2. Smile more frequently.

Smiling accomplishes two things. First, it tells your brain to be more happy. (Try being depressed with a huge grin stuck on your face.)  Second, when you smile it tends to make other people smile, too. It's contagious, in a good way.

3. Give yourself more credit.

Take a second to give yourself a mental and emotional pat on the back every time you complete a project, even if it's only a small part of a larger effort.  This creates a sense of accomplishment that keeps you from feeling overwhelmed.

4. Celebrate when you learn something.

If you're alive, you can't help learning something new every day. The trick here is to recognize when you've learned something new and potentially important.  That's a victory and worth a quiet, inner "hooray!"

5. Enjoy human nature.

Let's face it: people do really strange things. You have a choice when confronted with these foibles: 1) be irritated or 2) be amused.  Being irritated makes you miserable but being amused helps you find creative ways to work around the limitations of others.

6. Say thanks to those who do thankless tasks.

You probably already know that you should thank co-workers and customers on a regular basis.  But what about the janitors, the facilities people, the call center staff? They've got really tough jobs and seldom hear that their contributions are valued.

These 5 Every Day Distractions Will Suck Your Life Away if You Let Them

We live in a world where almost everyone is in a rush – whether it’s getting to a meeting venue on time, submitting work notes on schedule, beating traffic so as not be late to work or school – these are just some of the common scenarios that mirror how hectic our schedule have become. With so many things to do in 24-hours, we seldom get the chance of getting everything done. When did things get so complicated???

Sometimes you have to sit back and ask yourself honestly: When was the last time you felt good because you were able to clear out your to do list? Can’t remember? That’s not surprising at all.
Now, if we’ve been spending hours rushing to get from one meeting to another or working from one project to the next, why is it that we never ever get to finish something up? This is because there are so many distractions in our world now and we are constantly multi tasking.

Ultra productive people know that in order to accomplish a massive amount and importantly to feel great about it and balanced that you have to be single minded in your approach and eliminate distractions so we can focus on completing the things which really matter.

Here are what I know to be some of the most common distractions many people are challenged with every single day.

1. Unnecessary Meetings
You know there is a problem in our working culture when there are books out now called ‘death by meeting’ This is a book by Patrick Lencioni and it is awesome. Have you ever wondered how much time you have masted being in meetings where your attendance seemed pointless or a waste of time? Where it just seems to be a meeting for the sake of a meeting which goes on for ages made up of mostly dribble and then at the end no real actionable items coming out of it? Shoot me now. Here are some tips to make meetings effective:

• Make sure there is a point and a clear outcome that must be reached before you go into the meeting
• Try having stand up meetings
• Set a time limit, where as soon as that time is up, everyone gets up and leaves – there is nothing like a bit of pressure to get a result
• Ask: do I really need to be involved in this meeting?
• 
  

2. Email

We are in a culture now where people expect instant responses. Someone sends an email and if you don’t respond within 10 minutes they are wondering if you are ok? This is a productivity killer. How many times a day do you check your email, honestly? 10 times a day, 20? Is it open all the time, just desperately waiting for that next earth shattering email to arrive? Seriously, most emails are a waste of time and don’t get me started on the need for people to cc the entire world in on emails.

Top tips
• Set specific times each day where it is only then that you check email. For me it is 11 am in the morning and 3 pm in the afternoon and I check it for about 30 minutes at a time.
• Condition others not to expect instantaneous responses from you (unless this is your job of course). If you don’t condition others, they will expect you to live by their conditions
• Set up rules and filters
• Get someone else to check them for you. I have a virtual assistant to manages my email for me and sorts them into one of four boxes: Action, review, Archive, delete. I have given her a clear set of rules to follow and it clears the clutter. (Stay tuned for a later blog on how to do this effectively)
• Finally, turn off that bloody pop up you've got mail or the ‘ding’ or the little envelope. As soon as it is there, you know you can’t help but check it. Curiosity will get the better of you

3. Social Media Sites

Can’t resist looking at your phone or logging in to your pc to check your Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube? Social media is fun but it can be a huge time-waster especially when you begin to lose track of how much time you spend updating people with your status posts, reading your timeline or tweeting people back. You can help minimize the time you spend with social media by designating a set amount of time each day for online social sites. In 15-20 minutes, you can update your status or send a few tweets and once the time is over, logout so you don’t get distracted by social media notifications and start working. It will take a lot of self-control to accomplish this, you know it will, but you will thank yourself for practicing restraint especially after you plough through one project to another.

