Road Stories on how Married Couples go into Business Together Lesson #3

Working for my wife has its challenges. In my last blog I talked about how it’s particularly fun when you quickly discover that your new role involves knowing the subtleties of what and how your wife likes her coffee. You will be getting a lot of that for her until you figure out how to bring in some bacon.

What’s positive about being married and working together is the flexibility. Although things get crazy at times and the ride is much less predictable, there is more flexibility in scheduling time off. Gone are the days when I had to disappoint her with the response that I can’t take an opportunistic four-day weekend, because I’ve used my corporate accrual allotment of vacation year-to-date. Like a lot of corporate terms, it’s hard to know what that means exactly but it’s safe to say that you’re screwed.   

I’m learning to be more grateful for the times that we can sneak away.

So, in this post I wanted to simply make that point, and share some photos I took of our trip we took to Cancun for her “birthday week”. Thank you, Marriott reward points!

Enjoy!

Boy that water is a pretty blue.

And the sunsets are stunning above the sea

April was pretty darn relaxed

And able to spend quality time with Autumn

My daughter thinks she is Moana

And did her happy dance every day of the trip

April’s perspective:

When can I go back?

How to Love Spring Cleaning

It’s that time of year again. There’s something primitive in the sense we get come springtime. Maybe we’re just wired this way. Spring brings with it a desire to clean house, to get rid of the stuff. The stuff that has magically survived the selection process and found what seems to be a permanent home in our garage, closet or pantry. We used it before, a long time ago, and it would really come in handy if that time ever came again. Yet it hasn’t, so it just sits and waits another day.

Here at ABRG, there are two things that describe us well: we love research, and we love learning about how to be more efficient (try running a thriving boutique research firm with four people and you’ll understand why). Recently, we had the opportunity to do both. While in an ideation workshop with a client, we conducted a practice brainstorming exercise on the topic of spring cleaning. To get people geared up and in the mode of ideation, we typically have them practice on an off-topic, non-business subject that’s ripe for multiple ideas.

The topic of spring cleaning fits well, so we asked them to come up with as many ideas they could on “what’s a creative way you could attack a spring cleaning exercise”? To set the stage we give them some guidance on how to keep coming up with ideas:

1. Land on something, and think of other solutions
2. Wish list it – what could I do if….
3. If you feel that you can’t relate, think of who you could ask
4. Work individually first, then as a group
5. When you’re stuck, move around or talk to someone

The answers were creative, practical, and fun!

A good ideation generates multiple ideas without judging them on whether they are good or bad, because sometimes the crazy ideas lead to break-throughs of innovation.

• Live in a hotel.
• Open a bottle of wine.
• Make the kids do it.
• Buy stock in cleaning companies.
• Ask Alexa.

Some responses had themes of minimalism, which ironically asserts that happiness is achieved in life by having less, not more. The less stuff we fill our space and lives with, the more we are open to things that really matter – time with family, focused effort on our passions, appreciation of our surroundings. One blog we follow at ABRG is Becoming Minimalist. If you follow the thread of minimalism you’ll recognize these suggestions to overcome decluttering:

1. If you haven’t used it in three months/one year, throw it out.
2. Does it bring you joy?
3. Don’t start reminiscing.
4. Would it be that hard to replace?
5. Have I worn it in 2 months?

Some ideas had efficiency in mind, how to get through the emotionally tough nature of the process in a way that works. At ABRG, we follow Asian Efficiency and have gotten a ton of great advice through their resources over the past few years. There were some good ideas on how to best go about it:

• Go room by room.
• Clean as you go.
• Hire people and give them each a room.
• Go through the out-of-site, out-of-mind places.
• Make someone else go through your stuff and throw out anything that doesn’t look good.
• Buy storage bins with labels – prioritize what you store, and once the bin is full throw out the rest.

This year, we’re going to make this painful process more fun and efficient by tossing in a few of these ideas. We hope you pick up a few tips that help you, too!

