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Archive for category: Solutions For Living

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Back to…A Healthy Mind

The “lazy days” of summer are over, vacations are done, the kids are back to school, and it’s time to get back to routine. As a mom of four, believe me that I understand the stress of September and how parents can easily lose themselves with the focus on getting the kids back to a manageable routine. So, this September, we wanted to provide a series of ideas and strategies to make sure you are going “back to school” while also getting “back to you!”

Our “back to you” focus this week is “back to a healthy mind”. It is known that our thoughts control our feelings and actions, so naturally the mind is the best place to start! And there is no better way to get there then to take some much needed “you time”. Here are some tips and pointers to help get your mind back on track for the fall:

1.   Start small and gradually build on the time you take for yourself. Develop a new routine that adds some time into your schedule for
thinking, reflecting, being grateful and being present. Add it to your calendar! Start with 10-15 minutes and build on this to get you to an hour
if you can.

2.   Don’t work through lunch: Cognitive focus improves when we take small breaks during the day to turn our attention elsewhere. Combine
the cognitive rest and renewed physical energy by taking a walk, exercising or stretching on your lunch break.

3.   Join a class: Have you always wanted to join the gym, learn to knit, sing, play an instrument, learn to draw, try yoga, martial arts, ballet?
There are some great introductory offers in September for you to challenge your mind and body to something new. By joining a class or signing
up for a series of lessons, you are more likely to commit and give that new something time to become a new staple in your life!

4.   Power down: Turn off the television, smart phone, tablet or distracting electronics. Facebook can wait. Pick up a good book, take a hot bath,
meditate, and enjoy some technology-free time.

5.    Express Yourself: If you’re looking for inspiration for you time, pick up some paper and draw, journal, write poetry or music, or just doodle.
Being creative sparks cognition and will help you to balance all of your demands while reducing stress and improving mood.

Are you ready to commit? Put it in writing! Tell your friends, family, even children what you are going to do for yourself. And fill us in…what change are you making to get “back to a healthy mind” this fall?

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11 Time Management Strategies for Optimal Productivity

Julie Entwistle, MBA, BHSc (OT), BSc (Health / Gerontology)

Meat Loaf says it best: “if you are only killing time it will kill you right back”. How true.

As we all try to cram more into our days, weeks, and nights we are creating unsustainable expectations for ourselves and for those that rely on each of us to get stuff done. In a previous post I offered my opinion on what I would consider dangerous and potentially life-threatening “time savers” that seem to be becoming commonplace in our manically productive world. Sleep deprivation, texting or emailing when driving, fast food and avoiding exercise were all on my list.

With that aside, I would now like to share the seemingly effective strategies I personally try to utilize for managing and maximizing time. But to be clear, I don’t have a degree or certificate in time management from any reputable institution. I am just a busy working mom of four kids who has been able to stay fit, get a Master’s degree, and run a business all because I can get lots done in a day. I have also read numerous books on productivity, health, happiness and personal development and have been able to incorporate many of the strategies I have read and learned into my world. So, here are what I would call my “tricks of the trade”…

1. I prioritize. What are your time priorities? If you answer “clearing my inbox, answering and responding to calls, getting projects done” then you have not looked at your life from the proverbial 30,000 feet. You are missing the big picture. Personally, my priorities (in order) are my health, my family, my career, and my personal development (yes, health comes first – without this the others are jeopardized!). So, my time spent always aligns with those. My health time includes sleeping, preparing healthy meals and exercising. My family time includes all that is involved in being a mother, wife, daughter, sister, cousin, grandchild, etc. My career is all that I do to manage my clients and business. And my personal development includes many of my social relationships, reading books and attending school, conferences and workshops. I make sure that every day includes at least one activity under each domain and recognize that some weeks my time shifts between these unevenly, but that in the next week I will find a way to correct course. Nothing I ever do under any of these priorities can be considered a “waste of time” as that would put me in a negative mindset (i.e. having to take a day off to manage a sick kid is never met with angst – “sick kid” falls under the family priority). Having set and firm priorities allows me to dictate how to schedule my time ensuring the right balance over a day, week and month between the four pillars of my life.

