Posts tagged Work
Taking Lunch: How a real lunch break can transform your day
Ryan Offutt:
Researchers have found that workers who take breaks within the work day and stop working report a greater sense of well-being. After a long period of work, a lunch break lets people recover. Those who work through lunch don’t recover at all; in fact, they carry on using their intellectual and emotional resources, leaving themselves drained (we all know what that feels like. Ugh).
Ryan is a very good friend of mine and, after a little nudging, he has - finally - started a new blog called ‘Mind Games’. He’ll be writing about psychology, work, play, creativity, improvisation, collaboration, and fun.
This is his first post and it’s a good one. He challenges you to spend the next month taking a proper lunch break and monitoring the effect it has on you. The post if full of suggestions for also making sure you make the most of the time.
“Ordain everyone”
Rob Bell, giving his response to this question: Reformation theologians took “vocation,” a word previously only applied to the clergy, and applied it to all believers. They promoted the idea that all work was God’s work. What can we do to reclaim this belief in our communities?
Stop using the word ‘missionary’ and stop sending people out to the ‘mission field.’ Or keep the word, but also commission public school teachers, and dentists, and CPA’s, and construction workers, and those people who take your money at the toll booth. We’re all disciples, all ground is holy, every interaction and conversation is loaded with divine potential, anytime, anywhere. Ordain everyone, call everyone a minister, invite the whole church to be on staff.
I love this! It’s is a from an interview Rob gave to Skye Jethani. It was sent out via Skye’s email newsletter and I’m not sure if it’ll get posted online. You can stay updated here though.
To me, getting choosy or choosier isn’t about ‘the dollar’ and more about working smarter, being happier and getting better at what I do. I know I’m fortunate to be able to start being choosier because I have existing clients and I’m not struggling to attract new work, but I urge all my fellow freelancers and self-employed friends to start thinking more about choice and freedom. Afterall, what’s the point in working for ourselves, if we don’t get to pick and choose?!
We're all programmers now
Seth Godin describes how we’re all content programmers now:
We’re all programmers now. We all have to decide what to post next, what to point to next, what to launch next. Is there a skill in dreaming up Must-See Thursday nights, or in establishing a season of Shakespeare or even in deciding what’s on the special list at the restaurant? I think there is.
"Cranking" - a moving, must read essay by Merlin Mann
This is such a moving personal essay about death and life and fatherhood and work and keeping sight of what’s really important.
(Clicking on the title will take you to the article.)
What dreams are made of
Katie Portman:
Every single day, I’m either working, checking emails, thinking up new ideas, building relationships or aiming to achieve something else as a freelancer. I rarely – if ever- switch off and there’s never enough hours in the day. Freelancing inspires me, gets me out of bed in the morning and motivates me to be better, do more and raise my game. It may not to be to everyone’s liking, but for me, it’s what dreams are made of.
Freelancer or not, there’s much to be inspired by in Katie’s blog post. Going freelance may not be the right choice for everyone, but choosing to do something with our lives that motivates and inspires us is essential. We all need to find our best environment where we can truly thrive and live life to the full.
Don’t wait for it to happen; make it happen.
Using separate devices for work and play
Seth Godin proposes the intriguing idea of separating what we do on different computing devices. What if we used our main computer only for work and, say, our iPad only for play? Might this help some of us be more productive? Here’s why he thinks we may need this:
More and more, we’re finding it easy to get engaged with activities that feel like work, but aren’t. I can appear just as engaged (and probably enjoy some of the same endorphins) when I beat someone in Words With Friends as I do when I’m writing the chapter for a new book. The challenge is that the pleasure from winning a game fades fast, but writing a book contributes to readers (and to me) for years to come.
One reason for this confusion is that we’re often using precisely the same device to do our work as we are to distract ourselves from our work. The distractions come along with the productivity. The boss (and even our honest selves) would probably freak out if we took hours of ping pong breaks while at the office, but spending the same amount of time engaged with others online is easier to rationalize.