No Nonsense Essential Oils

Over the years, we’ve learned the hard way how important it is to take care of ourselves, especially when we need to travel for a project and during seasons of long research days. April introduced us to using health-promoting botanicals in the form of essential oils as a more natural approach to enhancing our general wellness by:

• Inspiring a positive emotional state

• Enhancing physical wellness

• Enhancing spiritual awareness

• Purifying the air

Since then, we’ve read more about how we can better use essential oils at work. In our continuous quest to lead a healthy life and create better moods during projects with clients, we’ve listed our favorite oils/blends brands and their uses:

• Peppermint by doTerra – to remove headaches, revive energy, freshens breath

• InTune by doTerra – to enhance the senses and sustain focus

• Digestzen by doTerra – for indigestion

• Stress Away by Young Living – to combat stress

• Thieves by Young Living – to purify

• Lavender by doTerra – for relaxation (and sleep)

• Lemon by doTerra – to cleanse

• Frankincense by doTerra – helps boost immunity

• Melaleuca by doTerra – fights bacteria and fungus

• Oregano by doTerra – helps relieve common seasonal threats

We keep a stash of these oils in the office and our travel bag together with a diffuser so we can diffuse away (e.g. Peppermint during intense research days) or apply topically (e.g. Stress Away during concept work sessions) when we most need them.

Recently, April shared with us an article that talks about becoming aware of our basic tendencies so we can make better choices to support the harmony in body and mind.  And this article which tells the story about how choosing nourishing smells will awaken the mind’s innate healing powers and experience a natural vitality and wholeness based on our dosha. What is dosha, you ask?  Dosha is a person’s “mind-body” type and there are 3 primary types: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. Are you curious what your dosha is?  Well, you can take a quiz here to find out! Briefly, these are what the doshas mean:

• Vata: Movement and Change

  • Tends to be always on the go with an energetic and creative mind

• Pitta: Transformation and Metabolism

  • Enjoy a strong appetite and ability to digest food, information, and experiences

• Kapha: Structure and Fluidity

  • Solid, reliable, contented souls

Based on your mind-body type (dosha), there are certain aromas (essential oils) that can help evoke states of well-being:

• Vata: floral, fruity, warm, sweet, and sour smells

  • Basil, Orange, Geranium, Clove, Vanilla, Patchouli

• Pitta: cooling and sweet smells

  • Sandalwood, Mint, Rose, Jasmine, Ylang-Ylang, Lavender

• Kapha: stimulating and spicy smells

  • Eucalyptus, Camphor, Juniper, Clove, Marjoram, Rosemary

We’re looking forward to taking the dosha quiz to understand which essential oils can support our goal of leading healthier lives!

What do Teenagers and the QRCA Conference have in Common?

 I recently had the opportunity to attend my first Qualitative Researcher Consultants Association (QRCA) annual conference. I don’t typically consider myself the conference type but I thought this would be a great opportunity to meet people in our industry and learn about the hottest trends. In these situations I usually find myself being overly skeptical thinking I won’t learn as much as I hope to or make connections that will be beneficial to our business. The fact that my boss (April) was also attending made me feel slightly better about sitting in a room full of strangers that I would soon need to be friends with. 

The primary purpose of me attending the conference was to assist April as she gave a presentation to her peers; however, I ended up walking away feeling like I got much more value out of the experience than I expected. April’s presentation (A Framework That Works: Design Thinking + Montessori Principles to Elevate Your Practice) went off without a hitch – which immediately made months of hard work seem like one of the most rewarding tasks we completed last year. You never know how people will react to new material and the moment you see the excitement and passion in the faces, it makes it worth every revision we made.

What surprised me most about April’s presentation was how engaged the participants were. When you’ve been reviewing the content for 5+ months leading up to the conference, it’s easy to forget that this content is new for most viewers. During the presentation, she conducted a Design Thinking exercise that required participants to partner up and “build” a prototype of their idea. I was amazed at how serious some took this exercise but loved their willingness to engage with a stranger as they learned about the Design Thinking process. I think it made the awkward “eh, I have to work with someone I don’t know” situation fun and entertaining for most.  

Another highlight of the conference was the Keynote Presentation – Teen Press: A Wild and Precious Perspective – given by John Boettner & Friends. This was an unforgettable experience that brought a unique perspective to the work we do and the world we live in. John, the Chief Enchantment Officer of Teen Press, discussed how he turned a middle school communications class into a group of teenagers interviewing some of the hottest celebrities on red carpets. Not only did they engage with celebrities (Jennifer Lawrence, Oprah, Clint Eastwood to name a few) but they also interviewed some of the most interesting living Americans (for example, the commander of the Osama Bin Laden mission, a woman who held President Obama’s hand across the bridge in Selma, and a young Rwandan who lost his hands to genocide). 