2. I live in the non-urgent but important quadrant. I love Stephen Covey’s thoughts on time management from the “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. Consider that if everything on your list is “urgent and important” you are doing something wrong and have not planned your time properly. While urgent things may creep into our day, ultimately being proactive and planning effectively means that you can focus on important things and manage these before URGENT happens. To balance my priorities I ensure that nothing “unimportant” lands on my desk or in my schedule. After all, I just don’t have time for “unimportant”.

3. I am proactive. Being reactive is a time waster. When we “react” we enter a different head-space, are required to shift our focus from the events of the day to something unplanned, and often spend more time picking up the pieces than we would if things didn’t crumble in the first place. Do you have a warning light on in your car? Get it into the shop before you are stranded at the side of the road spending hours dealing with roadside assistance and not having access to a vehicle. Or better yet, schedule your car for regular maintenance to keep it running smoothly. Feeling sluggish or unwell? Take a day off to recharge, make some changes to your routines, or get into your doctor before you enter full-blown illness. Taking one day off to feel better is more effective than the week you will need when the illness spreads.

4. I use technology wisely. Technology is a tool, but it is also a trap. My phone has a few productive apps but no games. Personally, “playing video games” does not align with my priorities as these have nothing to do with my health, family, career or personal development. I also don’t use my phone to conduct business – more to just be informed about it. Trying to conduct business on a smartphone often leads to errors in typing, autocorrect, and changes the response to something shorter, even curt. I would prefer to respond on my computer, or make a phone call versus emailing on a device. I also don’t watch TV – unless it involves a family movie or show we can all enjoy together. Technology for me is an information tool for my business, and an “in the moment” way to communicate, but otherwise I think use of those gadgets are a waste of time, not the opposite.

5. I plan ahead. Proper planning is always an effective use of time. Leaving your home to realize your meeting is thirty minutes farther away than you expected, driving somewhere to realize you forgot something, going to the grocery store without a list, arriving to a meeting without reviewing the agenda beforehand, or cramming your Powerpoint the night before are all signs of poor planning. In our personal lives being unprepared wastes time and money, in our professional lives these jeopardize our professional reputation. Make time in your schedule to proactively manage your “to do’s”.

6. I know myself. Are you in tune with your capacity? Personally, I know my limits and recognize when I work best. For example, I am most effective at writing (reports, documents, blogs, etc) in the morning. From 8am to noon I can fly through written tasks quickly. After noon, my focus wanes and it is easier for me to work on emails and calls as these require more short-term attention. This is how I try to structure my workdays. I also know things that I am good at, struggle with, and those things that I have taken on before with poor outcomes. Knowing this helps me to stay in my strengths as this is where I am most effective.

7. I use lists. In “The Art of Stress Free Productivity” and even “The Four Hour Workweek” both authors suggested that each day should start with a list of the top 3-5 things that need to be done that day. No exceptions. I find this strategy exceptionally helpful and each morning, or even the night before, I write a short list of “to do’s” and enjoy crossing things off as I accomplish them. Sometimes the list is separated by “personal, kids, work” etc. to match my priorities. And if I find myself wandering from my list to other tasks (i.e. my email inbox), having this in front of me grounds me back to the tasks that need to come first.

8. I take notes when reading. When I read educational or development books I always have a note pad and pen with me. Why? Because to read a book about personal development and to not take away or implement any of the strategies after makes reading a waste of time. If there is information I can benefit from, I want to capture that in a place where I can incorporate it into my life and review it later. This optimizes my reading time and self-development priority.

9. I manage my energy levels. Maximizing my energy levels maximizes my productivity. I do this by eating well, sleeping well, managing stress, and exercising.

10. I delegate. To effectively delegate you need to look at the resources available to you and determine who might be able to take some of the responsibility and run with it. If you know you don’t have time to take on a new project, say no, or figure out who you can enlist to support you in getting the job done.

