Category: Monday Tips

Your mission today is to perform at least three random acts of kindness at work. Three small, nice, generous, funny, surprising, silly, amazing, touching and/or kind acts for three different co-workers.

If you’re stuck for ideas, here are a few suggestions:

• Bring someone a cup of coffee, without them asking
• Leave a flower on someone’s desk
• Leave a nice, hand-written note for a co-worker
• Help someone carry their stuff
• Pass out candy in the hallways

Do you have more suggestions? Write a comment!

For bonus points, do two more random acts of kindness to total stranges on the way home from work.

The Chief Happiness Officer’s monday tips are simple, easy, fun things you can do to make yourself and others happy at work and get the work-week off to a great start. Something everyone can do in five minutes, tops. When you try it, write a comment here to tell me how it went.

Previous monday tips.

This monday morning, as you look forward to the work week ahead, what are you thinking?

Are you dreading the week that’s just begun, thinking about all the hard work, unpleasant encounters and unfinished business?

Or are you looking forward to doing great work and having fun with the people around you?
(more…)

Here’s your mission this monday: Leave early for work so you have plenty of time to get there. Then smile at everyone along the way.

If you’re in a car be extra courteous to everyone around you – give some other driver a great morning.

If you commute by bike, bus or train smile at people around you and go out of your way to be helpful whenever you can.

If you’re reading this at work, it’s actually too late to do it today – you can do it tomorrow instead.

Thank you to my wonderful girlfriend for suggesting this one.

I’ve long thought that a leading cause of unhappiness at work is a stressful morning commute. You get up in the morning and almost the first thing you do is fight your way through traffic along with other grumpy, barely awake commuters equally bent on getting there five minutes faster.

If you relax and smile and focus on being helpful to others along the way the commute may take a little longer, but it will be a lot more pleasant and you may arrive at work in a much better mood.

The Chief Happiness Officer’s monday tips are simple, easy, fun things you can do to make yourself and others happy at work and get the work-week off to a great start. Something everyone can do in five minutes, tops. When you try it, write a comment here to tell me how it went.

Previous monday tips. Do you have a suggestion for a monday tip? Write a comment!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is reaaaaally simple this monday: Ask at least three people how their weekend was.

Follow up and ask a few more questions, like “What did you do?”, “How was it” or whatever comes naturally. Spend a couple of minutes and take an active interest in their weekend.

This simple action shows that you care about your co-workers beyond just the work they do and helps you create lasting, positive relationships at work.

The Chief Happiness Officer’s monday tips are simple, easy, fun things you can do to make yourself and others happy at work and get the work-week off to a great start. Something everyone can do in five minutes, tops. When you try it, write a comment here to tell me how it went.

Previous monday tips.

Here’s a fun, easy thing to do, to give one lucky co-worker a great start to the work-week.

First choose a co-worker you want to give a boost. Someone who deserves it or maybe a person who could really use it.

Grab a piece of paper, and write “Things we appreciate about John Miller” (Or whatever his/her name is) at the top. Then write one thing you appreciate about John and sign your name underneath. Pass it on to another co-worker with instructions to do the same and pass it on.

Do all of this without John noticing – which can be kinda fun in itself.

When everyone has written one thing they appreciate about John, it’s time to give the paper to him. Here are some ways to do it:

• Tack it to his PC screen when he’s not looking and let him find it there.
• Hang it on the department bulletin board for everyone to see.
• Go wild and let the whole department/team show up and hand it over to John in an improvised ceremony that could even include balloons, a song and a speech or two.

You could also arrange the writing thing via email, but handwriting on paper has a nice personal touch.

The Chief Happiness Officer’s monday tips are simple, easy, fun things you can do to make yourself and others happy at work and get the work-week off to a great start. Something everyone can do in five minutes, tops. When you try it, write a comment here to tell me how it went.

Previous monday tips.

If you have a question or a challenge at work that’s been on your mind for a while, this monday tip is for you: Ask someone at work for advice.

We often hold back from asking for help because we’re afraid to disturb or annoy others, but in reality most people like to be asked for their opinion. It makes them feel appreciated, valued and shows that they can make a difference.

It can also be a great help for you. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had a seemingly unsolvable problem at work that I’ve banged my head against for hours, but which is solved in five minutes by co-worker I bring in to ask for help. Now that’s annoying :o)

The Chief Happiness Officer’s monday tips are simple, easy, fun things you can do to make yourself and others happy at work and get the work-week off to a great start. Something everyone can do in five minutes, tops. When you try it, write a comment here to tell me how it went.

Previous monday tips.

This tip is really, really, really simple:

Bring a co-worker a cup of coffe.

At some point during the day, without being asked, bring a co-worker a nice cup of hot coffee. Substitute tea, cocoa, a coke, etc. based on your co-workers preference.

For extra bonus points:

• Do it for someone who obviously needs a fresh cup of energy
• Stealthily find out that person’s coffee preference, and bring a cup that’s just right (milk, sugar, etc).
• Bring someone you don’t talk to much (or even someone you don’t like much) a cup
• Use the coffee as a chance for a chat with that person

Once you’ve done it, please report back here and tell us how it went. Did it work or fail miserably? Did you do it exactly as proscribed or improve upon the mission in your own way?

Share what you did with other people around the world so we can all create more arbejdsglaede together :o)

Previous monday tips.

I know a lot of wonderful, cheerful people whose voicemail greetings sound like the recordings of a badly depressed person. “Hi,” a slow, lifeless voice goes, “you’ve reached the voicemail of… [whoever].” Pause. “Please leave a message after the tone”.

Meanwhile I’m wondering if I should call a suicide hotline and stage an intervention.

So this monday tip is simple: Make yourself a cheerful voicemail greeting. One where you sound happy and upbeat. One that will make whoever hears it a little happier at work.

A cheerful voicemail greeting will not only cheer people up, it will also improve the quality of the voicemail messages you receive – if the last thing people hear before they leave you a message is a happy voice, they will tend to be more positive themselves. And of course, when people start calling each other and hearing cheerful voices everyone will become a little happier at work.

This tip also applies to those “Out of office” email messages. Sure you can simply write “I’m out of the office and will be back on xx/xx”, as most people do. But you could also do like the HR manager of one of Denmarks largest grocery chains. The last time I emailed him, I got this back:

I’m not in the office, and will be back on xx/xx. Why not contact one of my stellarly talented colleagues instead?

Stig
Chief of the HR tribe

This email delivers the necessary facts and it also says something positive about Stig who is indeed a happy guy and about Fakta where he works. Let’s bring some more fun into the workplace – and this is one easy place to start.

The Chief Happiness Officer’s monday tips are simple, easy, fun things you can do to make yourself and others happy at work and get the work-week off to a great start. Something everyone can do in five minutes, tops. When you try it, write a comment here to tell me how it went.

Previous monday tips.

Last week’s tip was about creating positive meetings and so is this week’s. Only this tip is really, really simple. Ready:

Bring a bowl of candy to a meeting today.

That’s it. Bring candy to a meeting. And share it, obviously, I didn’t mean for you to sit there gorging yourself with everyone else looking on enviously.
(more…)