4. Office Chit-Chat and Random Distractions
Ever noticed how a 5 minute small-talk with a co-worker can stretch into 30 minutes, even a full hour? There is nothing wrong with socializing but when it begins to eat up your time and affect your productivity, then you have to do something about it. Minimize office chit-chat by communicating to colleagues your need for focus time. Hang a sign/symbol on your doorknob or outside your cubicle to discourage people from chatting with you and to send a signal that this isn’t a good time to interrupt your work and learn this phrase: “Bill, I would love to talk to you, but I have an urgent deadline right now, can we chat later?”
People will tend to leave you alone when you say you have something urgent to complete with a deadline. We are conditioned to respond to urgency in this day and age.

5. Multi Tasking
I should really have this at the top. How big is your to-do list? Massive I bet if you are like most people. Now I actually don’t like to do-lists, they are ineffective and can be very overwhelming, there are much better systems based on outcomes, values and priorities, but this is for another time, but even this is better than nothing for most people who just let all of the things they have to get done rattle around endlessly in their heads and live in this constant state of reaction and drama.
I am only going to give you one tip here, there are many more I can add, but I reckon that this is so vital that if you did it, it could completely change your life. It is one question:
“What is the one thing I could do right now, that if I did it and made major progress would do more to advance me in my life and career than anything else? “
Now, do that one thing.
Then, you guessed it, ask the same question again, and do that one thing.
Then ask again
You get the point right????

If you let them, these distractions will suck away a major portion of your life and can hold you back from reaching your potential in work and in life.
Here are the 3 real themes to practice in your life:
1. Focus on simplicity and taking strategic action on one thing at a time;
2. Set up your environment around you and systems to eliminate distractions and ensure you stay on track;
3. Remember, that you are not playing life like most people are, you are extraordinary and are not going to follow like a sheep what everyone else does. So condition the people around you to your way of working. If you don’t, they will expect you to conform to their way and society’s norms which are totally ineffective.
One of the greatest things I learned when I first started out on my growth journey at a young age was to become ultra productive and it is a skill set and habit which has taken me a long long way and allowed me to outperform the majority of others around me. Any successful person loves time management. Do yourself a favor and become a time master.

Todd Polke provides coaching, practical workshops and keynote talks to help professionals of all ages achieve their own versions of a wealthy lifestyle. By drawing on his vault of knowledge in business, personal growth, wealth psychology and investment strategy, Todd is helping people just like you generate more wealth to support your highest values in life.

10 Scientifically Proven Ways to Build and Manage Great Teams

Try one. Try them all. They work. Science says so.

No one does anything worthwhile alone, and that's why we all want--scratch that--why we all need--to build great teams.

But is team-building an art or a science?

Great question--one I asked Gregory Ciotti, a Customer Champion at HelpScout, a company that provides email support software for SaaS and ecommerce, if he could answer. (Gregory also has a very cool blog.)

Here's what Gregory put together:

When it comes to assembling, motivating and keeping a great team happy so that they can flourish in your business, the truth is that it's a bit of both.

There's no way to overstate how important a great team is to a business' success. The quality of the work you do will exceeds the quality of the team behind it. Yet to many an entrepreneur's and manager's dismay, teambuilding often seems as complicated as watch making--there are a lot of moving parts and things have to be just right in order to create something magical.

Fortunately, academic research on team culture and group dynamics sheds some much needed light on creating and motivating the perfect team.

Here's a look at ten of the best studies available. Check them out to learn practical steps youcan do to ensure your team is set up for success.

1. Teambuilding exercises can work. Building a great team and actual "teambuilding" exercises are often viewed in very different lights.

Teambuilding is a business topic that generally produces a few eye rolls. The first thing that comes to mind for many are all the superficial activities that force people together into some sort of awkward scenario with all of the participants hating the process and wishing it would end.

Teambuilding shouldn't have that reputation.

The Small Group Research journal paper "Does Team Building Work?" analyzed data from 103 studies conducted between 1950 and 2007. This cumulative research provides the strongest scientific evidence to date that team building can have measurable, positive effects on team performance.

As you'll soon see, the "secret" in making team building work is to keep things normal, and to avoid situations that feel invasive, awkward, or forced. Do NOT assemble your team and ask everyone to share their greatest fear--a huge majority of the people involved won't appreciate this forced mix of their work life and personal feelings.

What far more practical things should you do instead?

2. The 5 best teambuilding activities. In light of the lackluster reputation of teambuilding, you probably aren't surprised to read that research from Citrix has shown that 31 percent of office workers say they can't stand teambuilding activities.

