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Sometimes we may feel like we are stuck in Groundhog Day. Every day feels the same, as if we are on a hamster wheel going around and around. Tasks we usually enjoy start to feel less interesting, and it seems we not getting anywhere fast. It is normal to feel this way sometimes and is just a part of life. When feelings become overwhelming though and start to affect your wellbeing, it’s time to take action!

Once you have recognised you’re in a rut, it’s time to reflect and wonder what might be triggering it. Coming out of a period of isolation may be the cause for many of us. Has this been going on longer than a few months? What seems to get you down the most? Is it your work routine, or lack of work? When was the last time you spent time with a particular friend?

Here are 3 strategies you can take today to make a difference and break out of your rut.

Change the frame to change the game.

Be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Change can feel awkward at first and you may need time to adapt. It’s easy to give up on the first go. Maybe you decided to change your journey to work, taking the train rather than driving it. On the first attempt it ended up costing you time and you arrived to the office late. It would be easy to say “Nope ,not worth the change!”. But what if you also changed your wake-up habits to get up bit earlier? You gain time back on the train from not driving, so how could you use that time more effectively? Get comfortable with trying new things which take you out of your comfort zone.

Digitally detox.

The clues to getting out of our rut start with realising what’s created it in the first place. Spend time reflecting before taking action. You may just find yourself feeling more energized quicker than you thought!

Enjoyed these tips? We have so much more available in our PD training workshops. We can help with tangible tools and support. Check out what’s on offer:

Call us on 9218 9059 or email hello@ati-mirage.com.au

The focus in the media has mainly been on those who lost their job or business due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But what about those who worked through it all? For some, the pressure and stress has been huge. Trying to keep up with demand or designing innovative ways to support valuable customers.

Now restrictions are being lifted and there seems to be even more pressure as we look to the future. The demands, the deadlines and expectations of work leave many of us feeling exhausted. As we enter a transition phase the question is asked: “How do we effectively re-energise ourselves so we are  able to keep going?”

In order to recharge we need to recognise the costs of energy-depleting behaviours and then take responsibility for changing them.  If during Covid-19 you found yourself working long hours every day of the week, these behaviours need to change. Establishing simple rituals can lead to many beneficial results.

Here are our top 5 actions for effectively re-energising to stay motivated and increase performance:

Find activities to fuel you

Make sleep your number 1 priority

Sleep is undoubtedly the most powerful restorative tool we have. In reality, even small amounts of sleep deprivation undermine our body’s capacity to repair. The reality is that we are not designed to run like a computer; continuously at high speed for long periods of time. Set an alarm to remind yourself to go to bed each evening at a time that allows enough sleep. You’ll thank yourself in the morning.

Do random acts of kindness

Experience novelty

Manage energy rather than time

Enjoyed these tips? We have so much more available in our PD training workshops. We can help with tangible tools and support. Check out what’s on offer:

Call us on 9218 9059 or email hello@ati-mirage.com.au

As restrictions in WA start to slowly ease and we look to the future there may be a few questions to consider. What will the new normal look like? How will things be different? What can I continue doing? What do I need to let go of?

The speed at which everyone’s lives changed when the outbreak occurred thrust many of us into a massive adjustment period. Initially, it was all about finding ways to work remotely and setting up home offices.  Next came the luxury of “time”. With the travel bans in place, we found ourselves gaining back time. Life slowed down. This opened up opportunities for us to enjoy hobbies, get to know our own neighbourhoods and enjoy new communication methods with friends and family.

So, when life adjusts in the future, how do we hold on to the positive practices social isolation has provided?

Write a list of everything you enjoyed

Shift your focus

From your list highlight what is truly important to you. That could be quality family time, making a routine to connect with friends over a drink or spend more time relaxing and enjoying hobbies. Decide what you’d like to keep doing in the months ahead and not left drift away as life moves on.

Make your new priorities a priority!

The COVID-19 outbreak is an event none of us has ever experienced. If there is some good to come from it all, let’s hold on to that for a more positive future.

