In a society that lives by the words, “never leave till tomorrow that which you can do today” and in which we are all just an email, phone call, or text message away from the work crisis of the hour, not to mention, in most cases having a virtual office at your disposal no matter where you are, it can be somewhat difficult to stop working and just live for a minute or two. However, experts agree: the compounding stress from the nonstop workday is damaging to overall well-being, and that maintaining a balance between work and personal life is integral for long-term success in and out of the office. Work-life balance looks different for every individual, but here are a few universal tips from health and career experts that can help you continue on the path toward fulfilling professional goals while carving out time for you and your loved ones.
Moderate perfectionist tendencies. The key to avoid burning out is to let go of perfectionism, says executive coach Marilyn Puder-York, PhD, who wrote The Office Survival Guide. Many of us develop perfectionist tendencies during higher education or our first jobs, however, “as life gets more expanded it’s very hard, both neurologically and psychologically, to keep that habit of perfection going,” Puder-York explains, adding that the healthier option is to strive not for perfection, but for excellence. Prioritize tasks and time according to what is necessary to accomplish your endgame, and stay focused on the overarching goal instead of the minute details.
Turn tech off. The ease of communication in this day and age has created expectations of constant accessibility, thereby allowing work to seep out of the actual workday and into time and space that should be dedicated to your personal life. “There are times when you should just shut your phone off and enjoy the moment,” says Robert Brooks, a professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and co-author of The Power of Resilience: Achieving Balance, Confidence and Personal Strength in Your Life. Brooks says that phone notifications interrupt your off time and inject an undercurrent of stress in your system. So don’t just silence the work phone, actually turn it off. And if that isn’t enough to stop you from checking it, leave it at home. Make quality time true quality time.
Make time for exercise. Even when we’re busy, we make time for the crucial things in life. We eat. We go to the bathroom. We sleep. And yet one of our most crucial needs – exercise – is often the first thing to go when our calendars fill up. Exercise is an effective stress reducer. It pumps feel-good endorphins through your body. It helps lift your mood and can even serve a one-two punch by also putting you in a meditative state, according to The Mayo Clinic. This doesn’t mean spending 2+ hours pumping iron. Even 20 to 30 minutes of walking has major payoffs and can be worked into the busiest of schedules. If the weather is nice, opt for walking or biking to work instead of driving. Take your dog on a walk or stroll through the park with a friend. Even taking the stairs instead of the elevator fits the bill.
Limit distractions. First, identify what’s most important in your life. This list will differ for everyone, so make sure it truly reflects your priorities, not someone else’s. Next, draw firm boundaries so you can devote quality time to these high-priority people and activities. For those sucked into social media or internet surfing while at work, try using productivity software like Freedom or RescueTime. And if you find your time being gobbled up by less constructive people, find ways to diplomatically limit these interactions by politely excusing yourself. Focus on the people and activities that reward you the most. To some, this may seem selfish. “But it isn’t selfish,” says psychotherapist Bryan Robinson. “It’s that whole airplane metaphor. If you have a child, you put the oxygen mask on yourself first, not on the child.” When it comes to being a good friend, spouse, parent or worker, “the better you are yourself, the better you are going to be in all those areas as well.”
Delegate. Sometimes we forget that help is literally just a phone call away. So, instead of trying to do it all, focus on activities you specialize in and value most. Delegate or outsource everything else. Delegating can be a win-win situation, says Stewart Freidman, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School and author of Leading the Life You Want: Skills for Integrating Work and Life. Freidman recommends talking to the “key stakeholders” in different areas of your life, which could include employees or colleagues at work, a spouse or a partner in a community project. “Find out what you can do to let go in ways that benefit other people by giving them opportunities to grow,” he says. This will give them a chance to learn something new and free you up so you may devote attention to your higher priorities.
Start with baby steps. We’ve all been there: crash diets that fizzle out, New Year’s resolutions we forget by February. It’s the same with work-life balance when we take on too much too soon. Start small, find what approach works for you, then gain confidence from your successes in order to make more drastic changes that secure your own definition of work-life balance.
