Working Yourself To Death

According to the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (as reported by CNN), people who work 10-12 hours per day are 56% more likely to develop heart disease or have a heart attack than those who work less than 10 hours. Before you discount the results, realize this: They factored out stress, personality and behaviors such as smoking.

One of the authors of the study speculates that the increase in hours leaves less time to unwind. In Juggling Elephants terms, there is little time for an intermission to relax and recharge.

While this type of study gets our attention, we shouldn't discount the short-term impact of working too many hours. It's true that jobs sometimes require an increase in hours for a short period of time-but too often we let that short period of time become too long. For me, it helps to have some warning signals that tell me I am working too many hours without a break or change in routine. They include:

• Eating lunch at my desk more than once every two weeks.
• Skipping my personal time (reading, devotion, etc.) in the morning.
• Trying to convince myself I don't have time to exercise.
• Failure to have at least 2-3 good laughs per day-because I am too hyperfocused on work.
• Just going through the motions at work and not really focusing on how to best accomplish the tasks.
• When I have no creative energy.
• Being irritable or on a "short fuse" with family and friends.

You might want to make your own list-before some major health problem FORCES you to change behavior.

Send in the Clowns

I just spoke at a HR conference and took the opportunity to sit in on a session conducted by Scott Christopher, the co-author of "The Levity Effect." He presented a very humorous and entertaining workshop on the importance of fun and a sense of humor in the workplace. In Juggling Elephants terms, "People sometimes need to laugh, relax and not take themselves so seriously."

What have you done recently to lighten up the atmosphere that you work in? Fun and entertainment doesn't have to come at the expense of productivity and profitability. In fact, it can drive productivity that then results in profitability. Scott gave the example of Southwest Airlines, where having a fun atmosphere for employees was a key element that Herb Keller identified for his company. Thirty years of profit and a "through the roof" job satisfaction rate in an industry that has been struggling is proof that fun and productivity can work hand in hand. If we are going to work hard and be successful, we might as well have fun too. Life is too short!

The Cost of Clowning Around

The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, estimate that March Madness (the excitement that follows the NCAA basketball tournament) could cost businesses $1.8 billion in lost productivity and unproductive wages. The estimate is based on the approximate number or participants in office pools, the money they earn, and the time that they will likely spend checking updates and "trash talking." $1.8 billion is a lot of money.

So, what to do? How do you regain some of that lost productivity and clamp down on those who are wasting precious time? Maybe you embrace it! When was the last time your team had an intermission? When was the last time they had fun together? We understand that March Madness can get carried away but maybe a little "clowning around" will get that much needed energy back into the building.

Being a former basketball player, I love March Madness. I introduced a "bracket competition" in a company that was full of people that probably had never picked up a basketball, let alone watched a game. It was a great activity that the whole office had fun with. One Friday, we ordered pizza and watched a game during lunch. I have since left the organization but the tradition and excitement still lives on (they just emailed me a bracket and invited me to play).

It might not be "March Madness" that gets your office excited. Pick something else! Because it is critical to allow employees the opportunity to enjoy themselves and have a little entertainment. From the book Juggling Elephants, "People sometimes need to laugh, relax, and not take themselves so seriously." With a little effort, invest that $1.8 billion that you are going to lose anyway and reap a return.

Jada stopped Juggling Elephants

While waiting in the doctor's office with my dad this week I was perusing through the collection of magazines on the table. It's amazing where you can find stories and examples of people who literally have been juggling elephants and made the conscious decision to stop. Today's nugget comes courtesy of the June 2009 Oprah Magazine (Hey! It's a doctor's office-you didn't expect March 2010 did you?).

Jada Pinkett Smith is an actress, producer, writer and mother. She is also the wife of the actor Will Smith. In the article she writes, One day I was so overwhelmed I thought I might be crushed under the weight of all the responsibilities I'd taken on. Her solution came to her in a moment of meditation-The less I do, the better things will go.

She then offered two bits of advice on how she stopped juggling elephants (my words-not hers). They were:

• Being present. Whether at work or with your family, do what it takes to really BE in the moment.
• Trust that the people around her could do their jobs. A powerful insight in the article was When I was trying to control the people around me, they felt suffocated and invalidated. When I let go, they felt empowered, which created an atmosphere of harmony and there was peace within the everyday chaos.

In the closing of the article she writes, Since then [since she stopped juggling elephants], it's been a year of bliss. I don't have to go around trying to save everybody anymore. That's not my job. I took off the control freak crown, and now my headaches are over. To me, that sounds like a pretty good reason to stop juggling elephants.

What's Your Indicator?

Listen to this. A Netherlands-based electronics firm is creating a bracelet that will change color and flicker from yellow to red when a person's emotions rise to unhealthy levels. It's being developed chiefly for stock traders on European exchanges. When trading becomes too intense and the trader's blood pressure rises, the device will issue a warning to "take a time-out, wind down, or reconsider their actions," said the manufacturer. The results, hopefully, will be beneficial to investors-to say nothing of the stock brokers themselves.

What's your early warning indicator that you need to take a break? That you need to step back instead of trying to push forward mentally, emotionally or physically to the next task? Determining it now-before you hit the wall-and then planning how you will replenish the needed resources-will keep your circus running more smoothly.