Mental Health has always been a big stigma in society. Employees want to be the best of the best and nothing less than that. This results in employees burning themselves out and getting overly frustrated with their workload. During their first year, fresh employees don’t realize the importance of emphasizing their mental health in the workplace. Here are some tips and tricks to stay accountable while balancing your mental health.
Tip 1: Create a Daily Calendar
Having a set daily routine helps in more ways than one. Creating a calendar with a series of alarms will allow you to keep yourself motivated and to stay productive during the day. It’s almost as if your phone is watching you like a hawk at the workplace for you to stay focused and get your assignments done. According to Forbes, an employee should set aside time for focusing on each task and should “honor that time as if it were a client appointment or team meeting.” Attempting to create a routine for the busy parts of your day will allow you to procrastinate on your freedom which will help you focus on what’s more important.
Another way of doing this is to write down your goals on a dry-erase board and hanging them above your desk at eye level. A filled dry-erase board is something an employee cannot stop looking at when they enter their office space and sit at their desk. This “in-your-face” method prevents procrastination of any kind and instill productivity and focus instead.
Tip 2: Reward Yourself
We’ve all heard the phrase “Treat Yourself”. Employees, especially graduates, don’t always take this phrase seriously because they feel the need to overachieve. The stigma of “not being good enough” has yet to be destroyed. This can be changed by celebrating the little things such as getting the job in the first place. Rewarding yourself can help you stay motivated to come to work every day. According to Entrepreneur Magazine, rewarding yourself can allow you to “unplug and recharge” for a while so that you can come back to work with a fresh frame of mind. Work is a never-ending struggle for most employees. As a result, some companies encourage mental health days so that employees can unwind and recharge and com back with a positive state of mind.
Tip 3: Check in with Yourself
Checking in with yourself allows to reflect on your own needs and necessities every day. This helps you step back and check in with your current state of mind. It’s important not to judge yourself during this time. According to the Economic Times, “Only a well-planned lifestyle with adequate personal time can fulfil these. Working round the clock causes stress, poor health and burnout.” We get so caught up with all kinds of workplace scenarios that we forget to understand it’s okay to step back and take time for ourselves at least twice a day.
Tip 4: Speak Up Early! Have the Courage to Say “NO” when necessary
Knowing how to polite decline requests at work is more important than you think. The most common stigma at work is to overwork oneself. Before saying “No”, you need to evaluate as to what exactly you have on your plate before deciding that it’s full. According to Harvard Business Review, these is no harm in asking questions before politely declining the request. Such questions can include “is it long-term or short-term?”, “Is this a small thing that won’t take too long?”, and “How important is it?”. Instead of being vague with the response, you can politely decline the request by bringing up an alternative. This could be something like “Sorry, I am busy with my own to-do list right now. But if you need help by the end of this week, please let me know.” This polite declination will let the other person know that your boundaries need to be respected and agreed upon.
Tip 5: Ask a colleague to be your “Accountability Buddy”
There are many advantages to making friends at work, one of them being that your friend could also be your accountability buddy. This “buddy” can keep you in check when it comes to your tasks for the week. Having a weekly one-on-one meeting will allow you and your buddy to create a checklist of your weekly responsibilities and deadlines for the team so that you can meet them on time. Forbes suggests to “choose a partner that you trust and would not want to disappoint.” This will allow you to stick to your deadline and keep yourself motivated to get your tasks done on time.
Gauging Employee Mental Health
Most people don’t realize the importance of mental health in the workplace. PxidaEX can help you create surveys to check in on your employees’ state of mind. As a business, this can allow you to improve work-life balance in any way possible. In order for a business to succeed, it needs to understand the needs and expectations of its clients. PxidaEX can help you create surveys to figure out the wellbeing of your employees.