Detox your writing - Emphasis

Detox your composition Detox your composition Is your composing feeling somewhat overweight and rusty? Treat it to a one-month detox treatment by adhering to these three principles. Get dynamic The dynamic voice is more straightforward, dynamic and responsible. The Government made no move is better than No move was made or No move was made by the Government. Its far superior to have individuals or associations making a move than to portray things as bafflingly occurring or being finished. At the point when you utilize the dynamic voice, you now and then locate a considerably less difficult method of communicating. An installment was made by the CEO a week ago. becomes The CEO made an installment a week ago. which you would then be able to change to The CEO paid a week ago. Remain organized Not many of the individuals you compose for are clairvoyant or have faultless recollections. On the off chance that you put the fundamental piece of the sentence toward the end, they should peruse as far as possible before they can begin to comprehend the start. This psychological reverse somersault could be everything necessary to confound them, divert them, or put them off. Organizing sentences intelligently will: keep your perusers perusing ensure they have to peruse each sentence just a single time communicate as the need should arise. Continuously put the essential statement first. Or on the other hand, at the end of the day, put the what before the why. In this way, instead of So as to accomplish these objectives inside the predefined time span, we have to start the preparation now. compose We have to start the preparation presently, so as to accomplish these objectives inside the predetermined time span. or on the other hand, shockingly better (see Lose the cushioning, underneath) We have to start the preparation now, so we can hit our objectives on schedule. Likewise, attempt to adhere to the standard of one sentence = one thought. Focus on a normal sentence length of 15-20 words; a flat out limit of 35. Keep in mind, there is no restriction to the quantity of full stops you can utilize. Lose the cushioning Never botch the capacity to utilize expand phrases for an indication of astuteness. Whats the purpose of thinking carefully to make an interpretation of a short word into a long one, so your perusers need to think carefully to decipher it back again before they even begin to take in your message? Its likewise an error that short words are by one way or another lightweight or less helpful. Truth be told, they are frequently the most impressive. Nobody is stating that you need to utilize them all the time that would be exhausting. Be that as it may, in the event that you need your sentences to have more effect, smooth out them by doing these three basic things: cut out excess words supplant long words with short ones supplant long expressions with short ones. After the detox Similarly likewise with good dieting and exercise systems, the privileged insights of composing admirably in the long haul are to appreciate it and to allow yourself to explore. Utilize this month as a chance to cinch down on any awful composing propensities youve slipped into by truly concentrating on these three focuses. In any case, that doesnt imply that you can never again utilize the inactive voice or your preferred long word. This month, we quick. In the long haul, its everything about the balance. Challenge In the mean time, heres a speedy four-direct exercise toward consider as you crunch your carrots: 1. Lessen this sentence from nine words to five: It is conceivable that the Chancellor will cut assessments. 2. Rework this sentence without the nominalisation (- tion words): It was his conviction that the arrangement of bikes to law officials would prompt a decrease in wrongdoing. 3. Cut two words out of this sentence: Sarah Thompson, who is our advertising executive, will lead the conversation. 4. Modify this sentence without the relational words (of, on, in, by, to): The downturn is of extraordinary worry to entrepreneurs.

