Many of us are working from home more than ever so a work space where we can be effective is becoming vital. Try these two productivity hacks to supercharge your work time:
1. Hide Your Phone!
Put your phone on silent and leave it out of the room thereby creating an almost distraction free zone. Commit to staying off your phone and focusing on only your work tasks for an hour at a time. Each hour you can get up and stretch. It would be better for your productivity to leave your phone hidden and take a short walk outside but if you absolutely must you can check your phone at only those structured times and only for two minutes. Set a timer or you will not likely follow that. I sometimes comment that my phone is a Bermuda triangle of distraction when I don’t do this.
Choose to focus your attention and see how much more you get done. And, very importantly, reward yourself for this increase in productivity. What we reward is repeated. So, perhaps by staying off your phone all day you have bought yourself a shorter work day. End an hour or two early and do something physically pleasurable like exercise, dance, gardening, making art, or biking. Do not simply watch tv or get on your phone. Experience the movement and dynamism of your body. You will improve your health and set yourself up for another day of productivity.
2. Feng Shui Your Desk
Feng Shui is an art that has been used since 3700 BC and has evolved through various historical periods in China and eventually moved to the west. One of the main tenets of using feng shui to optimize your life venters around the bagua. We use the bagua to move the chi or energy in the home in the most supercharged way. Enhancing the bagua helps us create our lives more effortlessly because we do not have to expend extra energy to make the energy of our home harmonious. Instead we set the stage for our lives to flow by setting up the energy of our home to align with our intentions.
There are nine guas in the bagua and each one governs a different area of our lives. Each gua has colors, numbers, elements, and much more associated with it. You can use the bagua over the whole house, any room, and YOUR DESK! When you optimize the energy of your desk you create a powerhouse of energy and productivity.
Visualize the bagua overlaid on your desk. Picture it stretched a bit so it covers your whole desk in nine equally sized parts. You can even measure your desk, as needed, to visualize this. You can use your intention to optimize key areas of your desk to bring energy to your work area. Not all of your intentional cures need to be visible. Remember, that is feng shui your intentions do not need to be seen to be effective so under your desk is just as effective as on it!
You can write affirmative statements on masking tape with the appropriately colored marker and put them under each pertinent area of your desk. Plus, add a few seen intentional cures to amp things up. The secret is to place the item of statement with focused intention. Say the intention aloud as you place the cure.
Prosperity and Abundance
Intentional affirmation: My work easily brings me abundant money and prosperity.
Colors, numbers, and cures: Purple, gold, number eight, glass, symbols of water like shells, symbols of abundance. I have eight shiny gold Po Tai (laughing buddha of prosperity) statues in mine.
Fame and Reputation
Intentional affirmation: I am heralded for my talent and people admire me.
Colors, numbers, and cures: Red, gold, number one, fire, tall things, triangles.
Relationships (includes work relationships)
Intentional affirmation: My work relationships support me and my goals, dreams, and advancement.
Colors, numbers, and cures: Pink, number two, things in twos, hearts, symbols of love and regard. Pop two pink hearts in this corner with a big intention for your work relationships to be enhancing to you.
Creativity
Intentional affirmation: I am full of innovative ideas and my creativity furthers my career.
Colors, numbers, and cures: White, grey, number three, metal, circles, symbols of creativity. I’m a writer so I have a lovely piece of art with a typewriter on it for this purpose.
Helpful People
Intentional affirmation: Everyone loves helping me and I accept help and support for my highest good.
Colors, numbers, and cures: Grey, silver, number five, metal, round things, statues of helpful deities.
Career and Dharma
Intentional affirmation: My career fills me with joy and fulfillment. I am successful.
Colors, numbers, and cures: Black, number six, symbols of water, free form and undulating things, pictures of powerful water moving, mobiles.
Skills and Knowledge
Intentional affirmation: I am skillful at my chosen careers and my knowledge supports my success.
Colors, numbers, and cures: Blue, pictures of people whose skills you want to acquire, number seven, symbols of knowledge.
Household Expenses
Intentional affirmation: My work easily covers all of my household expenses and I feel relaxed and supported.
Colors, numbers, and cures: Green, wood, number four, vertical things, columnar things, well cared for healthy plants, tall plants.
Health (you can feng shui this on your desk to magnetize better health insurance through work if needed)
Intentional affirmation: My (and my family’s) health is supported by my work.
Colors, numbers, and cures: Yellow, earth tones, number nine, squares, horizontal things, flat things, stones and minerals, symbols of earth, things that make you happy.