Tag: Business Tips

Caring for a family member or friend is a big task. Not only are you anticipating the medical treatment, but you are also thinking about their recovery. And there’s a probable chance that you haven’t cared for someone going through this type of treatment. Because of this, it can be challenging to anticipate their needs.

While every medical treatment is different, putting your loved one at ease is the main priority. Remember, they are likely nervous and anxious about the treatment itself. Therefore, they may not be thinking as much about the recovery as they are about the procedure itself. This is where you can step in and help. Below are four ways to help loved ones during medical treatment and recovery.

1. Plan Ahead and Put it on your Calendar

First and foremost, planning ahead will do wonders. If it’s a scheduled procedure, you and your loved one should talk about their plans. They may express their worry to you and make how they hope the treatment day will go. For instance, they may want a few close family members present during the procedure, or they may only want one person. This is where you should also discuss their recovery plans, including who will be the primary care person.

However, not all procedures are scheduled far in advance. If this is the case, do your best to plan as much as possible but don’t burden yourself too much. Focus on your loved one during this time rather than worrying about how they will be doing weeks from now. Ask the medical team what they suggest as far as recovery is concerned. They will be able to share specific recovery tools, such as bandages for wounds or heating pads for soreness.

Once you have a sense of these expectations, you can begin planning for treatment day and the first few days at home. Help your loved one pack a bag for the hospital and ensure you know when and where they need to be at the facility. Also, know who will be visiting them while they are in the hospital and while at home. The hospital may limit who can visit, so be sure to ask these questions ahead of time. Lastly, make sure their home is set up well for recovery, especially if their mobility is going to be limited.

2. Set Calendar Reminders

After going through any kind of procedure, it’s all too easy to just lay around in bed and watch television. Hours and days can easily blend together, making it harder to focus on getting better. Even though resting is essential, being sedentary can actually impede recovery. For example, staying immobile after knee surgery can lead to a buildup of scar tissue. Setting reminders on your Calendar or your loved one’s phone to remind them to get up and move can benefit how quickly they rebound from the surgery.

Calendar reminders can also be utilized and set for other tasks that may be easy to forget. Laying around all day makes it easier not to have an appetite. Creating a timer for when your loved one needs to eat meals can ensure they are getting the nutrition they need to heal. The same can be said for drinking water stretching. If physical therapy is part of the recovery process, make a note of what exercises need to be completed and how often.

Of course, there’s a balance when it comes to setting too many reminders. It can end up being annoying and burdensome for a calendar alert to go off every other minute! While your loved one is still trying to get into a groove with their recovery, little reminders can be helpful. However, once they remember to get up and take their medications after eating, then you can pull back on how many reminders you set.

3. Meal Prep

Another way to set you and your loved one up for success is to meal prep. Eating nourishing, well-rounded meals is important for healing. And yet, it’s all too easy to order takeout when you aren’t feeling great. Having pre-cooked and planned meals that are readily available can help avoid the delivery temptation.

Chances are, however, that you, as a caretaker, already have enough on your plate. In this case, you can send out a meal planning calendar. That way, friends, neighbors, and family members can all sign up for days to bring food. Another option is to set up a meal delivery service that provides cooked meals that only require heating.

And if you like to cook, think about meal-prepping different items that will freeze well for your loved one. Casseroles, soups, chilis, and stews all tend to do well frozen and can be easily defrosted and heated. Other items, such as canned goods and pasta, can also be purchased beforehand and kept on hand. Lastly, think about making a grocery delivery schedule so your loved one can also have items that they really enjoy available.

4. Provide Entertainment

It’s normal for you and your loved one to feel isolated and somewhat depressed during this time. You will likely feel burdened by having to care for them, and they will likely get bored sitting around during recovery. To avoid both of you feeling out-of-sorts or bored — try to think of entertaining ways for everyone to be engaged. There are only so many T.V. shows to binge-watch — but they are still worth a try. Ask your co-workers and family members for some recommendations.

Before the procedure, think of hobbies or pastimes that your loved one currently enjoys. If they like to read, go to the library or buy some new books. Again, ask for suggestions so that you get a variety of book titles that are engaging to keep your loved one, neighbor, or friend involved and entertained.

Most people will need to feel connected to others — so inform their friends of the situation and ask them to call your loved one occasionally. Learning a new craft like knitting or needlepoint can also be a fun way to spend time. And thankfully, there are numerous YouTube videos and classes available online for various crafts.

This is also a great time to dust off board games and puzzles! If you have kids in the family, they will likely be thrilled to have a readily available friend to play with. With all of these suggestions, you shouldn’t feel like you have to plan every hour of their day. They will, of course, need the time to take naps and recuperate.