We at ATI-Mirage can help with tangible tools and support:

Manage Stress Build Resilience

Manage Stress Build Resilience – Virtual Class

Mindfulness @ Work

Mindfulness @ Work – Virtual Class

Call us on 9218 9059 or email hello@ati-mirage.com.au

We are now a few weeks into the new normal of working at home. Some people may be thriving in this new environment. For others, they may be missing colleagues and a formal office space. Maybe by now the shine of being at home has worn away. Yet work continues and needs to be completed. How do you stay engaged and motivated while being away from your usual workplace routine?

Here are our top 5 tips for keeping motivated and engaged while working from home:

1. Keep all meetings to 30mins or less

We encourage you to over communicate so you feel more connected with your colleagues. But don’t let your meetings drag on. Adjust your agenda to have shorter, sharper meetings. This will boost engagement as the pace picks up and conversations become clearer and more concise.

2. Nominate a social champion

If you naturally have social people in your team, utilise them! Get them to lead social initiatives to encourage connection – such as starting each meeting with a fun fact or sending a question to engage everyone to answer. If you would prefer something more subtle why not create themes for virtual meetings. For example, everyone wears something on their head, or chose a colour a day to coordinate clothes choices for something fun.

3. Create a channel for fun

Engagement stems from being naturally driven to pay attention and get involved. Encourage this by setting up channels for fun topics on your collaborative tool like MS Teams. It could be as simple as sharing new background images for everyone to use on your virtual meetings, sharing funny photos of your pets, or maybe sharing your home cooking disasters and delights. Either way, the more we share the less isolated we will feel

4. Change up your workspace

If you have the ability to, take your laptop outside to work. If you don’t have that option, look at rearranging your current workspace. Maybe de-cluttering is a good option after a few weeks of working. Only have what you need around you and put away everything else. Consider introducing some plants or moving your desk more towards natural light.  Small changes can make a massive difference to your state of mind. If you’re comfortable at your desk, you’re more likely to enjoy working there.

5. Learn something new

Now is a great time to develop your skills. Maybe take up a new hobby, read a self-empowerment book in your downtime or formally advance your professional skills. When we learn something new we usually want to share it with those we are connected to. This is a great way to communicate knowledge and increase motivation at the same time. When we are motivated our energy resonates to others, leading to increased connection and engagement for new shared understanding.

Implementing these tips can help foster engagement and connection among team members. This in turn is motivation to achieve more, resulting in strong successful teams.

We at ATI-Mirage can help with tangible tools and support to make working from home easier:

Productivity in times of change – Virtual Class

Organise and simplify home and offices – Virtual Class

MS Teams – Virtual Class

Manage Stress Build Resilience – Virtual Class

Communication & Interpersonal Skills (with DiSC) – Virtual Class

And please let us know if you need assistance with the transition to remote working as well as help overcoming the challenges. Call us on 9218 9059 or email us hello@ati-mirage.com.au

In this changing world, we are all adjusting to the new normal. For some of us we are converting our living rooms into home offices. Many of us may feel disconnected from the visibility a corporate office environment provides. How do we stay connected and continue to collaborate while away from the office?

Here are some points to help boost your communication for remote working:

1. Become comfortable with being vocal:

Seeming like you’re drawing attention to yourself can feel uncomfortable to start with, particularly if you are more introverted by nature. Letting others know what your working on helps to provide more visibility to others. This allows greater opportunity for teamwork and collaboration. Use emails and chat platforms to keep conversations going.

2. Provide meaningful context to your peers:

Communicate to colleagues about topics that matter to them. Don’t just share your own news, talk to others about topics they are interested in. Maybe ask how their project going? If you want to share your own work try linking it back to a piece of work they did so you can celebrate success together. Without meaningful context you may come across to others as self-promoting rather than a team player.

3. Consistency:

Approach communication in a consistent manner. This means creating a routine for when and how you connect with your colleagues. For some people this could be a group web chat every day at 9am over a coffee. Or others might enjoy a casual “huddle” every afternoon at 2pm. These communication opportunities are above and beyond the standard work meetings.

4. Ask Questions:

Quality questions provide quality answers to gain clarity. Don’t be shy when it comes to clarifying your key work priorities. What you think is important may differ for others. Without being in the same room as your colleagues you may miss out on small bits of information. Asking questions to your colleagues can help to steer away from your own assumptions and keep you on track.

5. Collaborate:

Find ways to complete your work to involve other people. Working remotely for long periods of time can be isolating. On top of all the social distancing, we have to do working alone can compound things. Look at your daily tasks and break them down, so they can be shared. Even if it’s just sharing an idea with a colleague, or drafting an email for them to proof read for a second opinion.

