Improve your decision making

Did you know that simply spending a few minutes looking out window and/or kicking up their feet can help you build time for reflection into your life? Taking time for reflection can improve your decision making skills and life.

Four ways to reflect to improve decision making

1/ A long walk, run, swim or drive often frees up your mind for reflection. The monotony of the activities gives you the mental bandwidth for issues that you have previous experience with or a framework to guide your next steps.

2/ A mind-body or spiritual practice or simply time to gaze out a window between meetings helps to stimulate your brain for a deeper level of reflection. As your mind meanders, reserve judgement and note your feelings to help find the right path forward.

3/ A white board session helps you to ponder the tougher issues. Use of design thinking skills helps to generate possible solutions for further testing.

4/ A retreat whether to a far off location, a local workshop or a quiet spot to pause and measure up. It helps you assess whether your convictions align with your conduct and if you’re becoming the person that you want to be.

All of the practices help to improve your physical and mental health. It's easy to do with The Achievable Plan framework.

Mental Health: The latest stats and insights

According to Gallup, worker stress remains at record highs since the pandemic. In the US and Canada, 52% of employees reported experiencing a lot of stress which has implications for wellbeing at work, productivity and longevity.

Several mental health disorders are considered common and/or still surging post pandemic: anxiety disorders, depression and loneliness. The remaining six questions General Practitioners ask to assess your health and wellbeing has more insights into each disorder.

The hidden cost of RTO: Cost to Work

We have not returned to pre-pandemic normal anything. Inflation is higher, interest rates are higher and housing costs are a lot higher. Wages are higher, but maybe not high enough to offset the cost of living and the cost of going to work.

The Cost of Living reflects housing costs and other basic expenses such as food, taxes and healthcare. What’s not included in the Cost of Living is the Cost of Going to Work.

The Cost of Going to Work surfaced in a Linked In post this week regarding the Return to Office [RTO] initiative in Canada.

The costs mentioned included: commute time [2-4 hours/day], transportation costs, meals and incidentals costs, professional clothing costs including initial investment, cleaning and repairs and cost of education and ongoing skill development. The Return to Work initiative comes with a big cost and the question is now, who pays for it?

Some employers, especially the most profitable ones are shouldering more of the burden by enriching benefits for housing, education and healthcare. Unfortunately, the employees of all the other companies are left to shoulder the burden.

People developing side hustles may be more out of necessity than skill development or career satisfaction. Side hustles might solve an immediate financial problem but it comes at the cost of health and wellbeing.

The number of hours in the day has not changed. As people allocate more time to paid work and less time to relationships and self-care practices, health and wellbeing suffers and healthcare costs skyrocket.

Wellbeing in the workplace

If you’re interested in understanding what healthy means to your employees and how to better support their health and wellbeing, please reach out to me. I am open to new projects in Canada and the US.