What strategies do you use to maintain a balanced life? Let us know here, or @gosirvo.
The survival rate of new restaurants is slim to none nowadays, and just about anything from poor food, to sloppy service, to ill-favored decor can be the kiss of death. BUT there are precautions you can take to improve the odds, so do your homework and read up on some tips straight from the experts.
Have A Plan
“It’s way more romantic to think you can open a restaurant by the seat of your pants, but in reality, planning goes a long way. A business plan takes a ton of guesswork out of the startup process.”
Michael Curcio of Pyrogrill and Ray Sidhom of Four Food Studio
Stick to the Recipe
“A lot of restaurant owners or managers will deal with each task individually. Thinking through processes and standardizing is the key to saving time and resources. Write it down, and refer to the steps until it’s natural. This applies most to staff situations too. There is nothing worse than attempting to manage a bunch of individuals trying to do the same thing, each in their own way.”
David Koji of DineAbility
Be A Team Player
“Be willing to do the jobs of other people at your restaurant. Spend a few hours a week welcoming customers or working the reservation desk. Fill in for a server in an emergency. Show your staff you’re part of the team.”
Scott Maitland of Top of the Hill Restaurant and Brewery
Trust Your Employees
“Early on I realized that I had to hire people smarter and more qualified than I was in a number of different fields, and I had to let go of a lot of decision-making. I can’t tell you how hard that is. But if you’ve imprinted your values on the people around you, you can dare to trust them to make the right moves.”
Howard Schultz of Starbucks
Trust Yourself
“When creating or shaping your restaurant, think about what would attract you as a customer. Be honest with yourself – would you choose your restaurant over the competition? Until you can say “yes,” keep adjusting according to your own personal dialogue.”
Danny Abrams of The Mermaid Inn
Like Danny Said, Be Honest
“Sometimes these things that you care about so much, you look at them and go, “It’s just not working.” You’ve got to be honest with yourself. If you hear a pattern of things, especially early on, about things not working, you have to look at that and make a decision as to whether or not you should stick with it.”
Tom Colicchio of Craft Restaurants
Keep Your Enemies Close
“You have to know who you are up against. The best thing is to make sure you create a unique niche in the industry before you go forward.”
Steele Platt of Yard House
Learn How To Handle Stress
“Stress as a restaurant owner will never subside, don’t kid yourself! Learn some mechanisms to handle stress – create a strategy to stay on top of your mental and physical health.”
Damien Scoditti of Brio Downtown
Patience Really is a Virtue
“You can’t learn everything in a year or two. You have to learn the basics. It’s amazing how little people know!”
Wolfgang Puck of Cut
Laugh A Little
“Especially when dealing with customer complaints or more stressful issues at your restaurant. Knowing how to smile and not take things too seriously keeps a positive vibe. The customer avoids a tense situation, and you deflect some of the pressure from yourself.”
Nicholas Lander, Restaurant Correspondent for the Financial Times
Celebrate the Successes
“As chefs, we are our own worst critics, and we criticize ourselves to death. We don’t often champion our successes so sometimes we have to take a step back, have a glass of champagne and say, ‘look at what we’ve done.'”
Thomas Keller of French Laundry
Stay Hungry
“Hungry means to try to learn more, always try to work hard, try to understand more from others, don’t be afraid to ask questions, make mistakes and learn from your mistakes.”
Nobu Matsuhisa of Nobu
Know any other restaurant success tips? Let us know @gosirvo.
The interview is arguably the most important part of applying for a job. And the most difficult. Here are the do’s and don’ts for some of the tricky interview questions you may have to answer.
“Can you tell me a little about yourself?”
DON’T give your entire life story.
DON’T regurgitate what is on your resume.
DO give a brief history about prior training or experience.
DO share 2-3 specific accomplishments that relate to your professional career, and be concise.
“What was your experience like at your previous position?”
DON’T speak negatively about your previous employer/company.
DON’T just use a vague phrase as your answer, like ‘great learning experience’.
DO give specific examples of your experience that lead to successful outcomes or that relate to the position for which you are interviewing.
