With less than a week away until the birthday, I’ve spent more time today thinking about how to improve – personally and professionally.
For those that know me, you know I love what I do for a living and know that I spend a lot of time doing it. Whether it’s working at the office, co-working at the coffee shop or brainstorming over drinks with colleagues, I’m always thinking about how I can take what I learn from my interactions and apply it to my clients current strategies or how that knowledge can be applied to make me a better professional.
Recently, however, I was discussing with a peer that I was feeling stunted in my professional growth. It’s not the lack of opportunity, it’s that I’m afforded so many opportunities it’s hard to absorb all of the information. I was feeling inundated an incapable of processing any more content — I finally for the first time in my career felt “information overload.” It was like my brain was operating on dial-up. That’s when my peer said change may be in order, they said I should try “work shifting“.
While I was familiar with the term, because I’ve worked in so many locations, it never hit me that an intentional change of scenery may help with brain procession. When you actually think about it, it makes total sense. When we become creatures of habit (I go to Caffe Ladro for working and only go to Subway for lunch), we start to tune out our life’s real-time tweet stream. Change can be good for your creativity and to keep you alive and aware.
So taking the work shifting approach, here are a few things I am going to try:
- Switch up my Pandora stations more often. I tune into the same music everyday.
- Change lighting in my workspace. I have 6 lamps in my office, about time I start using them!
- Add something soothing. A fresh smelling candle or a cushy pillow to my chair.
- Work in other locations in the office. We’re lucky enough to have wifi throughout the building — no reason I can’t go work out on the deck!
- Leave every-so-often for lunch. While it’s sometimes hard to break away from work in the middle of the day, giving myself the chance to check out the new Thai restaurant around the corner may help stimulate some *spicy* ideas.
Simple changes I believe will have a strong benefit to me in both my work and personal life. Stay tuned. 