Stress Management & Mindfulness Strategies: Part 2

It’s Lee again! ?? Continuing our series on creating a harmonious and productive virtual workspace, today we’re diving into Part 2 of our strategies for mindful communication & stress management.?

If you missed Part 1 earlier this month, catch up on all the tips you missed here!?

Now let’s get back into it. ??

Foster Mindful Communication:?

This is tough to do in a remote setting where you can often easily misinterpret people’s written word and not have enough body language cues to fill in the blanks. Keeping that in mind, here are some tips we try to live by:

• Constructive feedback should be left for verbal settings only. The second you catch yourself upset, frustrated, or whatever word you want to pick here, it's a good time to schedule a call with that person and iron things out. (Don’t forget to use your non-violent forms of communication!)
• Do 360-degree reviews. Feedback shouldn’t just go top-down. It should be down to up and side to side. Sure, it’s a lot of work and can sometimes feel like “Ugh, another review!?!” but each conversation aims to help and contribute to a positive culture.
• Know Your Channels: You should know when to go to your team members with certain information. With my team, we have a few pillars that make up our communication:

1. TBD (To be discussed): This is our 1:1 time that happens weekly (but that can look different for you). We have a mutual and shared ‘to talk about list’ that lives on Notion (it doesn’t need to be fancy) categorized by Urgent/Important, Important/Not Urgent, Casual, and Quick Wins. Quick wins usually are convo/topics that can be covered in 2 minutes or less so we usually like to start there to create a flow to our meeting. The TBD is really there for quick questions and answers. Usually, everything is 5 minutes or less, with bigger topics being 10-15 minutes. Anything more than that should be scheduled separately.
2. Slack: I personally hate getting tasks assigned to me via Slack, so I ask my team to send those via email and only use Slack for quick questions, updates, or little fun day-to-day moments. I’m sure there are others here that I’m not listing, but the point is to figure out what works for you and your team and adapt accordingly.
3. Weekly Updates: These are updates I get from my team once a week (again via Notion). These are updates and things I can read without really needing to discuss (although I can always bring a certain topic back into our TBD). Here I’m informed by my team on their projects and progress.

Flexibility & Adaptability:?

One of the biggest perks of working remotely is the flexibility one should have over one’s schedule and setting. Being a very outcome-oriented organization allows you to put some of the other details aside like “Is Bob working at 9 or not?!” Maybe Bob prefers to start later and finish later and his team schedule allows him to do so. Maybe Bob likes working out of a coffee shop because his toddlers come home mid-day and working from home is distracting to him. If Bob’s outcome is good… the rest shouldn’t matter as long as it doesn’t directly affect or interfere with your outcome.?

I think what’s especially important with remote work is those difficult life moments that throw our entire schedule out the window… a birth… a loss…I think remote work managers have a unique sense of opportunity to really adapt to their team members’ needs at this time and try to make their work less stressful.

Remote Social Connection:?

Fostering a sense of community is just as important if not more important in a virtual setting because so many of those little moments in the office simply don’t exist in a remote work setting. That doesn’t mean it’s bad. I often think that the people who really like working remotely simply rather go and pet their dog for 5 minutes instead of speaking to their coworker by the water cooler. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to recreate those ‘watercooler moments’.?

You should consider a strategy that incorporates at least quarterly get-togethers. Ideally, you should rotate it amongst company, departmental, and team events to keep things fresh and allow for new cultural moments and moments of connection across the organization. Depending on your culture consider doubling up on one of these. Team dynamics are the most important since your team is the people you spend the most time with, so we suggest doubling down on that one.

Talk Again Soon

That’s all for this Culture Corner! ?? We hope these strategies help you strengthen mindful communication & stress management skills in your virtual office.?

Tell me: Are there any topics you’d like me to cover in future editions of Culture Corner? Reply here — I’d love to hear your thoughts!

P.S. There’s still time to register for our next webinar, "Stress Management & Mindfulness at Work" on May 30th at 2:30 PM ET / 11:30 AM PT. During this session, I'll dive into the key strategies for mitigating stress at work and bringing mindfulness to the virtual workspace. Register today!

With love,?

Lee Rubin (she/her)?

CEO & Founder of Confetti