Young Blacks and the Crisis African-American Culture free essay sample

The slithers confronting youthful blacks, likewise alluded to as the hip jump age, Is one that is multifaceted and contains different layers. Youthful Blacks today are being confronted with various difficulties inside their locale and inside society in general. These difficulties incorporate, rising joblessness, racial profiling, elevated levels of detainment, the AIDS plague, an expanding age hole, just as developing instruction accomplishment gap.When coupling these numerous difficulties with the glorification of medications, savagery, cash, and the corruption of ladies that Is frequently remoter inside the hip jump culture, the eventual fate of youthful blacks In todays society stays in danger and in emergency. Accordingly the inquiry remains, how would we address the emergency confronting African American youth today? There is no uncertainty that the response to this inquiry won't simple. We should initially decide, who is this supposed hip bounce age, and take a gander at the hi story and rise of this age of youngsters inside African American culture. We will compose a custom paper test on Youthful Blacks and the Crisis African-American Culture or on the other hand any comparative subject explicitly for you Don't WasteYour Time Recruit WRITER Just 13.90/page We should then investigate how this age was molded. What are the occasions and events that have molded this age and added to the emergency this age presently faces? This incorporates an assessment of the general public, culture, legislative issues, and mainstream society of the sasss and sasss, which the hip jump age experienced childhood in. When we analyze and comprehend those issues that have designed this youthful age of African Americans, we would then be able to start to investigate answers for the emergency that has adversely influenced a large number of todays dark youth.Although the difficulties are many, so are the potential outcomes of conquering the emergency numerous youthful Black individuals face. The arrangement Involves the African American people group, just as society as entire meeting up to confront the difficulties this age is doing combating. It includes an assessment of open arrangement and a solid gander at our administration. Lastly, it includes a genuine scr utinize of the hip bounce culture and mainstream society that have such a huge effect on African American youth today. Who makes up the hip bounce age, and who does this segment comprise of?The term help jump age Is utilized for the most part to depict the age experiencing childhood In the sasss and 1 buffs. Many have named this gathering of youngsters as Generation X. In any case, when talking explicitly about youthful Black individuals, for some the term hip jump age was significantly more fitting. One of the principal coiners of the term was Baker Kitting, head manager of The Source: the magazine of hip-jump music culture and governmental issues, during the sasss. Kitting characterizes the age as those conceived between 1965-1984, fundamentally those experiencing childhood In post-social equality Black America (Sultana, 2002).Although hip jump music, culture, and governmental issues have changed significantly over the just about multi year length that makes up the hip bounce age, a considerable lot of the issues and difficulties confronting this age of youngsters have stayed steady. As Kitting not ed, people may highlight diverse characterizing vents, however all offer a perfectly clear comprehension of transitioning in a time of post-isolation and worldwide financial matters (Kitting, 2002). Basically, the hip jump age comprises of Black adolescents that know about the advancement that has been the battle that remaining parts for youthful African Americans living in todays society.Despite the advancement made during the sasss Civil Rights Movement, youthful Black individuals are as yet confronted with new types of bigotry such a racial profiling and redlining. Moreover, they should manage huge differences in work and training in contrast with their white partners. The truth of such difficulties have left Black young people feeling marginalia and detached to society in general, as they battle to manage the emergency before them. Let us currently analyze the difficulties and issues that have affected the transitioning and of the hip jump age, and added to the emergency they face.Unlike their folks, who might be viewed as a feature of the Baby Boomer age, the hip bounce age was formed by occasions and open strategy happening after the social equality development. The isolat ion and Jim Crow laws that were a piece of the transitioning for the person born after WW2 age, was not experienced by the hip bounce age. Rather, the hip jump ages transitioning was impacted by increasingly unpretentious types of bigotry and segregation, for example, racial profiling. The development of racial profiling can be intensely added to the Reagan organizations notable War on Drugs starting in the sasss.This open approach catastrophe had an extremely huge turn in birthing racial profiling rehearses that despite everything exist today. Racial profiling depends on the possibility that most medication offenses are submitted by minorities (Harris, 1999). As opposed to what many may accept most of medication dealers are not for the most part Black. In a UCLA unique report Harris noticed that, as per the administrations own reports, 80% of the nation cocaine clients are white, and the run of the mill cocaine client is a working class, white resident. However, law authorization strategies that focused on downtown medication exchange were obviously filling the Jails and detainment facilities with minority sedate law w rongdoers, taking care of the misguided judgment that most medication