Teen Press teaches kids how to listen to peoples’ stories and ask honest questions – although they’re sometimes difficult to ask and answer. By pushing the kids to conduct pre-interview research, they entered their interviews with a sense of confidence that many times shocked the respondent and made them more likely to engage. This program inspires kids to think: “if I can talk to the CEO of Patagonia, I can do anything”. John’s presentation was such a welcomed breath of fresh air in the world we’re currently living in. These kids don’t care who voted red or blue, they just want to know about people and what makes them different. The kids weren’t there to judge the interviewee, and the interviewee wasn’t there to judge the kids. They were both there to learn. These kids are so admirable for their dedication and openness to learning about others. Something I strive to do myself – in and out of research. Who knew you could learn so much from kids?

Here is a short clip on Teen Press, but if you have some extra time I highly recommend watching the full Teen Press video (~30 minutes) to get the full experience of how great these kids and this program is. 

So while I still don’t consider myself the conference type, I’m so glad I attended. I walked away with a perspective I wasn’t expecting – if you go into these “uncomfortable” situations with an open mind, you are much more likely to learn more than you initially thought and meet some really interesting people. I guess sitting with strangers isn’t so bad after all. 

Road Stories on how Married People go into Business Together

After telling some of our close friends over the holidays about our plan for Lloyd to join the business, and seeing their wide-eyed worried expressions, we decided we should probably talk about how we might work together…and stay married! 

April’s perspective: I approached our “vision of how we will work together” in the same way I plan any other work project. Thinking about: “What do we want to accomplish?”  “What are the tools we could use to help the discussion flow?”  “What does success look like?”  “What is the agenda?”

We packed ourselves up and headed to a location away from home with all of our materials – flip charts, post-its, magazines and markers.  Our objective was to create a shared vision for the company and what our roles would be. 

Over the years, I’ve discovered several sources to help with vision/strategy planning; all of them are great in different ways. The first exercise was to review each and come back together to align on the best approach. Some of the sources we had available were:

1. 90 Day Year by Todd Herman

2. Lara Casey’s Powersheets

3. Self-Authoring  

4. Marie Forleo

5. Lululemon’s Vision Worksheet

I was excited and optimistic when we got back together. Books and materials were all over the table, and I could tell this was going to be a good conversation. Lloyd started first.  He said “so what I’ve discovered is that our word for the year should be ‘intentionality’ and I’ve identified two main areas that we need to focus on to be more productive.” All the air went out of my sails, and I sat there for several long seconds trying to grasp at how I would respond, because he clearly did not stick to the plan of aligning on the best approach but instead, jumped to a conclusion!

We had to stray from the agenda for about 10 minutes to work through this style difference, but we made it to the other side.

After getting past my initial reaction, I knew what he said was exactly what was needed for the business - he’s very proficient at coming to solid conclusions quickly, and doesn’t feel the need to review every angle before deciding. This is exactly the skill we need … although it wasn’t what I expected from an exploratory vision exercise.

Lloyd’s perspective: It didn't take long to see that there were similar patterns in these different methodologies, so let’s just cut to the chase here and identify the big levers that are going to move the needle for us most. Boom, done!

Married Couple working together lesson #1: we need to be open-minded toward the other person’s way of thinking. We have different strengths, and our approaches are not the same but can be complimentary when we have patience.

Stay Tuned….more lessons to come…

4 Montessori Principles to Help Guide Client Work

Until a couple of years ago, I knew very little about Montessori schools – something about kids having freedom of choice in the work they do.  But I was a bit skeptical about whether that would be a good environment for my child. I felt if given too much “free reign”, my daughter would be the type to run with it.  (I think she gets that from her Dad! :) But an event in her first preschool left me feeling different.  I walked in one day to pick her up, and the teacher pulled me into the classroom.  With every 4-year old eye on me (including my daughter’s), the teacher pointed up to a wall of kid’s work – all of the letter “u’s”.  My daughter’s work was hanging up – completely blank.  Then, the teacher proceeded to tell me about how my daughter wouldn’t listen in class, showing me the blank piece of paper she had posted up for everyone to see.  My face reddened, and so did my daughter’s.  When we left the class, I began questioning her to understand what was going on, and she broke into tears and said “mommy, I don’t know how to draw a ‘U’ – I don’t know how to do it right.”  And that experience is what led me to rethink putting her in a Montessori classroom - how that environment would be interesting to learn more about…

Fast forward 2+ years, and I am thrilled that we found White Rock Montessori. Not only has our daughter thrived in this environment but we have as well, as parents.  