11. I practice self-discipline. It is easy to be distracted, coerced, or tempted by other, maybe more fun, but usually less productive, tasks. That phone conversation with a friend, google wandering, checking Facebook, that lengthy lunch. While these may ultimately align with your priorities, the things you are neglecting during your productive hiatus will only work to move things from “important” to “urgent” in no time. Self-discipline allows you to firmly focus on the tasks on your “to-do” list versus those other enjoyable activities that might sway you in a less productive direction. So, get the “to dos” done first before being pulled in other directions.

Do you have other time maximizing ideas? I would love to hear them.

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Home Emergencies 101

Did you know that the most common home emergencies are falls, burns and cuts? Do you have any first aid experience in managing these? The following from Dr. Oz gives a crash course in the different emergencies we might encounter at home.

Dr. Oz:  Home Emergency Crash Course

For basic first aid training to help you adequately prepare for these, you can find course availability across Canada by visiting The Red Cross or St. John’s Ambulance.

Check out our past posts related to emergency preparedness here:

Emergency Preparedness Week: A Tale of Disaster and Preparedness

Emergency Preparedness

Do You Know The Signs of a Heart Attack?

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Time “Savers” that Could Kill You

Julie Entwistle, MBA, BHSc (OT), BSc (Health / Gerontology)

I have been asked a few times to write a blog on time management. While I don’t profess to be an expert in this, people often do ask me how I “fit it all in” and my answer is always “I have learned how to effectively management my time”. What still surprises me though is those people that have not yet shifted their focus to “managing time”, but instead try to “save time” or wish there was just more of it. For me, that thinking is disillusioned. We can’t find or get more time – time is constant. What we need to focus on then is using the time we have optimally and in line with our priorities. This takes insight and self-discipline to accomplish, and in a future blog I will speak to some of my personal strategies here.

But before I do that, I wanted to start with the list of “time savers” that I don’t endorse. Ones that I feel are, in the extreme, life threatening and yet have become staples, patterns and habits by many, bragged about by some, and only work to help people shove more stuff into their already hectic schedule without forcing them to realize the real problem is prioritizing. So, here is the list of the time savers that I feel could kill:

Sleep Less. I will admit that I have previously considered cutting a few hours of my zzz so I could steal a few more hours of “productive” time. This is not an uncommon thought. Many people speak openly, or even brag, about how they “worked until 5am” or “only got a few hours of sleep last night cramming to meet a deadline”. Entrepreneurs are the worst. Our minds don’t tend to shut off and you will often find us emailing in the late hours or very early mornings. However, evidence continues to mount that “adequate sleep” is one of the key predictors of health and happiness, and the age old 7-8 hours per night still applies as a recommended dosage. Even napping is now being encouraged as a way to shut off the mind and to cognitively and physically reboot mid-day (I keep my naps to 20 minutes to not interrupt my sleep cycle). What research is showing is that inadequate sleep actually worsens brain capacity, making people less productive. So, the time you gain from sleeping less you then lose (and then some) in productivity. I would rather sleep thanks! Thus, stop thinking that sleeping is a hindrance to your ability to get things done. Reducing your zzz will only be a detriment to your health in the long run.

Texting or Emailing when Driving. Illegal or not, this is still happening and now texting and driving is the leading cause of motor vehicle accidents and deaths. STOP IT (yes, I am yelling at you guilty folks). Newsflash: the only thing you should be doing when driving is, well, driving. If we are talking about time management here, then think about the time you could lose from making this mistake. Lost work time while you are recovering from an accident. Loss of career if you can never return to work due to a disability. Lost productive time when you are dragged into a lawsuit when you cause a collision and are sued as a result (worse if you are driving a company car and take your employer down with you). Lost ability to emotionally manage when you know you caused another person’s (maybe someone in your own car) injury or death. The list goes on. And remember too that if you are emailing or texting when driving – what is the nature of the message anyway? Short and curt, fraught with spelling errors, auto-correct problems, or even those catastrophic email errors that are caused from forwarding the wrong message to the wrong person or “replying to all” when you meant to reply. There are both health and reputational risks from texting or emailing when driving and thus the time it might “save” you could cost you everything. The solution? If you have to multi-task driving with communication, use the phone with a hands free device. Then at least your eyes are still on the road.

