One of the best ways to cheer yourself up on a tough work day is to treat yourself to some sweets. Maybe you keep a bowl of candies on your desk for just such an occasion. With a little creativity you can turn that bowl into a source of fun and comedy in the workplace. And no, this does not involve placing someone’s red stapler or other cherished office supply item in jello as in The Office…

Candy prank #1 – Crazy glue

Purchase a bag of small, individually wrapped candies such as caramels or mini size chocolate bars. Crazy glue all the candies together and place the massive hunk of candy into a bowl.  If done correctly, it will look like you just refilled your stash. Set the bowl out in an obvious place and watch for your first unsuspecting victim. When someone comes by to grab a candy they will lift the entire, glued up pile.

Candy prank #2 – Not the real deal

This prank works best with classic Tootsie Roll® candy. Select a few tootsies and carefully unwrap them. Replace the candy with a same size chunk of brown crayon. Rewrap the crayon pieces and drop the decoys into the bowl with the real candies. Eventually, someone will be unlucky enough to take the fake tootsie. (Chances are your victim will notice the waxy texture and not eat it, but even if they do crayons are typically non-toxic.)

Both of these pranks will leave at least one of your co-workers with a look of bewilderment on their face and maybe even a little embarrassment if they ever fess up to eating the crayon, but it is all in good fun. Many studies have shown that laughter boosts productivity. Nonetheless, the nice thing to do is to keep some untainted candy on standby to pass out to those who fall for your tricks.

Disclaimer: Execution and outcome of any office prank is the sole responsibility of the prankster. Swingline is not liable if the fun prank results in the loss of positive working relationships, freedom to bring candy into the workplace, etc. Play at your own risk and enjoy the laughter!

Do you absolutely love your Swingline® stapler? Or maybe you have one of our other products that helps you save time and improve productivity? Not only do we want to hear all about it, we want you to share your thoughts with the world. New to the Swingline site is product ratings and reviews! For a limited time only, rate and review a Swingline product and be entered to win an iPad! The ACCO Brands Product Review Sweepstakes runs from Tuesday, May 20th to Friday, May 31st.

Click Here to Review Products

We are not only giving one lucky winner an iPad but an entire ACCO Brands prize pack worth $1,480 which includes a red Swingline® Fashion Stapler, a Swingline® Stack-and-Shred™ 60X Shredder and much more! For your chance at these awesome prizes visit the Swingline website and rate and review any product. Every review you submit earns one entry into the sweepstakes, and there is no limit. Telling us what you think about multiple products can increase your chance to win. Thanks for sharing your opinion and good luck!

The chances are if you’re sat reading this your life at work is in something of a rut. Instead of focusing on your work, you’re scouring the web for ways to enliven your day. Peter Ames from Office Genie offers a few tips that may help you do just that, so have a read (and then get back to work!).

1. Get out when you can

A way to make office life more productive is to escape the office when you’re not working, particularly at lunch time. The benefits of doing this can be significant; a recent survey commissioned by Ryvita found some 79% of people who had lunch outside the office felt energized ready for the afternoon ahead.

This can help boost your work/life balance as the office becomes a space that’s just for work, but more importantly going out for lunch can also be a great way to get to know your colleagues better!

2. Add flexibility to your work schedule

In addition to escaping the office at break times, why not ask if it’s possible for you to work from home occasionally? Some 75% of the respondents to a recent O2 survey said they were more productive at home. A change of scenery can prove to be a real boost to your inspiration and the potentially quiet, pressure free-environment could increase productivity; just make sure your home office is fully stocked with a reliable stapler and all other office supply essentials.

You could also see if your employers are willing to be flexible with your hours. For example do you hate not being able to drop the kids off at school? Well why not ask if you can work 10 to 6 instead? It may be what you need to make work that bit more enjoyable.

3. Designate some time for email

Few things feel worse than letting things at work pile up. This is something that can easily happen with emails; especially if you’re receiving hundreds of messages every day. If you don’t think you have time to deal with them all as they come in, why not set aside some time at the start of the day and after your breaks to go through them and sort them out?

Designating a set amount of time like this may help you take better control of your inbox, so you can avoid becoming one of the 6% of people a recent survey found have simply given up on trying to organize their email.

4. Make the most out of your commute

The commute to work can be an experience people dread; conjuring up images of overcrowded commuter trains and chronic gridlock. However, why not use it to your advantage? You could use it as a time to get yourself in the mind-set for work at the start of the day and wind down after work. One of the best things about working in an office is the separation between work and home and this can be boosted by making better use of your commute.