After seeing the impact Montessori had on her love of learning, I was curious to understand more about “why” this was effective for her, as well as “how” the classroom works.  What I discovered was that some Montessori principles were applicable to the work we conduct with our clients. 

When conducting marketing research, my teams are very involved in “learning” – learning what people think about products, how consumers react to new ideas, etc.  And my job is not only to learn new insights through my interviews but also keep my clients engaged in the learning.

Here are the Montessori principles that directly link to the work I do -

1.     Pull, Don’t Push - Montessori teachers refer to this as “The Art of Drawing Out.” Instead of pushing information in, they use acknowledgement and questioning to get children to think about what they are doing.  This helps children learn to be accountable for their learning.  Similarly, when in research, questioning the listening team to help “draw out” learnings creates ownership in the learning process. 

2. Concrete Before Abstract - The Montessori belief is that students learn best from something they already know, so teachers use physical objects to begin each lesson, and present new concepts through storytelling. This builds connection with students’ emotions and gives them greater interest in the concept. In my practice, especially when conducting ideation sessions, I find this principle helpful to ignite creativity with clients. When brainstorming, it is actually easier to create new ideas by starting with “constrained” stimulus because participants start with something they can visualize, making it easier to alter/change/adapt to new ideas. Learn more about this topic from Chip & Dan Heath’s Myth of the Garage eBook (see “Get Back in the Box” page 31). This helps spark their imagination and allows them to think about “abstract” concepts.

3.     Structure That’s Flexible - The beauty of this principle is that children believe they have freedom of choice but their choices are orchestrated around what the teacher plans for them to learn.  Providing a flexible structure for learning with client teams is just as important because clients appreciate getting to make choices – and it allows them to “own” the process.

4.     Observe Before Acting - Teachers in a Montessori classroom don’t take on the traditional role – you won’t see them in front of the room, chalk in hand, writing out a math problem step-by-step. They see themselves as guides, not teachers. They ask questions, then sit back and let students take their own path to figure out a solution - make their own decisions.  As a facilitator of client’s learning, my role of guide is similar. Sometimes this means facilitating a highly involved team debating a controversial learning.  Other times, creating activities to encourage a distracted team to actively work together is necessary.

Check out this video to see all 4 of these principles in action in a Montessori classroom environment. 

3 min. 13. sec. A Montessori story of exploration. For more, go to www.montessoriguide.org.

I will be speaking more on this subject, specifically how I use these principles alongside a Design Thinking at the 2017 QRCA Annual conference in LA on January 19. Click here for the schedule conference and other presentations. 

2016 Reflections - Firewalking with Tony Robbins: More than Just a Physiological Impact

As 2016 ends and we take some time to think about some of the year’s highlights, Tony Robbins' Unleash the Power Within was one of them. 

How do you describe Tony Robbins?  Almost more than human.  The conference is something between a hardcore rock concert and a very dynamic church service (a long church service).  And while on the surface, those events may seem very different –Tony Robbins brings and maintains both elevated emotions, senses, and inspiration to the table all at once.

Twenty years ago, a co-worker of mine REALLY got into Tony Robbins.  In fact, at the time, I felt she was akin to a groupie, and I didn’t really understand it.  I remember thinking the whole thing seemed kind of “cultish” and therefore, didn’t engage to really understand why she was so into it.   Fast forward many years later - I’ve learned (the hard way several times) that judging something without understanding it is, frankly, my own ignorance. 

More recently, I was reacquainted with Tony Robbins through a blog I religiously follow called Asian Efficiency.  AE’s productivity content has been extremely helpful in both work and personal life due to their “holistic” approach - energy management, help with Omnifocus, a productivity "cheat sheet", a productivity "blueprint", including morning rituals, etc.

They profess in their content how much Tony Robbins has influenced them, and that his UPW conference was “transformational” for their work.  So, when Tony scheduled one of his shindigs in Dallas this year, I decided to go.  I wanted to see what it was all about.