Fast Food. I need to preface my comments here with the reality that I was raised in a fast food family. This was our business and I worked in our restaurant chain from when I was 13 to 19. So, believe me I get the appeal of fatty and good tasting food that is provided quickly. But this too is killing us. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and many other chronic illnesses are caused from poor dietary habits. Yet, people continue to think that using the drive-through will save them time. My experience with “fast food” is that it is rarely fast (just time your drive-through and walk-in experiences) and some of what is served is not even really food. Processed, frozen, overcooked, stale, loaded with additives and preservatives. Yummy. Also consider that when eating “out” people tend to overeat and consume significantly more calories than if they ate at home or prepared a snack before they left. Several years ago I used to love to grab a Tim Horton’s before my first client of the day. After all, I would be in the car for 30-60 minutes and drinking my tea was an enjoyable beginning to my morning. Then I became cognizant of the time I was spending in line. 5-10 minutes per morning was 25-50 minutes per week of just “waiting”. Not to mention the accumulating cost of some hot water in a paper cup with a tea bag. So, I decided to go “Tim’s Free”. It was liberating. I could (and still do) drive by Tim Horton’s and smile at the drive-through line while I drink my home-made tea that takes me 1 minute to make and costs a nickel. While I still understand that “fast food” is a treat, and can be used as such, I will argue that too many people who proclaim to be “so busy” actually waste time waiting for crappy food. The solution? Have some ready-made meals or snacks in the fridge and grab these on your way out the door. Put them in a cooler bag, or store them in your work fridge. Forgoing the fast-food habit will save you time, calories, and ultimately your health.

“No Time” to Exercise. This one drives me batty. So many people claim to “not have the time” to exercise despite the ample evidence proving that exercise is a #1 predictor of health. This “no time” excuse needs to stop. We all have the same amount of time in a day, so the reality is that people don’t MAKE the time, or this is just not a priority. That is not a judgment. If exercise is not a priority then people can just admit this and stop using “time” as the shield. Personally, I believe that the time spent exercising pays itself forward in productivity. Reduced stress, more energy, increased mood, better time management, improved ability to prioritize, and of course all this on top of the fact that this could lengthen life. Avoiding exercise to “save time” is a fallacy. I don’t buy it. Personally, I think I qualify as “busy” but still exercise 1-2 hours daily. So people need to be honest with themselves, their priorities and recognize that avoiding exercise to “save time” could have the opposite effect.

In the end, consider your “time savers” and project these over the next 10 years. What will that look like for you? Don’t wait to suffer the consequences of sleep deprivation, a car accident, a health issue from poor eating habits, or physical decline from a neglected body to realize that being productive at the cost of your health is not productive at all.

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Myths of the Summer Months

Is it possible to get a sunburn on a cloudy day? Will a “base tan” prevent sun burn and sun damage? There are so many myths and unanswered questions when it comes to summer health that it’s hard to decipher the fact from fiction. The following from MSN Health uncovers 12 popular health myths and helps you get to the truth so you can protect yourself and have your healthiest summer yet!

MSN Healthy Living:  12 Myths of Summer

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The Best Healthy Sun Protection

July is UV Safety Month and earlier we discussed the importance of protecting yourself from the sun’s harmful UV rays. While avoidance is key, it isn’t always possible, so sunscreen becomes your best protection. However, many sunscreens contain harmful chemicals that are detrimental to your health. Each year the Environmental Working Group compiles a database which ranks sunscreens based on their chemical components to ensure the protection you use isn’t harmful to your body. Check out the best and worst sunscreens here, and be sure to search the brand you use to ensure it is the safest for your overall health!