Creating a culture of over-communication allows colleagues to feel more connected and in-sync with each other. This will be even more rewarding once offices re-open and life goes back to a sense of normal again.

We at ATI-Mirage can help with tangible tools and support to make working from home easier:

Communication & Interpersonal Skills (with DiSC) – Virtual Class

Leading Virtual and Remote Teams – Virtual Class

MS Teams – Virtual Class

Collaborate with Office 365 – Virtual Class

And please let us know if you need assistance with the transition to remote working as well as help overcoming the challenges. Call us on 9218 9059 or email us hello@ati-mirage.com.au

The opportunity to work from home might sound like a fantastic idea. You can be comfy in your own surroundings and have grand ideas of getting “so much work done”. For some of us this may be very true. For others though, working from home can mean demonstrating discipline and creating a “new normal” as our home morphs into our new workspace.

Here’s our best tips for managing your work from home.

Technology, technology, technology:

If you’re a manager and enjoy the ability to see what your team are doing, working from home could give you a sense of overwhelm. “How do I know the work is still being done?”. Or maybe you’re a team member who just enjoys the social aspect of being in an office environment. Technology is there to help you. Explore what your organisation already has access to as part of their suite of programs. Skype for Business, Microsoft Teams and even Tasks in Outlook are all features you could use to support remote team visibility. Keep your focus for new technology on demonstrating results, rather than to “keep an eye on people”. You’ll find more uptake and acceptance from people when introducing new tech tools.

Be flexible with your work hours:

If you live with other people, especially children, working from home can be challenging. There may need to be a new routine you create in order to get the work done. For example, maybe start your day at 5am so you have a couple of quiet hours before everyone else wakes up. Not a morning person? Try working later in the afternoon. You may need to break your day up, working in 1-hour blocks over a longer period for example. Be proactive and work to suite your home schedule, rather than trying to make your office routine work at home.

Adjust your response time expectations:

Being office-based we have the luxury of sitting next to a colleague we need answers from. Just because we are at home doesn’t mean 24/7 availability. If someone hasn’t got back to you straight away it could be they have stepped away from their laptop for a break, or maybe they are preparing some lunch. If you have urgent matters that need attention, consider picking up the phone or using a web-based video chat instead of firing off multiple emails.

Communicate:

If there are other people you share your home with. Let them know your work plans for each day. Maybe you select a room to become your new office space. Create respectful boundaries to let other know what to do if they want to access the room or want to talk to you while you are working. Likewise, if you have created a new work routine at home, communicate this to your colleagues so they know when you’ll be available to answer any questions they might have.

Never work from bed:

When deciding on where you work in your home, try to stay away from your bedroom. Bringing work into a private space can blur the lines between work stress and relaxation time. This can impact your ability to fall asleep at night or feel motivated in the morning. Keep your bedroom as a place to unwind after your day rather than an extended office space.

Keep track of your downtime:

Taking regular breaks when working from home is important so you don’t feel overwhelmed. Time can move quickly when you are at home and its easy to get caught up in a domestic task. Keep an eye on the time you spend away from your work. Consider having a 20min alarm set, so you can get back to work and achieve those work goals you’ve set.

Socialise – virtually:

While it’s important to get your work done working from home it’s also important to keep up the social connection to your colleagues. Don’t be afraid to send chat messages to your colleagues on a social level too. Convert your morning coffee chats into online chats to keep the connection going while you are physically apart. Just be mindful of how much time you’re using for this.

Working from home can provide a great opportunity to have work/life balance. Find the best way that works for you and enjoy the experience!

We at ATI-Mirage can help with tangible tools and support to make working from home easier.

See our PD & IT schedules for our virtual, live facilitator-led courses.

And please let us know if you need assistance with the transition to remote working as well as help overcoming the challenges. Call us on 9218 9059 or email us hello@ati-mirage.com.au

There is so much value in building a culture of accountability within ourselves.

On a daily basis we are accountable for someone or something. For example, your peers at work, your job, paying bills, bringing up your children, family responsibility… the list goes on. With more demand and expectations on us than ever before how do we stay on track? How do we keep accountable for our actions and not be distracted or led astray from what’s important?