While some of his tactics are a little hard core (i.e. fire walking on the 1st night), he is one of the most powerful speakers I’ve ever encountered. The days were incredibly long - 2 of them were 15 hours.  When I showed up the 1st day, I was so glad I had a car so I could make a quick get away when I became tired of sitting in a hard chair amongst 8,000 of my new friends!  However, believe it or not, his energy was so captivating that it was easier than I expected to stay engaged.

But what did I learn.  Here are just a few things…

1.     There is an Art to Fulfillment – One of his many provocative statements he made was “The brain is not designed to make you happy.  It’s a great strategy tool – but it’s not good at enjoying.” Deciding to live in a beautiful state of mind is 100% my responsibility.  To do this, I must become aware of my own thoughts and basically, STOP believing them! 

2.     Changing my Feelings starts with Changing my Focus, Language and Physiological State. This hit home because so many times when I get knotted up about something I want to change, I believe I need to stop feeling bad BEFORE I can make a change but according to Robbins, that belief is what holds me back. 

·      Focus = feeling.  What I focus on creates the feelings I have.  My pain and suffering is not necessarily dependent on what happens to me - it’s more dependent on the “story” I create about it.  I don’t HAVE TO suffer no matter what happens.  “As you think, so you feel”, he says.

·      Use Language that Lifts, Not Limits You – so often, my thoughts are a repeat of the thoughts from yesterday or the day before.  I can interrupt those patterns by creating “incantations” – sounds a little over the top but the idea is to create statement that addresses an Empowering Belief (instead of a Limiting Belief).  An example of one of my own Limiting Beliefs is:  “I can’t lose weight because I have thyroid issues” vs. this Empowering Belief I replaced while in the session: “I am strong and healthy overall, and I have the ability to make almost anything happen that I want to make happen.”

·      If I Can’t Change My State of Mind, I can change my “State” - The shortcut to changing my emotions is to change my “state”  (i.e. if I “feel” sad, I can change that feeling more quickly if I change something physiologically first - my posture, my breathing, my face expression, etc.). To close the gap between how you currently “feel” and how you want to feel, you need to visualize experiencing it.  In fact, the best advice he gave on visualizing is to not only visualize it but also, to imagine having it taken away – once you get a “taste” of something, you’ll fight to keep it!

3.  Stress is the Achiever’s Word for Fear.  This, too, hit home for me. Not only had I never related my “stress” to fear, I also did not realize how “universal” fear is.  He spoke of 2 primary fears that we all share:  “not being enough” and that “we won’t be loved.”  What he suggested was to dance with fear – instead of fighting it. And of course, Tony showed us this by dancing on stage with imaginary fear so that we could understand his point – it’s there and moving with it (instead of running or fighting it) releases its hold on us.

If you want to learn more about Tony Robbins and his style, you now can without attending one of his events.  A documentary was released in 2016 and Marie Forleo interviewed him about it. Good interview…

Oh, and I walked over hot coals - I, too, am a fire walker!  …although yes my feet hurt a bit afterwards. =)

Telling Better Stories Means Happier CEOs

I recently had the opportunity to attend my first Southwest chapter MRA Educational Forum. I was lucky that the conference was held close to home - in Fort Worth, TX - and loved how they tied in the Texas theme by calling the conference “Research Roundup”.

The keynote speaker at the event was Brett Townsend, Director of Insights at Pepsico. He started his presentation with a humorous, yet scrambled and confusing story in order to provide a basis for his argument - more and more CEO’s don’t see the value that marketing and/or research provide their organizations. The main challenge he sees today is that both suppliers and clients present too many findings vs. summarizing the finding in a useful story, causing decision makers to miss true insights. Considering my role of writing reports here at April Bell Research Group, I definitely wanted to understand why this seems to be a recurring theme and how we, as a supplier, can help our clients by presenting clearer findings.

From Brett’s perspective, in order to cull through insights and report the clearest story back to our clients we need to understand: What is the goal of insights? Yes, we hope to increase sales or improve a product’s performance, but the real goal is to CHANGE BEHAVIOR. And, according to Brett, in order to change behavior, we need to do the following:

1. Understand who and what drives demand.
2. Tell consumers why they should be buying your product.

Understanding what and who drives demand seems simple, but even as researchers we don’t always get this right. Brett explains that consumers will do 1 of 3 things when questioned (no matter the subject): 1) they answer correctly, 2) they can’t answer correctly so they answer incorrectly, or 3) they won’t answer. So by having a clearer understanding of demand we can increase the quality of respondents and learnings we gather. An example Brett shared with the group was a Jimmy Kimmel skit. A week before the Super Bowl, Jimmy went to Hollywood Blvd and asked people what they thought about the outcome. You’ll see in the skit, even if people are unsure of their answers, they want to come across as knowledgeable and will tell you what they think you want to hear (even if that means lying about their answer).