Environmental Working Group:  2014 Guide to Sunscreen

 

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Change your Attitude and Change your Life

Julie Entwistle, MBA, BHSc (OT), BSc (Health / Gerontology)

I was recently forwarded the below article from a friend. This is about a young man who was facing the amputation of his left leg. Given his situation he had multiple choices. He could choose to be angry, bitter, sad, could feel sorry for himself, be stressed and anxious about the impending surgery, or decide to accept his fate and ultimately “be okay” with it. His choice? Make light of his situation, involve others in the process, accept that he could not change what he was confronted with, and move on. Check out his inspiring story here.

Reading this reminded me of my grandfather. At age 20 he was diagnosed with Polio. This caused atrophy of the muscles in his legs and buttocks and he walked with crutches for 56 years. Eventually his lower body circulation started to fail and his feet became infected. It was recommended that he have both legs amputated above the knees. He accepted this fate as a life saving measure and understood that his legs were no longer of purpose to him, and were actually a hindrance when trying to transfer and go about his day. Luckily my grandfather had a wonderful sense of humor, and an even better attitude, and as such had cultured this into the rest of us. Before his amputations, and even after, we came up with lists of clichés we could no longer say to him: “put your best foot forward”, “pull up your socks”, “if the shoe fits wear it”, “you are a shoe in” etc. He was just as engaged in making these lists as we were.

I remember his jokes continued even days before his death. I was visiting with him and an orderly came in to mop the floor. As she approached the hospital bed where he was lying, he asked her if she needed him to “lift his feet”. She quickly said “no sir you are fine” to which I replied “he is just being funny….first of all he is in a hospital bed that you can mop under anyway, and secondly he has no feet!” This one of my fondest memories of him, and the last conversation I had with him before he passed.

My point? Your attitude can determine your outlook and outcome. While we can’t change the situations that happen in our life, we can change how we THINK about them – for the good or bad. But guess what? If you THINK that a given situation made you angry (or sad, frustrated, depressed) then your FEELINGS AND ACTIONS will follow, mimicking your thoughts. A situation does not cause you to be angry, it is your thoughts about the situation that causes your reaction. So, as obscure as it sounds, if you want to improve your outcomes, change your thoughts. Simple enough? Well, not really. Adopting a new attitude and thinking differently about things is hard work – it requires awareness and a paradigm shift to a new way of being. But I am sure everyone can think of one person that they just don’t want to be around – that negative Nelly, that downer, that person who does nothing but complain, that “Droopy” character in real life. These people are life-suckers, are exhausting to be around and positive people tend to avoid them because that negativity can become contagious. Is that you? Then do something about it to change your approach to things and the result will be an enrichment of your relationships.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is the process of helping people to understand the relationship between thinking and emotion. It involves working with a therapist to sort through the negative thinking patterns that are dictating counterproductive actions and feelings. If you think you need that, consider that occupational therapists often use this in treatment when our assessment uncovers that someone presents with challenging thinking patterns, or we are finding that a difficult attitude is hindering progress in treatment.

Here are some great quotes about attitude that really drive these points home:

“Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.”
Albert Einstein

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”
Thomas Jefferson

“The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up.”
John C. Maxwell

So, work to change your attitude and that could change your life!

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Cheer Up the Lonely Day

Tomorrow, July 11th, is “cheer up the lonely day.” A day to contact those you’ve lost touch with, reach out to someone who is suffering, or give your time to help a complete stranger in need. Many seniors in the community, whether in their own homes or long-term care facilities, are often in need of company and companionship and many local programs help facilitate phone calls or visits for those in need. Big Brothers and Big Sisters associations help to pair disadvantaged children with a caring adult. It has long been known that volunteering is good for your mental health, but recent studies show that giving of yourself is actually beneficial to your physical health and could possibly add years to your life. Check out the following from CTV news and on this “cheer up the lonely day” think of volunteering, reaching out, or helping someone in need.

CTV News:  Volunteering Could Add Years To Your Life