Here are our top 3 tips for keeping yourself accountable

1. Respect time and tasks with outcomes.

We all have the same amount of time in a day. So how do some people glide through life and others feel like they are floundering? The key is how they spend their time. Imagine every minute of the day was a ten dollar note – by the end of each day do you spend it on what you want or do you find yourself lining other people’s pockets? Being accountable is looking at how we are spending our time. Do we fill it up with meaningless time-filler tasks or do we spend it working towards what we want to achieve?

In life there must be balance, so look at where you’re spending your time and if the pendulum swings too far one way, look at balancing things out. For example are you stressed out because you spend so much time completing tasks for everyone else you miss out on getting your own stuff done? If so, look at taking 1 hour of the day (split in 15mins bursts if that’s easier for you) doing something for yourself. Respect the time that is yours to keep yourself accountable.

2. Use technology to support you.

When we are busy, on the go all the time we can store everything in our short-term memory. Like a computer our short term memory can only hold so much before it’s overloaded. While technology can be a major reason for distraction, it can also provide some practical tools to help prioritise. There are plenty of apps out there which create lists, reminders and progress trackers, such as Planner or Trello.

Consider using your 1 hour a day for yourself to research the best apps out there that will work for you. Using visual activity-based technology can keep you accountable to achieve those daily goals.

3. Reward yourself for more than a second.

So, what happens when you deliver on a promise you made yourself? Or when you succeed on a task you’re accountable for? Do you just move straight on to the next one? Stop! Take some time to bask in the glory of all you’ve achieved. Take some time to celebrate your success. You could do that by taking a lunch break, phoning a friend or just getting up from your desk to get some fresh air.

It’s so easy to ignore the celebration part of accountability with all you have to get done. Being accountable takes hard work and dedication so celebrate your wins – even the small ones.

Success in anything comes from making it a priority. It’s down to you to make the conscious effort in mastering your own accountability. Once you do it can be a very rewarding experience.

We at ATI-Mirage can help. Join us for our next workshops:

Tame your Inbox

Time Management and Personal Productivity

Time Management Boost your Productivity

Manage Stress Build Resilience

Microsoft Teams

Develop your Emotional Intelligence

Microsoft Outlook

Culture can be created by choice. So start by deciding what culture you want to create in your workplace. Get this right and you can have the best team, increased staff retention and happier customers. This can lead to organisational growth.

So, the question we need to ask is “how do we create the right culture?” While you might have some initial ideas, culture-building is a team effort, and should be treated as a team effort.

So where do we start?

Here are our top 3 starting points for developing your team culture.

1. Start with “why” in everything you do

2. Give employees time to recharge and de-stress

3. Give everyone the opportunity to work directly with customers.

To truly develop a great team culture means understanding the impact each position has on the customer – the reason your business exists! This needs to be experienced to be understood. Provide the opportunity for team members to work on the front line for a day or two. Getting direct lived experience with customers provides insight as to how the team member’s work impacts customer service levels.

Learning how to better serve your customers connects directly with accountability in teams. It increases collective knowledge and allows the opportunity to address the biggest pain points. When everyone works together to provide better service it leads to a positive team culture of responsibility, to be the best they can be.

Team culture is something to nurture, internally and externally. Think through all efforts to influence and grow your team culture. If the strategy considers both the happiness of your employees and your customers, then you are on the right track.

We at ATI-Mirage can help. Join us for our next workshops:

Ignite! Leadership Program for Middle Managers

Supervisor Toolkit

Managing People and Performance

As well as the tools like Excel and Word that you already know and use, Office 365 has a wealth of great apps to help you and your team every day. Simplify your day and processes with these tools and get the work done easily. No matter what device you’re on, you can be productive from anywhere. and you can collaborate with your team in an intuitive and effective way.

Here are 4 applications that will make your professional and personal life easier

1. Microsoft Planner

Teamwork has never been this easy! With this very intuitive application, create a plan, and quickly start assigning tasks to organise your team.  Tasks can be broken down into sub-tasks by using checklists.  The in-built dashboard shows the progress of your plan in a graphical view.

Tip: Use labels to organise your tasks by amount of effort, “quick tasks”, ‘medium effort”, “high effort”. You can easily pick a task from the “quick task” list if you have a spare 15min!