The second step to changing behaviors involves telling consumers why they should buy the product. Brett showed us a great example of how Gatorade does this by showing the compelling story of how Gatorade improved Kevin Durant’s basketball performance.

Kevin Durant And Dwyane Wade Commercial

I really enjoyed Brett’s presentation and will keep these 2 factors top of mind - 1.) understanding who and what drives demand and 2.) ensuring consumers know why they should be buying your product - the next time we present learning to our clients. By doing so, I hope to clear the clutter and provide our clients with insights that will help change behaviors (and ultimately make happy CEOs!).

How a 1-Day Conference Helped Me Come to Grips with what Truly Matters

When you get an invitation to an event that promises to help you “live the life you love”, you would immediately say yes and pack your bags. And that’s what April Bell Research Group did last January to attend the "Think Better, Live Better” event in Austin.

We were invited to the event by one of our favorite online “productivity experts”, Asian Efficiency. The event was hosted by Marc and Angel Chernoff, professional coaches who “hack life”. They both have spent the past decade writing about and teaching proven strategies for finding lasting happiness, success, love, and peace.

The full day session was packed with topics and tools that reduce stress and increase positive results in 4 core areas:

- Personal/Professional Happiness
- Motivation/Focus
- Successful Results
- Life Balance and Relationships

Throughout the event, there were several key learnings that the team felt was relevant in our daily work-life.

The Beliefs that Hold You Back & The Questions that Will Set You Free (Marc & Angel Chernoff) We keep hearing people say that "questions become thoughts, thoughts become words, words become actions, and actions become character". And when we encounter challenges, it’s the strength of our character that sees us through. Now, who doesn’t experience obstacles in life? Marc and Angel shared Self-Inquiry Process tips to do a raw brain dump or questions to ask yourself when we feel we are in a bad space:

- Is it true? Can it be scientifically proven?

- When I think this thought, how:

        - Does it make me feel?
        - Do I treat others?
        - Does it make me deal with the situation?

- If I completely erase/remove this thought, how:
        - Do I feel?
        - Do I treat others?
        - Do I deal with the situation?

This session helped us become aware of our inner dialogue and attitudes - to stay positive and focused in challenging situations. It taught us a new way to think about our project work but also with our spouses!

Overcoming Procrastination & Roadblocks to Do What Matters (Joshua Becker) All too often, I find myself running out of time; I find myself saying that 24 hours isn’t enough and if I could just have 1 more hour to do this or that. This session talked about uncovering the secrets to "making time" vs. "finding time". Joshua shared tips on how to simplify life, eliminate excess, and rediscover lost time to focus on things that truly matter to you. Here are some of my biggest takeaways:

- Your Possessions - yes, having too many can complicate our lives. They drain our bank accounts, energy, and attention. Investing time to remove nonessential possession will considerably make us feel lighter.

- Your Time Commitments - if your calendar looks like a never-ending Gantt chart, it’s time to release yourself from time commitments that are not in line with your greatest values.

- Your Goals - yes, I thought that having a long list would make them more achievable. Reducing it to 1 or 2 will give you more focus and better success rates so list down things you want to accomplish and choose the 2 most important. When you finish 1, add another from your list.

- Your Connections to the World - yes, relationships with others are good but constant streams of distraction are bad. Learn to focus on the important, not the urgent.

Conquering Mental Fatigue (Courtney Carver) Growing up in an era of open innovation, I always found it very interesting how creative minds work but over the years, I realized that the market is complicated with so many new products and takes a toll on my decision making process. Not that innovation is bad but there are times when we just want one less decision to make in a day. Courtney shares some tips on how to minimize decision fatigue and help people make the right decisions.

- Simpler meals

- Perimeter grocery shopping (if you can!)

- Pretend the internet is broken (ha!)

- Her Project 333 helps create a decision free closet (33 items inclusive of clothes, shoes, jewelry to wear in 3 months). 

- Habit stack your morning routine

- Simplify! Just get rid of things that do not matter in your life.