clients and vendors were Black and Latino. Consequently a medication dispatch profile with unquestionable racial hints grabbed hold in law authorization. (Harris, 1999) This medication dispatch profile filled in as the reason for unjustifiable stops ND searches of vehicles driven by non-white individuals just as the baseless stops and searches of Black individuals in shopping centers, air terminals, and even on the streets.This practice of racial profiling prompted an unbalanced number of youthful Blacks being captured and detained during the sasss and sasss. An investigation by the Justice Department demonstrated that at the state level the quantity of Blacks imprisoned for tranquilize offenses expanded 707% somewhere in the range of 1985 and 1995, contrasted with just 306% of Whites (Kitting, 2002). By 1996 62% of medication wrongdoers confessed to state detainment facilities were Black, contrasted with 36% that were White. This lopsided number of youthful Blacks being detained has colossally influenced the hip bounce age i n a significant way.The amazing number of youthful Black that are imprisoned, has prompted a negative picture of crystallization as identified with Black youth. Since such a large number of Black youth are detained, it is anything but difficult to expect that they should likewise be the ones perpetrating the most violations. Accordingly more minorities are captured, indicted, and Jailed, taking care of into the previously mentioned medicate messenger profile, bringing about more captures of minorities, and propagating the generalization that most wrongdoings are submitted by Black individuals (Harris, 999). As this repetitive example proceeds, it is likewise fortified by the medias out of line depiction of Blacks as criminals.According to Kitting (2002), a recent report found that Being that numerous Americans rely upon the news as a wellspring of data, they are consistently being misdirected about youthful Black individuals and their relationship with wrongdoing. Notwithstanding the lopsidedly high imprisonment of youthful Blacks, there is additionally an excessively high number of Black jobless youth, adding to the emergency among those in the hip jump age. In the article, The Black-White Jobless Gap, Simms and McDaniel report that just one of every three of Blacks between the ages of 16 and 24 have a Job, while just 16% of Whites are jobless (Simms and McDaniel, 2010).These lopsided figures can for the most part be ascribed to the absence of training or accomplishment hole that exists between youthful Whites and Blacks. Sadly, numerous youthful African Americans in the backtalk came up short on the instruction expected to contend in a developing worldwide society, and shockingly this cycle proceeds, as insights show that 20-30% of Black guys drop out of school before graduation (Encourage, 1997) Therefore, they had to low-gifted, low-paying bounces, which were not many and far between.Those experiencing childhood in the hip jump age basically didn't have the open doors their folks had as incompetent laborers, having the chance to work in the steel, elastic, and car ventures. When the hip bounce age started to go into the workforce, a considerable lot of these businesses had evaporated. As indicated by Dry. Pedro Encourage (1997), considers have demonstrated that Black guys specifically are broadly seen as less attractive representatives and in this manner are significantly more averse to be recruited in many Jobs. The ascent of joblessness just drove o an ascent of destitution among numerous hip bou nce ages, in this way adding to the developing standardization and disappointment of Black youth. As sentiments of standardization became because of racial profiling, the crystallization of youthful Blacks, and the absence of business openings, numerous youthful Blacks started to go to an existence of wrongdoing. With no reasonable business perspectives, numerous young people went to the underground medication advertise as the best way to make due as destitution in numerous downtowns proceeded to increase.This prompted an expansion in pack action and medication exchange. Shockingly, numerous African American young people felt they could improve monetarily in the medication exchange than in standard society (Kitting, 2002). The road pack attitude overflowed into the jail populace of youthful Blacks. As increasingly Black youth were imprisoned, there was an ascent of jail packs. Before long the contrast between Black road packs, Black jail posses, and Black youth culture by and large was hard to separate, therefore adding to the crystallization of youthful Blacks.Soon the line was undefined in any event, for hip jump ages, driving numerous youthful Black youth to connect guiltiness with Blackness (Kitting, 2002). This can to a great extent be credited to the changing face

Life Balance - Focus

How to Achieve A Good Work/Life Balance - Focus We hear the phrase work/life balance so often that its easy to gloss over it rather than digging into what it really means. Unfortunately, like many things that are easy to overlook (eating well and exercising, for instance), not having work/life balance can be quite dangerous for our health and wellbeing. The Dangers of Not Having Balance You can go one of two ways when youre out of balance: too much life, or too much work. The dangers of too much life in your equation are fairly obvious: if youre not working enough, you risk not producing results, producing lower-quality work, struggling to grow your business, or even losing your job. It seems more common to go the other way, though. Many of us end up spending too much time at work, not making enough time to relax and strengthen our relationships with friends and family. And this is where things get dangerous for our health. Research has found those who overwork (that