This negative association is a shame, because, as discussed in this Harvard Business School publication, a connected team is a motivated team. Further supporting research from the American Psychological Association (APA) finds that team building activities can help employees feel valued, and those that do are the most motivated to do great work.

According to that study, "Almost all employees (93 percent) who reported feeling valued said they are motivated to do their best at work."

There are ways to circumvent the negative association and provide great bonding experiences for co-workers. David W. Ballard, head of APA's Psychologically Healthy Workplace Program, shared in this U.S. News & World Report interview five simple team-building activities that have shown to be successful time and time again.

They are:

1. Volunteering. The best activities are those that the entire team feels proud to participate in. Research even suggests that helping others makes you feel like you have more time on your hands! The Help Scout team recently assisted the Cradles to Crayons project to help support a great cause in our community, and we all found it to be an incredibly rewarding experience that encouraged conversation outside the workspace.
2. Physical activities. Sports make for superb outings that allow employees to work together and get physical exercise. However, Ballard warns that always playing the sport that the CEO likes may make the activity feel like an obligation. Also, pick your sport carefully: activities that could result in injury (like football) aren't as effective as milder, non-contact options (like bowling or ice skating.)
3. Field trips. Simple, casual trips like visiting a park or museum or going to a baseball game can work wonders for your team.
4. Professional development activities. Quality workshops give teams the opportunity to stay up to date with education and develop professional relationships in new settings--all without the stigma of going it alone or the awkwardness of trying to network solo.
5. Shared meals. Eating regularly with your team allows for casual conversation in a comfortable environment, letting team members get to know each other outside of work. As a remote worker, I don't get to see the Help Scout team every day, but when I'm in Boston we spend lunchtime together and I regularly dine out with individual team members.

3. Great teams need non-work communication. A study from MIT's Human Dynamics Laboratory shows that when it comes to predicting the success of a great team, the most important element is how well the team communicates during informal meetings:

"With remarkable consistency, the data confirmed that communication indeed plays a critical role in building successful teams. In fact, we've found patterns of communication to be the most important predictor of a team's success."

This doesn't mean team members have to be best friends outside of work, but managers should recognize that non-work discussions are critical to creating a team that looks out for each other. Otherwise, co-workers may begin to view one another as just cogs in the machine.

How can informal conversations be regularly prompted within teams? According to the study, "We advised the center's manager to revise the employees' coffee break schedule so that everyone on a team took a break at the same time."

In short, a simple nudge works far better than awkward, forced team-building exercises that mandate casual conversations.

4. Star performers are often dependent on their team. Your rockstar employee that seems to thrive due to natural talent may be more dependent on their team than you think.

A Harvard study published in 2006 revealed that the overall performance of heart surgeons improved over time (patient mortality was the outcome measured) when they were able to consistently work with their usual team at the primary hospital they performed in.

When the surgeons would cover for other doctors, the researchers found that this measured improvement didn't translate to other familiar hospitals with unfamiliar personnel.

So even though these surgeons were well acquainted with the other hospitals (thereby sidelining worries about feeling confused or "out of place"), they didn't have the same tacit understanding of their team members. As a result, they did not perform at the same level as they did at their primary hospital with their primary team.

This finding is very important for both employees and employers to consider when evaluating how a particular team is contributing to their rockstar's consistency.

5. Remote teams can outperform local teams. Yahoo's recent announcement they would end their remote working program created significant debate. But the research shows that not every company should write off the practice just yet.

A 2009 study from MIT's Sloan School of Management found that virtual teams working for software companies were regularly outperforming on-location teams, as long as they had the proper systems in place.

What systems are required? According to the MIT study:

Those processes can be classified in two categories: task-related--including those that help ensure each team member is contributing fully; and socio-emotional--including those that increase the cohesion of the group."

The group's findings show these elements to be critical for remote-team success:

• Let remote workers know they are valued. Remote workers are especially vulnerable to being looked over and not feeling appreciated for the work that they are doing. Teams need to make sure remote workers feel supported and appreciated, even if they aren't in office.
• Find solutions for seamless work coordination. A much-needed tool for any virtual team is the ability to view, organize and change deadlines through a project management system that the entire team can access. Sharing calendars and project updates can get messy, and the best solution that our team has found is Basecamp.
• Task-related communications. The simple question "What did you get done today?" can be difficult to answer and track with remote teams. Our team currently uses and recommends P2, which acts as an internal "bulletin board" for our team to write and read longer updates about what's been accomplished that week. It also runs entirely on WordPress, so it's easy to set up.