The same holds true for work –to avoid that early morning stress of trying to figure out what task to complete first, create time blocks for when you want to focus on your task list and eat your frog too!

Indeed, choices can be debilitating rather than liberating so eliminate distractions to minimize decisions. It’s easier to make the right choices and decisions too if you only have a handful to choose from.

Living The Perfect Day (Karl Staib ) Who doesn’t want to do that? But with all the distractions, this seems unattainable. I used to think that perfect days don’t exist especially because so many things are just out of our control. Karl’s session made me realize that this mindset is causing my imperfect day. He says that to live a fulfilling life, we need to define what the ideal version of our life is, one day at a time. How? By:

- Designing our day

- Getting feedback

- Building on feedback

This session motivated our team at April Bell Research Group to improve each day and work like a well oiled machine by designing our days individually, respecting boundaries, and staying resilient when there are unexpected surprises.

At the end of the full day session, I realized that when you redefine what’s already in front of you (or what's possible), living the life you love isn’t farfetched at all. These topics have already paved the way to a more realistic plan to keep improving. They are indeed inspiring lessons to live a more positive and productive life!

The Productivity Blueprint by Asian Efficiency: Their Secret to Success

Working in Market Research means living a fast-paced work environment but also doing really focused work. It is easy to get sucked into a vortex, lose focus, and get bogged down. In our attempts to figure out “stress-coping” (productivity!) mechanisms for our “heaviest” days, April introduced us to Asian Efficiency.

Asian Efficiency is a team that has one specific goal – make the world a more efficient place – to go about doing things with the least amount of effort, delivering the maximum output.

During office training and staff development sessions, we have discussed their Productivity Blueprint and Rituals, mainly:

• Productivity Blueprint
  • Beating Procrastination
  • Focus & Self Discipline
  • Distraction & Interruption
• Rituals
  • Waking Up Earlier
  • Morning
  • Meditation
  • Exercise
  • Structural Productivity
  • Breaks & Downtime
  • Evening
  • Studying & Learning
  • Journaling
  • Uninterrupted Time

They have loads of great, free content, and I have purchased quite a few of their programs, and would highly recommend their Productivity course as well as their Rituals Course. They also have loads of good free content on their site. Two of the most helpful rituals we have been working on as a team are – Structural Productivity and Breaks & Downtime.

Structural Productivity is about maximizing your days by planning them in advance. In a way, this is deemed as the master ritual of the 10 listed above because it strings together all your other rituals. If you are able to plan your day ahead, there is less stress and less chance of beating yourself up thinking the day could have gone better. It also allows you to track progress day to day and monitor accomplishments. More importantly, you can iterate and correct problems with the day gone by and get to a point where your days are always productive – both at work and after work. This ritual, based on the premise of planning, also lessens decision fatigue, prioritization of important vs. urgent tasks, and respects time boundaries you have set.

Breaks & Downtime is all about consistently getting the breaks and downtime you need to remain alert and productive. To be honest, taking breaks is a personal challenge owing to the personal belief that taking a break = wasting time. Asian Efficiency tells us that taking breaks or short rests leads to:

• Increased productivity
• Controlled and consistent energy levels throughout the day
• Effective stress management
• Increased motivation 

April gave us timers for time intervals/timeboxes to structure our breaks. I haven’t used mine for fear of disturbing colleagues when it sounds off so I use my phone’s timer to signal if it’s time to break. This is still a challenge for me because I’ve been so used to just churning output however long it took without breaks to ensure I meet deadlines but when I do use “time boxing” or the Pomodoro Technique, I felt re-energized after the quick break and ready to tackle the beast again. You can time box in 2 ways – depending on what works for you:

• 25/5 – work 25 minutes and take a 5 minute break
• 50/10 – work 50 minutes and take a 10 minute break

If you’re interested in learning more about this concept, I recommend reading “The Pomodoro Technique” book by Francesco Cirillo.

Either way, the important thing is to take that quick break and by taking a quick break, it means that you physically have to stop what you are doing and do something else – walk away from your work location! And remember to go all-out on your break, go outside and get some air, get your favorite beverage, or even play your favorite game.

Note the importance of writing down what you’re currently thinking if your break comes up. It will help you to get back on track much faster after your 5 or 10 minute break. It’s just a matter of looking back at what you wrote and picking up that train of thought!