is, work 55 hours or more in a week) have a 33% higher risk of stroke when compared to those who work fewer than 40 hours per week. Overworked employees who do manual labor or other non-white-collar jobs also have a 30% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Those who work less than 40 hours, on the other hand, fall asleep faster and get more sleep overall. Researchers suggest this may be because working more gives us less time to relax and wind down for sleep, but increases our requirements for relaxation time. And since overworked employees get less sleep, they also attract downsides of being tired. When were tired we tend to misread other peoples emotions and pick fights more oftenâ€"neither of which are conducive to communication and productivity in the workplace. You might be thinking the downsides dont apply to you, or even if they do, theyre worth the trade-off for higher productivity. But working more doesnt actually lead to higher productivity in most cases. Theres a reason, for instance, that we tend to work eight hours a day, five days a week. Most studies and business experiments have found this to be the most effective spread of working hours for productivity. In the past it was common to work up to seven days a week and more than ten hours per day. But Henry Ford wasnt happy to settle for what everyone else was doing. He wanted to find the optimal spread of working hours to achieve the most efficient production output possible. After experimenting with different working weeks, Ford found that his workers produced at least as much output in five-day working weeks as they did when they worked for six days. Ernst Abbé, head of a German factory, was also interested in experimenting to find a more efficient working week for his employees. He tested shortening the workday from nine hours to eight, and found that production actually increased when his employees worked fewer hours. If youre still thinking that overworking isnt unhealthy in your case, you might be falling prey to the grip of crunch mode, during which we tend to overestimate how much work were getting done. We also overestimate how good our work is when were in crunch mode. Productivity is harder to quantify for knowledge workers than it was for people like Abbé and Ford measuring factory output. But even if youre struggling to measure exactly how much youre getting done, if youre at work for more than 55 hours every week, its likely that youre increasing your health risks and damaging your sleep quality. How To Achieve Balance So if you are thinking you need to improve the balance between your work and life, how do you go about it? Writer James Clear suggests using the four burners theory for thinking about the different areas of your life. Imagine four burners on a stove that represent these four areas of your life: Family Friends Health Work Now heres the problem: the theory suggests that to be successful, you have to turn off at least one burner. To be very successful, says Clear, you have to turn off two burners. Because we cant be everywhere at once, were forced to choose between these areas when we decide how to spend our time. If we dont choose where to focus our time, we end up with sub-par results in all areas, says Clear: Of course, you are free to divide your time equally among all four burners, but you have to accept that you will never reach your full potential in any given area. But of course none of us wants to give up any of these areas of our lives. So how can we use this theory to find a way to balance all four burners? Clear has three different suggestions for balancing your burners. The first is to outsource some of your burners. For instance, hiring a nanny or babysitter is outsourcing your family burner. Hiring employees or automating your business is outsourcing your work burner. Clear notes, however, that while outsourcing a burner keeps it running, its not necessarily the most meaningful way to keep that burner going. If we can, wed all like to put our own energy into the things we enjoy, like spending time with our family or growing our businesses, rather than outsourcing those efforts. Another option Clear suggests is to become more efficient in how you spend time on each burner. That could mean automating some areas of your business, planning how you spend your time more carefully, or spending most of your time on the activities that provide the biggest return for each burner. Since youre limited in how much time you have overall, maximizing your efficiency can help you get more out of the little time you can spend on each burner. Clears final suggestion is to focus on different burners in seasonal periods. Thinking of your time as being broken into seasons, you can let one or two burners turn off (or slow down) while you focus on others, knowing that youll change your focus when youre ready to start a new season. A season could be weeks, months, or years long, which is helpful for not having to make lifelong commitments to which burners youre turning off. The importance of your burners may change throughout life, says Clear. If youre worried about not focusing on all four burners, the seasonal approach can help you find times to focus on each burner in turn. Since the holiday season is coming up for many of us, for instance, that might be a short period where you turn off the work burner and focus on your family and friends burners. After the holiday period is over, you might find your health burner is needing some love if your holiday season includes eating as well as mine does! You can do it all in a lifetime, but not at the same damn time. â€" James Clear Another option Clear doesn’t mention is to combine your burners. If you’re lucky enough, you might be able to work on a couple of burners at the same time. That’s the case at MeisterLabs, the company behind