DO include how your previous position or company differ from that for which you are interviewing.
“What are your greatest professional strengths and weaknesses?”
DON’T answer based on what you think the interviewer wants to hear; for both strengths and weaknesses, be honest.
DON’T give generic answers like ‘I work too hard’ or ‘I’m a team player”.
DO provide a specific example of a situation in which your strength served you well.
DO explain what you are doing to overcome your weaknesses after you share what they are.
“Why are you interested in this position?”
DON’T only talk about what is in it for you, such as great perks, more money, etc.
DON’T solely focus on the past, and why you are leaving your current position.
DO discuss the company, and how you and your [insert trait here] will be a perfect fit.
DO talk about the company’s bottom line, the future, and how you can make it a bright one for yourself AND the company.
“What is your super power, spirit animal, etc.?”
DON’T just give your go-to answer. Employers will appreciate an answer tailored to the job, company, or industry as it shows a certain level of dedication.
DON’T hold back, as this question is supposed to break the ice and meant to showcase a bit of your personality.
DO think outside of the box, but still make sure it relates to the company’s ethos.
DO take pause, or use a filler such as ‘that is a great question…’, if you do not have an answer right away.
“Do you have any questions for us?”
DON’T SAY NO!
DON’T let yourself get caught without a question because it has already been discussed. Think of a few less-common questions just in case.
DO ask questions that show you have researched the position and company. Questions about ongoing projects are always a good go-to.
DO ask about relevant subjects. Asking if you can wear jeans to work is not relevant.
DOs for Any and All Questions
Be honest. Do your homework. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.
Do you have more do’s and don’ts for these questions? Or need do’s and don’ts for other tough interview questions? Let us know @gosirvo
Have you ever opened too many programs on your computer, causing it to first slow down, then eventually freeze and crash? Well that is essentially what is happening to our brains when we ‘multitask’, according to Daniel Levitin, cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, and best-selling author. However, there are easy tricks to use in order to maintain productive in what Levitin refers to as the ‘age of information overload’.
The Multitasking Myth
According to cognitive psychologist and bestselling author Daniel Levitin, “multitasking is a myth”. What is actually occurring is “sequential tasking”, during which the brain rapidly shifts from one thing to the next every 3-5 seconds, only the transitions are so seamless that we are duped into believing we are truly thinking of multiple things at once. Levitin explains that engaging in sequential tasking, or attention-demanding tasks, depletes the brain of its fuel. In fact, every decision we make, big or small, requires the same amount of energy, meaning the fairly simple decision to have cereal for breakfast burns as much brain fuel as your carefully thought out investment choices.With the forever increasing amount of information available, and the fast paced lifestyle of this day and age, it’s no wonder so many of us struggle to remember where we put the car keys, or if we locked the front door. There is just too much to do, and constantly attempting to do everything at once drains our brains of the resources required to function at its optimal level.
All About Organization
In his newest book, “The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in an Age of Information Overload”, Daniel Levitin provides strategies to implement in everyday life that can help us use our brains more efficiently. Here are a few, as described by Levitin himself.
Write stuff down. “The number of things that you can keep track of at once is limited to about four. So, what experts recommend and what the neuroscience says, very strongly, is that if you can get stuff out of your brain and out there into the world — something called externalizing your memory — it frees up your brain to be uncluttered and to think about the things your really want to think about. You get all that stuff out of your brain and then you can concentrate on work and leisure activities more fully.”
Try to be more conscientious. “This comes from personality and individual differences psychology. Of the thousands of ways that humans differ from one another, turns out there’s this one cluster of traits called conscientiousness that predict a whole host of positive life outcomes, such as longevity over our health, life satisfaction…it predicts that you won’t end up in prison. And conscientiousness includes things like doing what you say you’ll do, being dependable, being organized.”
