Mindfulness Tips for the Workplace

Benefits of Practising Mindfulness in the Workplace

An average office worker can only focus for 11 minutes without distraction.

Those distractions equate to a 20% decrease in performance.

25% of workers take time off due to stress.

Mental ill health is the leading cause of sick leave and stress-related workers' compensation claims have doubled.

“It is clear that the cost of ignoring the problem is far greater than the cost of developing and implementing strategies to create a safe and healthy workplace.”

The Australian Human Rights Commission

Organisations such as Google, Nike, and Apple implement mindfulness practices in their employee development. These practices help increase performance, productivity, job satisfaction, employee retention, and workplace safety, whilst decreasing stress, burnout, leave, and turnover. Employee and leadership mindfulness training programs reduce anxiety, emotional exhaustion, reactivity, and rumination. They also improve empathy, cohesion, co-worker relationships, concentration, cognition, and work-life balance.

There are three core areas where implementing Mindfulness practices in the workplace can benefit not just the employee but the organisation as a whole.

1. Relationships

Practising mindfulness in the workplace cultivates greater empathy and compassion, less reactivity and greater confidence in participation, collaboration, and sharing. This results in more positive relationships between employees, their peers, and their customers - all of which can affect a company's productivity, profile, and profitability.

2. Wellbeing

Practising mindfulness has been proven to reduce feelings of anxiety and stress, develop greater self-awareness and the ability to recognise stress and triggers, reduce overthinking and increase life enjoyment and contentment. This equates to happier staff at home and at work and less burnout and turnover.

3. Productivity

How we process information affects our behaviour and emotions. Practising mindfulness develops greater clarity and focus as we learn to still the mind chatter and focus on just what we are doing in the moment. This promotes greater productivity as well as skills such as decision making, problem-solving and creative thinking.

Each day we have countless opportunities to practise mindfulness.

Following are my top 5 practical Mindfulness Tips you can apply to the Workplace

1. STOP TRYING TO MULTITASK

You may think that you are being productive but you aren't doing multiple things at once - you are switching your attention between them constantly which is less productive and more stress on your brain.

Instead try having only one tab open, close your emails, put your phone on silent and focus on one thing at a time. You will be so much more efficient and productive when you practise "single-tasking".

2. AVOID EATING AT YOUR DESK

Take your lunch outside, away from distractions and eat it mindfully - paying attention to the colours, flavours, smells.

This boosts your digestion, concentration, and mood and you will feel far more refreshed.

3. DON'T TAKE DEVICES TO MEETINGS

Bring your full attention and practise your listening skills. And if you are facilitating a zoom meeting, make sure everyone has their video on.

This removes the temptation of distractions and encourages engagement and participation.

4. TURN OFF NOTIFICATIONS

Turn off all of your notifications, e.g. email, teams, etc. They just interrupt your flow and concentration.

Shut your email down completely if you are trying to work on a project and set them to send receive just 2-3 times a day. You can always hit the send/receive button if you are expecting something.

Another good tip is to unsubscribe from newsletters and subscriptions you don't need to prevent cluttering your inbox.

5. CREATE TO DO LISTS

At the end of the day before you go home write a to-do list – keep it achievable and things that need to be done that day only.

This can reduce feelings of overwhelm and increase focus and clarity by getting thoughts of what you need to do tomorrow out of your head.

WANT MORE TIPS?

For more tips on practising mindfulness in the workplace click on the button below, enter your name and email address in the form below and I will send you my Tips for Practising Mindfulness in the Workplace.

If you want some more information on the workplace workshops and programs I can offer your organisation, please contact me on michelle@cultivatingacalmmind.com or 0438 915 830.

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michelle@cultivatingacalmmind.com | 0438 915 830