MeisterTask, where built-in exercise programs allow employees to work on both their “work” and “health” burners in a normal workday. MeisterLabs CEO Michael Hollauf told me combining work and exercise was the impetus for creating the MeisterLabs running club: We already knew that staying active is good for physical health and emotional wellbeing, reducing for example the risk of developing stress or anxiety. We also knew that our team had family commitments and other obligations outside of work (e.g. that latest Netflix series) which can make fitting in regular exercise tricky. When I stumbled across a study which found that exercising while at work actively boosts productivity levels, we decided to act on it. Of course, some of you might be thinking (as I was when I first found out about this initiative) that this approach excludes anyone who can’t or won’t use running as a way to improve their health. But the MeisterLabs team thought of that, too: This went down great but excluded some team members who didn’t fancy the distance, so we recently set up a yoga class with an external instructor too, held here at our office on Mondays and Fridays. This has proven even more popular … and with the yoga beginning at a very basic level, offering different position options for different abilities, there’s something for everyone. While we’re not all lucky enough to have an exercise club at work, some workplaces offer other ways to combine your burners, such as day care in the building letting you get some family time breaks throughout the workday, or flexible work so you can work from home and see your family throughout the day. Work smarter, not longer. Discover MeisterTask Its free! Discover MeisterTask What if Balance Isnt the Right Approach At All? Now that Ive talked all about finding balance, Im going to throw a spanner in the works. The point of finding balance is to separate work and life so you can fit in both comfortably. But some people think this isnt even possible. The truth is work and life collide and cannot be easily separated. â€" Shawn Murphy According to Shawn Murphy, CEO and founder of Switch Shift, work and life cant be separated, and we only frustrate ourselves by trying. Wharton professor Stewart Friedman agrees. Friedman suggests that we have four domains of life, similar to the four burners theory. His four domains include: work/school home/family community/society mind/body/spirt These are pretty close to the categories of the four burner theory, but the difference is Friedman says we dont have to give any of these up. He suggests we can live an integrated life and be satisfied in all these areas. In fact, research on the difference between trying to integrate different areas of your life shows this is more healthy than trying to separate those areas. The reason is related to something called cognitive role transition. According to management researcher David Burkus, cognitive role transition is what happens when youre actively engaged in one role, but experience thoughts of [sic] feelings related to a different role. If youve ever felt a nagging feeling to check your work email during dinner with your family, or to pay your rent while youre at work, thats cognitive role transition. And heres the strange thing: the more you try to separate work and life, the worse the effects of these transitions. A study of over 600 workers found people who didnt try to strictly separate work and life made more cognitive role transitions, but the transitions didnt affect them too much. For those who did try to separate work and life strictly, they experienced fewer transitions but those transitions depleted their energy and hurt their work performance a lot more. David Burkus said of the study, the more frequent role transitions makes [sic] it easier for those individuals to push the thought out of their mind with less willpower. For more productivity tips, check out our post on How to write a better to do list and get more done. This can all get a little confusing, because there are so many different points of view. But if we focus on what the research shows, we know that overworking is bad for our health and our productivity. Research has also shown us that trying to strictly separate work and life can backfire by making the crossover between the two more harmful to our productivity and wellbeing. Beyond the research, it’s up to us to experiment and decide for ourselves what works best. We can use the four burner theory James Clear suggests and look for ways to split our time between family, friends, work, and our health. That might mean focusing on different burners in seasons, combining burners when we can, or outsourcing some burners. On the other hand, some people believe work and life can’t be separated, and research shows that those who let them blend together tend to be healthier and perform better. Their approach is to let the lines between life and work blur a little more, so we can avoid the nagging feeling of one area while trying to focus on another. Whether we can have it all and still be successful is up for debate, but the most important lesson to be learned is not to focus on only one thing for two long. Whether its work or play, too much of one leaves us feeling burned out and lacking balance.   