Podcasts are a great way to turn a dull commute into an opportunity to expand your mind; you could download one of the many excellent learn-a-language podcasts or even get that novel you’ve always wanted to read in audio book form and listen away.

~ Peter Ames on behalf of Office Genie; a UK desk space marketplace

An estimated 20 minutes of productivity is lost every time you become distracted. Even if you only take 5 minutes to find and lend your stapler to a coworker, an additional 15 minutes is lost as your brain recalibrates to switching tasks. Maintaining control of your time and attention is one of the biggest changes you can make to help increase your productivity level.

To effectively maintain control, you must always be proactive instead of reactive. Get started by creating a meaningful to-do list. Think critically about your assignments and list out the tasks you must complete by priority, leaving one or two blank lines between each task.

Tip: When starting out use pen and paper to make your list instead of a digital scheduling tool. Eliminating the ability to easily cut and paste helps you stick to your plan.

The number of demands on your time and attention is out of your hands, but when you complete them is not. You must determine which results are significant to you and learn to prioritize not only your planned tasks but disruptions as well.

Remember the blank lines on your to-do list? They are there for the unexpected requests (disruptions) that come to you during the day. Instead of jumping immediately on the new request, determine its priority and place it carefully into your existing list. This process ensures that you will always prioritize your own to-do list, and not someone else’s.

This methodical scheduling allows you to keep your own sense of accomplishment foremost in your mind.  Making a conscious decision about what you are going to do, and when, will also increase your happiness. Giving up control of your time and attention is essentially giving up control of your life. This will naturally lower your sense of well-being while maintaining control will help you feel more confident in your choices. This security is what makes any given day less stressful and more enjoyable.

Quick Tips to Productivity Recap:

• Be proactive instead of reactive
• Determine which results are significant to you
• Always prioritize your own to-do list and not someone else’s

~Kathleen Sales

Today is Administrative Professionals’ Day, a day to honor all the receptionists, secretaries and administrative assistants that help keep our offices running smoothly. There is still time to do something special for your favorite administrative professional today, and we have gathered a few quick and easy ideas.

1)     Make a card from colored paper, write an original message, and have everyone in the office sign it. Handmade is more sincere, and you can take the few bucks you would’ve spent on a store bought card and buy your admin their favorite snack from the office vending machine.

2)    Lend a hand with paperwork. Administrative professionals often handle more paper documents than anyone else in the office. Help them out by doing some of the filing or shredding, with a Swingline® shredder, of course.

3)    Invite your admin out for happy hour. Just because you missed lunch time doesn’t mean you can still buy them a treat.

4)    Give a gift that will put a smile on your admin’s face – a red Swingline® Fashion Stapler would be a good choice. Take a few minutes to run to the nearest office supply store, or order online and give your admin an IOU.

5)   Convince your boss to give the admins in the office the rest of the afternoon off! 

Did you do something nice for your admin? Share your ideas with our other readers who might be pressed for time and are  racking their brains for something nice they can do before Administrative Professionals’ Day comes to a close.

What is work/life blend? It is mixing the work part of your life with the personal aspects of your life.

How do you do it? Examine your schedule and take advantage of every minute that allows flexibility.

What is an example? If you want to be present at your child’s soccer game then by all means go. Let your child play around with friends after the game while you make a work call or answer emails. You might even be able to do this during halftime.  The reverse is also possible. Take advantage of breaks and your lunch hour by using the time to talk and make plans with your friends and family.

Many of us are already practicing work/life blend without even realizing it. Have you ever checked your personal email at work or used the office laminator for your child’s school project? It is also happening when you take your laptop home and finish up a project while dinner is cooking or your favorite show is on. The only thing you have to do is make a conscious decision to acknowledge that this is okay. Stop feeling guilty when the different pieces of your life blend together! You can still have a healthy work-life balance by doing work during non-work hours or addressing a personal issue between the hours of 9 to 5.  The important thing is that you and the people you care about the most feel confident and satisfied about how you choose to spend your time and energy.

~Kathleen Sales

Doing less at once lets you do more overall. It seems counter-intuitive but it’s true. Some technology can make us more productive by automating tasks, such as the Swingline™ Stack-and-Shred™ Hands Free Shredder, but we still can only do one thing at a time. So, what does this mean to those of us who like to multitask?

Three things you need to know about multitasking:

First, there is no such thing as multitasking. Your brain can only do one thing at a time.  So, when you think you are multitasking, you are actually just moving back and forth from one task to another as fast as you can. The time you spend switching tasks is time lost.

Second, multitasking causes you to be less smart.  When you force your brain to switch tasks you lose focus and make more mistakes. Studies show your IQ can drop as much as 10% while trying to multitask. Even worse, you now have to do a task you thought you were done with over again to fix your mistakes.

