How to prevent yourself from getting fatigued when working from home

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I’ve been working from a home office for most of my career. I’m used to it, and don’t get tired from sitting for long periods of time. I take breaks throughout the day, although not as often as I should.

Many people are working from home for the first time, and fatigue is becoming a major issue. Some time ago, I read one of Dale Carnegie’s books, where he shared six ways to prevent fatigue. They’re quite useful, so I’m sharing the tips with you here.

1. Rest before you get tired. Experts say you should drink water before you get thirsty if you’re outside in a very hot area. By the time you get thirsty, you’re already dehydrated. The same can be said for resting before you get tired. Take a break to prevent yourself from getting too tired and making mistakes in your work.
2. Learn how to relax when working. This could involve listening to calming music, taking play breaks with your pets or children, pausing to play a game or take a short walk – whatever works best for you.
3. Protect your health and appearance by relaxing at home. You’re already home, so this should be pretty simple. Watch for signs of illness and follow steps to stay healthy. You can do what you need to stay healthy when you’re home already. If you have to go to the office, then use your sick days when you need them.
4. Develop strong work habits.
   • Clear your desk of all papers except for the immediate work or problem at hand.
   • Do things in descending order of importance.
   • Solve a problem right away if you have the facts to make a decision.
   • Organize, deputize, and supervise – you don’t have to do all the work yourself.
5. Put enthusiasm into your work. It’s important to like what you do. Do your work with positive energy. Enjoy what you do as much as you can, and find moments of pleasure in your work. Be proud of doing great work.
6. Don’t worry about insomnia. Worry is more damaging than not being able to sleep. Find ways to release stress and worry in your life, and you will be able to sleep.

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Read anything by Dale Carnegie – he’s an amazing writer. And make sure to get a good night’s sleep. If you have any suggestions on preventing work fatigue, let me know – contact@davidgargaro.com.

David

What do you do when it’s broken?

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What is the first thing you do when IT is broken? (Replace “IT” with a product, service, system, process, person, etc. of your choosing). Do you:

• Attempt to fix it?
• Replace it with something new?
• Throw it away?
• Try to figure out why it’s broken?
• Break it more?
• Build or find a replacement?
• Cry and rage that it’s broken?
• Blame someone for breaking it?
• Hide it from sight?

Of course, how you respond will depend on a number of different factors, and will likely change. However, your response to how you deal with broken things will tell you a lot about yourself, and how you tend to deal with adversity… because we’re all a bit broken. So, tell me: What do you do? Let me know – contact@davidgargaro.com.

David Gargaro

When do we get to slow down?

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A client emailed me recently to see if I had received a previous email that they had sent 10 minutes earlier. It was an urgent project, and he was used to relatively quick responses from my end. I guess there was some reason to wonder why I had not responded as quickly as he needed. I was on the road, so I could not respond right away until I returned to my computer. But this leads me to ask – When can we slow down?

Everyone wants responses right away. We want our food fast, we want answers fast, we want instant gratification. Technology has made it possible to get immediate returns on our desires. Of course, there is a cost – we are always in a hurry, quality declines to a degree, impatience increases, etc.

I had an interesting discussion with my nephew about slowing down. He is a Gen Y young adult, and has grown up in a culture of increasing speed on return for wants and needs. And yet he thinks that we should slow down, especially when it comes to working. He likes how some cultures (Europe) shut down for a couple of hours in the afternoon for naps. I argued that our capitalist culture would never allow this to happen because people won’t wait longer for what they have been used to getting within a certain time.

Mind you, the slow food movement has grown, but there are more people who want fast food than slow food. Perhaps things will slow down if there is a cultural shift against speed. But instant gratification is difficult to move away from. We hate slow computers, slow download times, slow cars, slow-loading files, etc. We don’t like waiting in line, waiting for our package, waiting for answers.

I don’t think we will slow down, but perhaps we can stop rushing.

David Gargaro

Six tips on breaking the worry habit

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Have you read Dale Carnegie’s How to Stop Worrying and Start Living? If you haven’t, then you should, especially if you’re looking for a way to ease stress from worry. It has some great insights on how to reduce and eliminate the amount of worry in one’s life. I must admit that I get preoccupied with minor nuisances and issues from time to time.

Here are six tips on breaking the worry habit (before it breaks you):

1. Find ways to keep busy to remove worry from your mind – occupy yourself with activities that are productive and will help you to overcome your worries.
2. Don’t let little things ruin your happiness – they are not worth the effort.
3. Use the law of averages to eliminate worry – if something is very unlikely to happen, then don’t worry about it.
4. Cooperate with the inevitable – if something is going to happen anyway and is beyond your control, accept it and the consequences.
5. State how much anxiety something is worth – and don’t give it any more thought than what it is worth.
6. Leave the past where it belongs – there is no point in worrying about things long dead.

Think about each one of these tips individually. They can truly help you to reduce and eliminate the amount of time you spend worrying about things. And if you have any tips of your own, let me know – contact@davidgargaro.com.

David Gargaro

Time for a change?

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I’ve read several articles about making changes in one’s business and life, and it led me to an interesting thought. When do you determine that it is time to change something in your business? When do you decide that you need to do something differently? Some may argue that you should change something every day, at least a little bit, so that you can constantly improve. I can see what they are saying. Making small changes every day can lead to great improvements in your business.

But what about making a significant change? When is it time to overhaul your website, change your business plan, pursue completely different customers, or move to a new location? There is no simple answer. Perhaps the time to change is when you feel that what you are doing right now is not helping you to achieve your current goals. The time to change might be when you determine that what you are doing no longer works for you.

Maybe the time to change is when you begin to feel dissatisfied with your current situation. There is an expression: Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. If you feel that you need to do something differently, then do something. Minor changes are better than none – especially when you feel overwhelmed by how large the change feels. By taking one small step, you can then take another small step… until finally you’ve travelled quite far.

Looking for writing and editing services, solutions and support? Visit my website – http://www.davidgargaro.com.