Find balance with task management Try MeisterTask Its free! Try MeisterTask How to Achieve A Good Work/Life Balance - Focus We hear the phrase work/life balance so often that its easy to gloss over it rather than digging into what it really means. Unfortunately, like many things that are easy to overlook (eating well and exercising, for instance), not having work/life balance can be quite dangerous for our health and wellbeing. The Dangers of Not Having Balance You can go one of two ways when youre out of balance: too much life, or too much work. The dangers of too much life in your equation are fairly obvious: if youre not working enough, you risk not producing results, producing lower-quality work, struggling to grow your business, or even losing your job. It seems more common to go the other way, though. Many of us end up spending too much time at work, not making enough time to relax and strengthen our relationships with friends and family. And this is where things get dangerous for our health. Research has found those who overwork (that is, work 55 hours or more in a week) have a 33% higher risk of stroke when compared to those who work fewer than 40 hours per week. Overworked employees who do manual labor or other non-white-collar jobs also have a 30% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Those who work less than 40 hours, on the other hand, fall asleep faster and get more sleep overall. Researchers suggest this may be because working more gives us less time to relax and wind down for sleep, but increases our requirements for relaxation time. And since overworked employees get less sleep, they also attract downsides of being tired. When were tired we tend to misread other peoples emotions and pick fights more oftenâ€"neither of which are conducive to communication and productivity in the workplace. You might be thinking the downsides dont apply to you, or even if they do, theyre worth the trade-off for higher productivity. But working more doesnt actually lead to higher productivity in most cases. Theres a reason, for instance, that we tend to work eight hours a day, five days a week. Most studies and business experiments have found this to be the most effective spread of working hours for productivity. In the past it was common to work up to seven days a week and more than ten hours per day. But Henry Ford wasnt happy to settle for what everyone else was doing. He wanted to find the optimal spread of working hours to achieve the most efficient production output possible. After experimenting with different working weeks, Ford found that his workers produced at least as much output in five-day working weeks as they did when they worked for six days. Ernst Abbé, head of a German factory, was also interested in experimenting to find a more efficient working week for his employees. He tested shortening the workday from nine hours to eight, and found that production actually increased when his employees worked fewer hours. If youre still thinking that overworking isnt unhealthy in your case, you might be falling prey to the grip of crunch mode, during which we tend to overestimate how much work were getting done. We also overestimate how good our work is when were in crunch mode. Productivity is harder to quantify for knowledge workers than it was for people like Abbé and Ford measuring factory output. But even if youre struggling to measure exactly how much youre getting done, if youre at work for more than 55 hours every week, its likely that youre increasing your health risks and damaging your sleep quality. How To Achieve Balance So if you are thinking you need to improve the balance between your work and life, how do you go about it? Writer James Clear suggests using the four burners theory for thinking about the different areas of your life. Imagine four burners on a stove that represent these four areas of your life: Family Friends Health Work Now heres the problem: the theory suggests that to be successful, you have to turn off at least one burner. To be very successful, says Clear, you have to turn off two burners. Because we cant be everywhere at once, were forced to choose between these areas when we decide how to spend our time. If we dont choose where to focus our time, we end up with sub-par results in all areas, says Clear: Of course, you are free to divide your time equally among all four burners, but you have to accept that you will never reach your full potential in any given area. But of course none of us wants to give up any of these areas of our lives. So how can we use this theory to find a way to balance all four burners? Clear has three different suggestions for balancing your burners. The first is to outsource some of your burners. For instance, hiring a nanny or babysitter is outsourcing your family burner. Hiring employees or automating your business is outsourcing your work burner. Clear notes, however, that while outsourcing a burner keeps it running, its not necessarily the most meaningful way to keep that burner going. If we can, wed all like to put our own energy into the things we enjoy, like spending time with our family or growing our businesses, rather than outsourcing those efforts. Another option Clear suggests is to become more efficient in how you spend time on each burner. That could mean automating some areas of your business, planning how you spend your time more carefully, or spending most of your time on the activities that provide the biggest return for each burner. Since youre limited in how much time you have overall, maximizing your efficiency can help you get more out of the little time you can spend on each burner. Clears final suggestion is to focus on different burners in seasonal periods. Thinking of your time as being broken into seasons, you can let one or two burners turn off (or slow down) while you focus on others, knowing that youll change your focus when youre ready to start a new season. A season could be weeks, months, or years long, which is helpful for not having to make lifelong commitments to which burners youre turning off. The importance of your burners may change throughout life, says Clear. If youre worried about not focusing on all four burners, the seasonal approach can help you find times to focus on each burner in turn. Since the holiday season is coming up for many of us, for instance, that might be a short period where you turn off the