2. Microsoft To Do

Use this clear interface to set up tasks with a due date, reminder, notes and sharing files with colleagues, family or friends. Accomplish what’s meaningful for you by setting daily goals with My Day. This intelligent feature will give you personalized suggestions to update your to-do list.

Tip: To avoid stress, break tasks down into simple steps, with due dates and reminders to keep you on track! Connect Microsoft To Do with Outlook and Cortana and stay organised at work, home and on the go.

3. Microsoft Forms

MS Forms will be a huge help when you need to create surveys, polls, or quizzes. Create Surveys to collect feedback, measure employee or customer satisfaction and organize team events. Build quizzes to evaluate your inducted employees or student knowledge, determine their progress and focus on topics that need improvement. Forms also allow you to assign points with automatic grading. Use the polls to find out where the team should meet or what team building activity to organise.

Tip: You have just sent out your survey and start getting responses, but how do you analyse them? Simply click on “Responses tab” and get visual representations of all the answers, making it very easy to understand! Best of all, you can export your data to Excel for an in-depth analysis!

4. Microsoft Power Automate

Boost your productivity with Power Automate by automating business processes for the entire company.  Power Automate allows for the linking of various applications to facilitate the flow of information.  For example, you can set up Power Automate to create a routine for document approval, or add an entry to a SharePoint list when a Tweet with a specific hashtag is posted.

Tip:  Use the Power Automate templates to quickly get started, there are templates which link a large number of applications, you will probably find the one you want with a quick search.

Learn more about these amazing features at our Free Breakfast Seminar on 19th March.

We at ATI-Mirage can help. Join us for our next workshops:

Collaborate with Office 365

Microsoft Power Automate

Microsoft PowerApps

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft OneNote Paperless Office

Microsoft Power Business Intelligent (BI)

Typically, it takes up to 6 months for a new employee to feel comfortable in a new job. As a newly promoted manager within your organisation, you may not have the luxury of time to settle in. Operational demands mean you must get on with the job of leading your team from day one.

Even if you know it will take some time to truly understand the needs of your new position, fortunately, there are steps you can take to make sure you get off to a great start.

1. Know why they chose you

Understand why you were the preferred person for the role. You hold key skills and experiences which are highly regarded. Use this knowledge to guide you during your first few weeks in the decision-making process. For example, maybe the company is going through a huge change process. You have extensive experience in managing change from previous roles. Use your experience to help guide and lead your new team.

2. Behave like a leader

Transitioning from team member to a management role can be tricky. You may have some people on your team who you also consider being good friends. Now you’re in a senior role, there may come a time when you must manage them. It’s important to behave like a leader, not a friend. When communicating be clear when you’re in manager-mode and when you’re in friendship-mode. Be open about your approach to the team, this will help them understand your new behaviours.

3. Run a great meeting

The priority is to spend enough time with your team to understand their pain points and where they need your support. Developing a reputation for holding a good meeting will provide huge benefits as it generates active participation. This leads to productive conversations and measurable results.

4. Learn how to say “no”

Before you can say no with confidence, you must be clear about why you have said no. Becoming a manager includes more extra work than you’ve experienced before. Effectively managing your workload without getting burnt out is key when transitioning to a manager role. Your team relies upon you to be present and available to them. Identify what you’re responsible for and acknowledge what’s not your responsibility. If you don’t know what your boundaries are, then you won’t be able to communicate them to others.

5. Learn from every experience

Your new role will throw you some challenges, so be open to those experiences. It’s likely you had a perception of what your new position would be like before you applied. Be prepared for these perceptions to be challenged. Take each experience and learn from it. What worked well, what could be done differently? Overtime these experiences will build your confidence. You will learn and grow into the leader you aim to be.

Know perception isn’t often the reality, it will take time to understand the demands of your new role. Adopting these tips will help you get off to a quick start while you determine what needs to be done to move the team forward.

We at ATI-Mirage can help. Join us for our next workshops:

Supervisor Toolkit

Ignite! Leadership Program for Middle Managers

Managing People and Performance

Communication & Interpersonal Skills with DiSC

Emotionally Intelligent Leaders with SEI Profile

Facilitating Effective Meetings

Influencing and Negotiation Skills

Time Management: Boost Your Productivity

Tame Your Inbox