6. In-person brainstorming is not the best option for teams. Great teams are often denoted by their ability to unite to come up with stellar solutions to brain-busting problems.

The problem is that study after study has shown that brainstorming in groups is generally a bust when it comes to generating the best, most novel ideas.

Here are a few reasons group brainstorming can fall flat:

1. Social loafing: Studies on the concept of "social loafing" show that in brainstorming groups, creative people often won't fully exert themselves because they feel that others are likely to pick up the slack (bystander effect, anyone?)
2. Production blocking: In a group brainstorming session, the rest of the group has to wait while a peer shares an idea. This has been shown to cause some folks to actively dissuade themselves from sharing when they feel they are being talked over.
3. Evaluation apprehension: Unsurprisingly, contributors to brainstorming groups know that their ideas will be judged. Researchers have found that this often prevents people from sharing, since they don't have the time to fully flesh out an idea the way they would if they were brainstorming alone.

But brainstorming is important for teams--research shows it gets employees invested in the projects they are working on. When people feel like they've contributed, they tend to be more invested in making the project a success.

So what's the solution?

According to this research, the answer may be a new form of online brainstorming known as electronic brainwriting. This practice consists of brainstorming through a chat program, which circumvents many of the face-to-face problems. The following rules are also recommended:

• Don't criticize.
• Focus on quantity.
• Combine and improve ideas produced by others.

The Help Scout team prefers HipChat for this sort of quick communication, and the app is also perfect for setting up the electronic brainwriting sessions mentioned above.

7. Great teams benefit from having an analytical thinker. When it comes to assembling a great team, this study from Carnegie Mellon University suggests that having an analytical thinker on the team is a must to balance out big-picture strategists.

How is an analytical thinker defined? The study described this person as someone who pays close attention to "process focus," which is the art of identifying and focusing on the sub-tasks needed to achieve the goal.

In other words, this detailed-oriented person sweats the small stuff; they're a great complement to the broad thinkers who concentrate on executing overall strategy.

They key is to educate team members on appreciating the process of creation, which can help negate potential disputes. When the entire team understands the nature of the details, this analytical thinker can thrive without being at odds with those planning out strategy.

As a software company, we can offer a candid example--adding "this one button" or "that one little feature" is almost never as easy as it sounds. Very rarely are these small changes actually small, and big picture people need to be in tune with this side of an analytical thinker's work, so that misunderstanding's and disputes can be avoided.

8. Forming "micro-cultures" can be bad for teams. Varying degrees of friendship are bound to form within teams. Research shows that it's common for closer bonds to be formed among team members who share similarities based on their social identity and by the department they work in (e.g., marketing, support, product, etc.).

In a psychological study on getting the most out of multidisciplinary teams, lead researcher Doris Fay found that multidisciplinary teams produced better quality innovations than more uniform teams, but that this boost in performance was only consistent if there wasn't a problem of teams fracturing into smaller subgroups.

Team leaders need to ensure that each member feels committed to the unified cause and that everyone on the team has a voice.

While private friendships are obviously fine, office cliques and inter-departmental rivalries aren't ideal for a positive, goal-minded environment.

9. Teams need "social sensitivity." For a team to perform well across a range of challenges, it's essential for its members to have the character trait of social sensitivity.

Recent research on this topic shows that the ability to read co-workers' emotional states is pivotal in determining a team's success. Detecting when co-workers may be frustrated, busy, confused or embarrassed has proven helpful to a team's cohesion.

Seemingly small things--such as being able to take turns while speaking--can go a long way toward increasing social sensitivity among teams.

You may not be surprised to hear that women are often more attuned with this trait than men. This may be why additional research suggests that teams that lead (company boards) with at least one woman represented will regularly outperform all male boards.

Either way, this is an important trait to establish in your company culture. Check out how the Buffer team promotes these values by encouraging employees to 'default to transparency' and to be a "no ego doer" when working with others.

10. The best teams have extroverts and introverts. "If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it'll spend its whole life believing that it is stupid."--Albert Einstein

Many companies actively encourage their employees to open up and be more extroverted. But be careful of this mentality; even though introverts don't tend to make as strong of a first impression as extroverts, they have proven to be key members of teams.

Research shows that although introverts "start off with the lowest status" (i.e., their peers didn't evaluate them as having much influence), as time progressed their status climbed whereas the extraverts' status fell.

These underrated quiet types offer a unique way to balance a team, so be sure that any 'wallflowers' on your team are given a chance; their reserved nature may just mean that they are shy, not that they have nothing to contribute.