Dedicate certain spots to certain objects. “What a lot of people say is that they lose their car keys, house keys, they lose their reading glasses or their passport…We have exquisite place memory in a beautiful structure in the brain called the hippocampus. We share this with all mammals. It’s the part of the brain that tells a squirrel where it buried its nuts. So, we can exploit this. The problem is, if you put your keys down just anywhere in your apartment or your home, they can be just anywhere and your brain can’t keep track of it…So the trick is, you put a little hook by the front door, you have a decorative ball on a console table. That becomes the designated spot for your keys or your reading glasses and because you always put them there they’re always where you expect to find them.”
Don’t spend more time on a decision than it’s worth. “You’ve got something in your hand and there’s probably a perfect place for it in your home and you could spend a long time thinking about the perfect cubby hole or closet or drawer, but what you’re saying is, ‘I’m going to put it here in the family bookshelf because it’s not worth investing anymore time in and all these things that are linked together by some common thread all go there and everybody knows that they’re there.’”
Take breaks at work. “Many of us feel as though we are overloaded and overwhelmed by all the things that are happening and we can’t stop work for even five minutes or we’ll fall behind. There’s a mode of our brain that is responsible for most of our creativity. It’s called the default mode network, or the daydreaming mode. And it’s the part of your brain that effectively hits the reset button in your brain when you’ve gotten overstressed or you’ve run into a brick wall in your work. So, one of the biggest things we can do in the workplace is to give ourselves an opportunity to enter that daydreaming mode every couple of hours or so. You do that by reading literature, by listening to music, looking out the window. According to many studies, people who take regular breaks and even naps — 10 or 15 minute naps — have been more productive at the end of the day and more creative in their work, more than making up for the amount of time they take off.”
For more from Daniel Levitin, check out his google talk on youtube. And remember, Sirvo is here to help you manage your service industry-related needs.
As the national economy continues to improve, jobs are becoming less and less capricious. However, as is the nature of the service industry, employee turnover among hospitality positions remains high, so what can you do to keep the checks coming? Actually, quite a lot!Climbing the ladder
Many consider positions within the service industry to be temporary, whether it is because, for a considerable portion of the workforce, it is either a first job or placeholder or because the average lifetime of a service industry business is shorter than most. However, this is misleading because, since the perception of service industry jobs is as provisional as it gets, there can be no career advancement or long-term career planning in general. But, this is not the case. According to National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation research, 97% of restaurant managers and 94% of shift or crew supervisors no longer in their first restaurant job have advanced to higher-paying positions in the restaurant industry, meaning that if you stick it out, the rewards will be worth the wait.
Lose the ‘tude…or just change it
So, now that you know that it is possible to turn an entry-level position into a well-paying career, how do you keep the job you have in order to ascend the ladder? It starts with the attitude you maintain while in the workplace. Positivity, as well as negativity, is readily noticed and oftentimes contagious. If excitement and enthusiasm are on your mind, not only will your colleagues be thankful, but your supervisors will be as well, not to mention you’ll have a much easier time accomplishing the next tip.
Go the extra mile
Employees that do their jobs well are the ones that are kept on the payroll, and the first to be promoted. So, go above and beyond your normal responsibilities. Be as helpful as possible in your place of employment, even if that means taking extra shifts or unpopular duties. Demonstrate your commitment to the company, and initiative in getting what needs to be done, done.
Learning is fun
When money is tight, getting the most bang for your buck becomes the most important thing. For employees, this means being as productive as possible, in as many areas as possible. Take the time to learn new tasks, skills, and specialties because when push comes to shove, you won’t be the one going overboard, plus you’ll be demonstrating your potential as well as aptitude.
Build roots
One of the most important, and beneficial, aspects of today’s professional world is networking. Be sure to make connections and build relationships with colleagues and supervisors in departments beyond yours. The deeper your roots are in the organization, the less likely it is that you’ll be cut loose when the storm hits. And even if you are, who knows which acquaintance or friend will be your saving grace.
Just in case
Last but not least, have a back-up plan in case the worst happens. Stay up-to-date on available positions in your area, as well as nationwide because you never know when that dream job will arise. Also, continuing to invest in your education is always a safe bet as the most valuable professionals are those that know their craft intimately. And, don’t be afraid to make a change if it is in your best interest.
