Category Archives: Office Tips

How to Prevent a Cold and Stop it from Spreading (Infographic)

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As the weather is cooling and winter approaches, we start to see everyone around us catching the common cold and sometimes even the flu. This article describes in detail the precautions we can take and how to handle an illness if we do end up catching one.

Here’s how you can prevent catching any of the illnesses going around:

  • Wash your hands as much as you can
  • Never touch your mouth, nose, or eyes without washing your hands
  • Don’t share food or other things that go in the mouth (ex. Double dipping your chips)
  • Try to have your family cough and sneeze into tissues, if there is no time to grab a tissue have them cough or sneeze into the inside of the elbow instead of the hands
  • Avoid sharing personal items like toiletries, towels, and pillows
  • Get proper rest and good nutrition to improve resistance and boost immunity
  • Use paper towels instead of community towels in bathrooms and the kitchen
  • Avoid contact with objects that an ill person has been in contact with
  • Try not to sleep in the same bed as a sick family member
  • Disinfect hot spots in the home such as phones, remotes, handles, switches, and computer accessories

Make sure to have extra toothbrushes and personal tubes of toothpaste for each family member, plenty of tissues, and medicine such as throat lozenges and cough syrup before an illness strikes. Remember that colds and flu spread fast, so always make sure that you take any actions needed to prevent catching what everyone else has. As well, if you do end up catching an illness, make sure you take the required amount of time off of work, or work from home if it is an available option, so that you don’t spread what you have all around the workplace.

Here is a great infographic on the common cold & how to prevent it:

 

De-Stressing at Your Desk

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Stress can hit us at any time at work and leave our minds cluttered and frustrated. Here are a few short ways to relieve stress when it hits you at work:

De-Stress at the Office

Peel an orange

Focus on the motion of peeling the orange and how the rind feels between your fingertips. Try to peel the orange in an unbroken coil, it will refocus your mind on something simple and pleasurable and give you some time to relax.

Eat a banana

Bring a banana to work with you every day, they contain high levels of potassium that regulate blood pressure to relieve stress and improve energy and recovery.

Play dramatic music

Music with a strong drum beat and dramatic sequence can be equally as relieving as classical music. Hum along to one of your favorite songs to put you in a happier mood.

Massage your ears

Your ears contain many nerves, so learn the pressure points that help with stress and take some time to massage them.

Play paper ball

Scrunch up balls of discarded paper and toss them in to your trash can. Set a goal of getting 5 paper balls in the trash. You will instantly feel good about yourself when you reach your goal.

Find a ridiculous screen saver

Browse through some images to find a ridiculous one that will make you laugh.

Draw a messy picture

Put your pen on paper and don’t lift it for 60 seconds. Your drawing doesn’t have to make sense or look like anything, the point is to relieve your overwhelmed mind with a mindless activity.

Blank out

Stare at a point on the wall and allow yourself to blank out for a minute. A way of clearing a congested mind is to accept defeat and temporarily do absolutely nothing.

Wriggle

Wriggle your toes, fingers, nose, and legs to waken your body and promote circulation.

View original article here.

How to Stimulate Creative Thinking

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Whether you are creative or not, there is some belief that creativity can be exercised and improved on. If you find yourself in a creative block, or you just want to exercise your creativity, try some of the methods from this article to stimulate your creative thinking:

Creativity Improvement

Consume content you wouldn’t normally consume

Reading articles and blogs in our own industries spike our interests, but they don’t help much with sparking creativity. That is why reading blogs, articles, and books in a completely different industry can help spike creative thinking. Just choose an industry you are interested, or moderately interested, in so that you don’t lose interest on the activity with something you find boring.

Write a 500 word article with no topic

This is a fun exercise as it gives you the opportunity to freely write. Don’t choose a topic, don’t make a title, and don’t edit what you’ve written. Just write whatever comes to your head, you’ll end up with a crazy article in the end that is sure to have you feeling creative.

Go to a Movie

It’s always fun going to a movie, but who knew it could stimulate creative thinking? Movies will pop questions and theories into our heads to predict what will come up in the next scene or even the next movie.

Talk with someone you don’t know

It can be a visit or a phone call with someone you don’t know. Have a stranger tell you their story; it could really be an eye-opening and mind-expanding experience. They may teach you things you never knew, or even give you a different perspective.

Eat differently

There are studies that say our diets affect the way we think. If you want to start thinking differently then try eating different and healthier.

Do a “No Bad Ideas Brainstorm”

Get at least one other person to join you in a 45-60 minute brainstorm session with no technology and no criticism. Come up with a topic and write down every idea you have whether it is good or not. Odds are, out of all of the ideas you came up with, at least a few will be good. The more you do this, the better you become at it.