Remember, It’s Normal to Struggle

Caring for a loved one during and immediately after a medical treatment is a major responsibility. Even if you want to be there for them 24/7, it may not be realistic. Your life will be compromised too much to be there for them around the clock. However, you may feel solely responsible to care for them. Still, it’s important that you don’t neglect your own needs. Planning ahead can help ease this feeling, as can reaching out to others for additional support.

If your loved one’s needs are beyond what you can provide, consider hiring a part-time nurse or caregiver. A professional understands the unique situation of caring for someone and can be there in ways that you may not be able to. Not to mention, they can take night shifts so you can maintain your strength and rest peacefully too.

With all of this in mind — no matter how much or how little you can provide — know that your loved one is appreciative of you. While they may not say it aloud every day, just being there for them is enough. Anything else you can do to make their day easier is icing on the cake.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Pavel Danilyuk; Pexels; Thank you!

The post Calendar Help for Loved Ones During Medical Treatment and Recovery appeared first on Calendar.

As a rule, CEOs spend about two-thirds of their time in meetings that last more than an hour.

According to Harvard research, time is the most valuable resource for CEOs, yet they (or you) are in meetings for 72 percent of the total time available on a typical day.

How can you cut meeting times down — a lot?

A Harvard study found that, before COVID, a company’s vice president would spend 44 hours a week going to meetings. COVID changed that fact by a long way — and the reasons are not exactly. In the Harvard study, the IT manager spent 35 hours with the CEO and sent emails to 85 percent of the company. Most leaders in the study had the same problem. In other words, how can you bring joy to your scheduled meetings?

People in C-suite are in meetings even more often in the new normal to keep the human connection alive. Most employees don’t like how much time they have to account for before, during, and after the meeting.

The “switching time” is the amount of time it takes to get back to focused work after taking a break. For example, it takes at least 15 minutes after a break to get back to work. It takes at least 30 minutes to focus on a single issue to get moving or make a decision, which is called “time fragmentation.”

If you think about meeting distractions, answering the phone, or reading an email — there are a lot of distractions in a day’s work. If employees spend their time switching between tasks, it’s possible they only do one hour of work every two hours.

How a leader spends their time shows how they lead, prioritize, and communicate. Assessing the quality of meetings, deciding who should go, and ensuring everyone is focused on the task at hand leads to success.

Improving the productivity of the meeting

Manufacturers often have a short daily meetings of no more than 15 minutes at the same time each day — so employees don’t have to move into a separate room for these meetings. They are first thing in the morning when they arrive. They talk about what happened yesterday, the problems, and what will happen today.

Short but brief meetings help keep the focus on necessary tasks, which helps keep things moving forward. If there are problems, talk about them in a separate meeting only with the involved people — and most offices have found the benefit of using intraoffice communications like Slack or Outlook.

Prepare the meeting schedule ahead of time. If it’s a regular meeting, always follow the same order of business. How is the project going? Is there a problem, and do I need help? Everyone should prepare for it. But snap through these issues quickly from an agenda and don’t deviate.

Rank who should go to the meeting first

An HBR study found that the more time people spend in extensive group settings, the less likely they will be engaged. If people can spend less time in meetings and more time preparing for them — they will be more productive and excited about what they are going to do with the information.

Keep the number of people down. Remove everything else and follow the 2-pizza rule set by Jeff Bezos. Six to eight people is the correct size for a meeting. The more people there are in a meeting, the less productive it is.

A meeting with fewer people doesn’t waste the employees’ time who shouldn’t be there. Only invite people who can help with the project being discussed — and each of these should be encouraged to give honest feedback.

A quick meeting and honest feedback is the secret of Pixar’s Brain Trust meetings. These meetings keep the company focused on the work at hand and help the company be better and more innovative.

A French company with 500 employees called FAVI makes its meetings public. Anyone who needs to see them can do so. You can replace it with a video-on-demand or an online tool like Kahoo if you want to try this process. Leaders can use their public meetings, and anyone in the company can watch the meeting vids and collect data or ask questions.

You should boost employee confidence, self-discipline, and psychological safety. Make it easier for employees to choose which meeting to attend and how to be active when they decide to be part of a class.

Have your employees ask themselves the same questions you should ask yourself. How did I do this week? Is this mind meld necessary? What is the goal? Is this your job? Attend the meeting, or can you look at the minutes and see if you can join in? If you work from home, you may want to spend more time having one-on-one meetings than attending the big ones. These meetings are more important because they help employees feel like they belong and connect.