work burner and focus on your family and friends burners. After the holiday period is over, you might find your health burner is needing some love if your holiday season includes eating as well as mine does! You can do it all in a lifetime, but not at the same damn time. â€" James Clear Another option Clear doesn’t mention is to combine your burners. If you’re lucky enough, you might be able to work on a couple of burners at the same time. That’s the case at MeisterLabs, the company behind MeisterTask, where built-in exercise programs allow employees to work on both their “work” and “health” burners in a normal workday. MeisterLabs CEO Michael Hollauf told me combining work and exercise was the impetus for creating the MeisterLabs running club: We already knew that staying active is good for physical health and emotional wellbeing, reducing for example the risk of developing stress or anxiety. We also knew that our team had family commitments and other obligations outside of work (e.g. that latest Netflix series) which can make fitting in regular exercise tricky. When I stumbled across a study which found that exercising while at work actively boosts productivity levels, we decided to act on it. Of course, some of you might be thinking (as I was when I first found out about this initiative) that this approach excludes anyone who can’t or won’t use running as a way to improve their health. But the MeisterLabs team thought of that, too: This went down great but excluded some team members who didn’t fancy the distance, so we recently set up a yoga class with an external instructor too, held here at our office on Mondays and Fridays. This has proven even more popular … and with the yoga beginning at a very basic level, offering different position options for different abilities, there’s something for everyone. While we’re not all lucky enough to have an exercise club at work, some workplaces offer other ways to combine your burners, such as day care in the building letting you get some family time breaks throughout the workday, or flexible work so you can work from home and see your family throughout the day. Work smarter, not longer. Discover MeisterTask Its free! Discover MeisterTask What if Balance Isnt the Right Approach At All? Now that Ive talked all about finding balance, Im going to throw a spanner in the works. The point of finding balance is to separate work and life so you can fit in both comfortably. But some people think this isnt even possible. The truth is work and life collide and cannot be easily separated. â€" Shawn Murphy According to Shawn Murphy, CEO and founder of Switch Shift, work and life cant be separated, and we only frustrate ourselves by trying. Wharton professor Stewart Friedman agrees. Friedman suggests that we have four domains of life, similar to the four burners theory. His four domains include: work/school home/family community/society mind/body/spirt These are pretty close to the categories of the four burner theory, but the difference is Friedman says we dont have to give any of these up. He suggests we can live an integrated life and be satisfied in all these areas. In fact, research on the difference between trying to integrate different areas of your life shows this is more healthy than trying to separate those areas. The reason is related to something called cognitive role transition. According to management researcher David Burkus, cognitive role transition is what happens when youre actively engaged in one role, but experience thoughts of [sic] feelings related to a different role. If youve ever felt a nagging feeling to check your work email during dinner with your family, or to pay your rent while youre at work, thats cognitive role transition. And heres the strange thing: the more you try to separate work and life, the worse the effects of these transitions. A study of over 600 workers found people who didnt try to strictly separate work and life made more cognitive role transitions, but the transitions didnt affect them too much. For those who did try to separate work and life strictly, they experienced fewer transitions but those transitions depleted their energy and hurt their work performance a lot more. David Burkus said of the study, the more frequent role transitions makes [sic] it easier for those individuals to push the thought out of their mind with less willpower. For more productivity tips, check out our post on How to write a better to do list and get more done. This can all get a little confusing, because there are so many different points of view. But if we focus on what the research shows, we know that overworking is bad for our health and our productivity. Research has also shown us that trying to strictly separate work and life can backfire by making the crossover between the two more harmful to our productivity and wellbeing. Beyond the research, it’s up to us to experiment and decide for ourselves what works best. We can use the four burner theory James Clear suggests and look for ways to split our time between family, friends, work, and our health. That might mean focusing on different burners in seasons, combining burners when we can, or outsourcing some burners. On the other hand, some people believe work and life can’t be separated, and research shows that those who let them blend together tend to be healthier and perform better. Their approach is to let the lines between life and work blur a little more, so we can avoid the nagging feeling of one area while trying to focus on another. Whether we can have it all and still be successful is up for debate, but the most important lesson to be learned is not to focus on only one thing for two long. Whether its work or play, too much of one leaves us feeling burned out and lacking balance.   Find balance with task management Try MeisterTask Its free! Try MeisterTask