7 Ways to Make Your Workday Awesome

“When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.” ~Wayne Dyer   I wish my first real boss had read the book Fish. It’s the story of Mary Jan Ramirez, a young widow who took a job managing the least productive and most negative department of First Guarantee Financial, in Seattle, Washington. In fact, the department was referred to as the “toxic waste dump” of the company. One day she had an epiphany as she observed workers in “Pike Place Fish Market,”—people who had smelly, nasty jobs of cleaning, wrapping, cooking, and serving fish to an overflow crowd. This team was having a great time and were the reason for the overflow crowd. She found the owner and began a several-month relationship during which she learned how to make the workplace both fun and productive. My first real job was when I was a student at USC, studying computer science and game/app design and minoring in media communications. I took a part-time job with a small local consulting firm that handled digital marketing campaigns for small businesses—maintaining their blogs and their social media platforms, user testing designs and specific strategies, and so forth. The owner of the firm was a sour man. He assigned tasks and deadlines to all of us, discouraged collaboration, and seemed only to come out of his office to “bark” at someone. While the creativity portion of the work was personally rewarding, the office itself was a bleak, stark den of unhappy people. Fortunately, he was gone quite a bit, meeting with prospects and managing current ones (I don’t know how he made any sales—perhaps he had a split-personality), and we were like those bad children who came out to play when he left. I was determined to make my workday more pleasant, and hopefully the days of my co-workers, so I began to add things to the environment. The result? We began to have some fun at work and, despite, the disapproving looks of Mr. Sour Man, he could not argue with success. Everyone was more productive. If you are in such a situation, I urge you to take a look at the suggestions below. They really do work. 7 Strategies to Help You Transform Your Workday You may actually like your work, and you may already feel that you are plenty productive; on the other hand, you may not really like your work that much and are the first one out the door when you workday is over. You can change that, however, by adding these seven easy elements. 1. Bring just a bit of fun to your workplace. In the morning, while you have you coffee, get online and find a great joke. Type it up, make copies, get in early, and put it on everyone’s desk—anonymously. If that’s not possible, post it on the inside doors of the restroom stalls or on the mirrors; post it in the lounge and by [...]