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How to Switch Things up at the Office

When you’ve worked for a company for a significant period of time, you start going through the same motions and have the same routine everyday. Your morning might consist of the early rush to the Keurig to make your coffee, then you hop on your computer right away to check your emails, begin replying and then the next thing you know it’s lunch time. I know I struggle quite regularly with “the routine” and often look for breaks in this routine to keep my days a bit more – unpredictable.

Doing the same thing everyday can become quite dull and makes the idea of a day at the office not as enjoyable as it once was. Due to this, I wanted to provide a list of things I do to switch things up and make my days a bit more enjoyable.

  1. Go on a walk

Sitting at a desk all day is not healthy. It’s been proven by numerous health professionals not only because of the positioning of your body, but also due to your extreme levels of inactivity. Due to this, my coworker and I regularly take breaks throughout the day to walk around our office park and keep our legs moving. Not only is this great for your physicality, but also your mentality.  Having 10 minutes to separate yourself from your inbox will allow you to reapproach your day with a fresh perspective.  Also, just because you are away from your desk, it doesn’t mean that you still aren’t being productive. While on the walk you can use that time to discuss projects that you are working on with your coworkers, brainstorm new ideas or just touch base with one another to see where your coworkers are at and if they are happy with what they are doing.

2. Listen to music

Certain days you might have a rough start to the day and it’s hard to push through your “to-do checklist” because of it. For me, however, there are certain days where my entire day is turned around when I find a good playlist.  Music is a definite mood-changer and can really influence your productivity at the office. (I mean – right now I’m rocking some Alabama Shakes radio and am totally in the zone while writing this blog.)

If you are finding yourself in front of a mental roadblock, turn on the tunes! It can totally turn your day around.

3.  Read up

Take a few moments to step away from your day-to-day and think about the bigger picture. If you spend all of your time each day focusing on getting small tasks done, you might forget to focus on something even more important: self-improvement. Reading a book or blog article about your profession to stay current on your industries current going ons is important not only for you professionally, but also your company as a whole. At a web design company, it’s important to stay up to date on current design trends within the industry and best practices for user-experience. It’s important to be educated in order to best advice clients so their website design is developed in a way that will help them accomplish their goals.

4. Go mobile! 

In the day of mobile technology, having a work computer that is a laptop has been my saving grace in many occasions. I’m able to take it to client meetings, conference rooms and also brought it home for the occasional late night. One thing I also do at the office is rotate desks! There are certain days where I need a change of scenery and have taken my laptop to the conference room, the front desk of the office, or sit in an open cubicle. I’ve enjoyed doing this because in my office I am regularly detached from office conversations and going-ons. It’s a nice change of pace to become immersed in things, even if it’s just an hour or so.

5. Go out for lunch

I am a person who regularly packs my lunch. I very rarely go out to eat, which is not just because I’m “cheap” but also because of the time it takes. I recently, however, have made it a point to go out of the office to grab some food at least once every two weeks.

A lunch out of the office gives you a nice break from your stale office and a fresh approach at your day’s tasks.

Next Steps

I’m hoping that these suggestions will help you to start thinking of ways that you too could change things up with your day to day and “routine” becomes a thing of the past. If you have any additional suggestions on ideas to “switch things up”, feel free to send them over to me:  on twitter.