Third, multitasking is not learnable.  In fact, the more often you try to multitask the more terrible you become at it. Basically, you are continually stressing out your brain.  If you only did one thing at a time you could relax, focus, work faster and work smarter.

Still think you are awesome at multitasking? Take The Multitask Test and find out how you measure up against the rest of the world!

The days you get the most done at work are the days when you have no meetings. Unfortunately, these days are few and far between. So, if you must hold a meeting how can make sure it is the best use of everyone’s time? First, you must understand that meetings are not naturally productive. As meeting leader it becomes your responsibility to make them that way.

5 Tips

1.      Create live agendas. It keeps people guessing and forces them to pay attention. Setting an agenda in advance allows people to know what’s next and decide to mentally disengage.

2.      Prohibit laptops and tablets. Any slight panic that forms as a result of being disconnected serves as incentive to keep the meeting moving along so that everyone can get back to their devices.

3.      Talk instead of present. It is all too easy to zone out during a PowerPoint, especially if you are going to read the screen word for word. Instead, print and bind the document and have a discussion.

4.      Spell out the relevancy. Individuals are primarily worried about themselves. No matter how important you think a group initiative is it will always be a secondary priority unless you can explain how and why it is vital to each person’s individual success.

5.      Start and end on time. This obvious rule is most difficult to follow, but it matters the most as it helps you set a precedent. Be prepared to articulate the purpose of the meeting and lead the discussion from general to specific, and don’t stop to recap for latecomers.  This agenda makes it easier to ensure that you will have reached a decision by the end time.

With the help of these tips you can create a productive meeting structure that will work 99% of the time for your business or team. It may take some trial and error but that is better than the alternative of settling. If meetings are zapping your time with nothing to show for it you must find a way to make a change.

~Kathleen Sales

Want help starting on time? This video proposes a fun game that provides an incentive for your meeting attendees to show up early.

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” ~ The Dalai Lama

People naturally want to be happy, but unfortunately happiness seems to be a feeling that is difficult to achieve. Every person is different so there is no exact formula that is guaranteed to produce happiness, but studies are showing a few common threads. The leading happiness indicator, it seems, is a meaningful life.

While the Declaration of Independence guarantees us the right to pursue happiness, we should instead look to create it. A large part of finding meaning in life is remembering that you have a purpose that extends beyond yourself.  In fact, a recent article in Psychology Today lists building a strong social fabric as the #1 thing that happy people do differently. This is why it is so important to strive to achieve a healthy work-life balance. Your boss counts on you to do your job, but there are other workers. Your family and friends count on you specifically, which is a powerful reminder that your life is meaningful. Splitting your time evenly between work and home allows you to keep connections with your family and your community strong. Plus, spending time with the people you enjoy being around is another key factor that leads to a feeling of happiness.

Here are a few more tips on finding meaning and happiness in life:

1)      Choose to be happy by maintaining an optimistic outlook

2)      Forgive and help others

3)      Be grateful for non-material possessions

4)      Trust that setbacks will be overcome

5)      Reward yourself for personal successes, large or small

Productivity is the act of being productive. The dictionary tells us that this means having the power to produce something in abundance to yield results, benefits, and profits. However, this definition is more fitting of a machine than a person. Pressuring a person to continually work harder and faster will only lessen the quality of the results and lead to burnout. Real life human productivity is about getting things done in way that yields positive feelings.

To achieve productivity aim for these 3 goals:

1)      Feeling fully engaged in every project

2)      Working at a personally satisfying pace

3)      Having a sense of accomplishment at the end of every day

A previous post on personal productivity introduced the concept of attention management. This skill has immense importance and value. Eliminating distractions and making conscious decisions on what to pay attention to will enable you to stop reacting, so you don’t always feel pulled in a hundred different directions. Managing your attention will help you feel fully engaged in everything you do, and you will soon find that it feels good to be able to always give 100%.

Goal #2 is similar to the story of the tortoise and the hare in which slow and steady wins the race. Find and maintain a workflow pace that you are comfortable with. As long as you are able to consistently deliver high quality work it is very likely that your boss will also be satisfied. You might not be as quick as your co-workers, but you will also be less stressed.

Embrace the fact that you do not have to complete every single thing on your to-do list in order to have a productive day. A good tip is to highlight finished tasks instead of crossing them out. Highlighting allows you to see what you were able to do with your day, and thus enhances your sense of accomplishment.

Essentially, personal productivity is all about finding balance. Balance your work with your home life and balance time for yourself with time for others. If you find balance, you find productivity.