Improve your focus

People tend to go offline in essential or long meetings and focus on emails or messages instead of being present in the meeting. That’s the worst way to waste time. You can’t pay attention to emails or meetings all the time. In these situations, employees suddenly “come to” and want someone to repeat what they just said because they were dinking around doing something else. This phenomenon works much like the drunk or texting driver.

Concentrate on keeping your meeting short and sweet so that you may devote your time and energy to what matters, and hurry and get back to your work. Consider using web-based solutions such as ASANA or Mural.co to make the meeting more engaging, disseminate the outcomes, solicit comments, or assign obligations after the scheduled time. Set up a set time of day for meetings, and schedule them all simultaneously to ensure that you don’t waste any time.

It’s a 30-minute challenge.

Agendas and minutes are essential. However, today people don’t use them much. Remember the last boring meeting you went to? You may have noticed that leaders didn’t have an agenda or added some topics to the agenda last minute.

There are signs that a meeting was practically worthless — and definitely boring. Everyone spoke too much, and some people could not even talk. If a challenging topic took longer than expected, it is most likely because the speakers were not ready or prepared and the essential information they needed was not close at hand.

Again — the truth is that meetings shouldn’t take more than 30-minutes. Start prepping your company and employees now to make the 30-minute mandatory by 2023 in your company.

Why are 1-hour meetings the norm? Because Zoom meetings are free for up to 40 minutes, it makes sense that they are. Push your team to do better and come up with all new ideas in less time and watch your productivity skyrocket.

The same goals should exist within your C-suite — make it a goal to set a new standard for a conference: 30 minutes at the most. This will help your teams choose topics more carefully, pick attendees more carefully, and prepare better for the next meeting. You will be able to get back at least half of your time.

Keep in mind that your most important asset is time, and determine that in 2023 — you will stop giving it away to nonsense.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Christina Morillo; Pexels; Thank you!

The post Taking the 30 Minutes Challenge: How to Cut Meeting Times appeared first on Calendar.

The widespread adoption of remote working has been mainly successful, with research indicating that productivity has remained relatively high despite possible repercussions for cooperation and innovation. And the remote work schedule paradigms have not collapsed under the weight of stasis. As of yet.

Consider the Economic Benefits of Remote Work

During Covid-19, researchers looked into the economic benefits of remote work. There were several studies done.
If you’re a knowledge worker, you’ve almost probably become all too familiar with tools like Zoom due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Remote working can enhance team productivity if you have the correct connectivity. So said Neil Parker of GM of EMEA at intelligent automation vendor Laiye. However, it isn’t without difficulties. When you haven’t met someone, the nature of the connection is intrinsically different. This may make it tricky to communicate effectively when dealing with challenging circumstances, whether it’s a partnership or more disciplinary difficulties.

To a considerable extent, tools like Zoom allowed knowledge workers to continue doing what they were doing before. A recent Kellogg Business School study looks at how things may have gone differently if the epidemic had arrived before such tools were widely available.

It’s business as usual here with remote work.

The researchers looked at the scenario in seven nations, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the United States. They concluded that the pandemic’s economic impact would have been far more significant if remote working hadn’t been such an easy choice.

Researchers remind us that distant workers contribute not only via their labor but also through their expenditures. For example, as people modified their homes for remote working, a significant increase in spending on office equipment spiked.

Experts discovered the findings after collecting GDP statistics for each country, the number of people employed, and the number of hours they worked each week. They also gathered information on people’s and their employers’ spending on items like office furniture and equipment and commercial electricity usage as a proxy for workplace utilization. Finally, they analyzed Google mobility data to determine how many hours each person spent working at home or at work.

The output is decreasing.

According to the estimate, if remote working had not been an option in 2020, GDP would have declined by roughly twice as much, and Wall Street would have been speaking bear a lot earlier.

However, what was surprising was that the statistics did not support the productivity boost. According to the researchers, this claim was only valid if the sole inputs were found as energy expenditures or office space.

Put another way, it suggests that such things were not a cost when we worked from home, which is not the case. The apparent productivity boost vanished once they included all costs in our home working environment.

Who foots the bill for remote work?

Some firms, such as Google, have given employees money to assist them in setting up their home offices. The majority have left it to the employees to cover the costs. The removal of commuting costs has been an acceptable trade-off for many. As more hybrid work patterns arise, all bets are off as to what the statistics will show in the future.

Many home setups were pretty well suited for remote working. With investments in high-speed broadband to support Netflix — and work — and online gaming — and work equally handy for remote working, even if there was no intention for such a purpose.

Researchers were unable to determine whether people were more productive when working from home or not. But they believe they could develop a proxy to determine the relative productivity of home versus in-person work. When workplaces reopened, employers had the option of bringing employees back into the office.

Returning to the office would undoubtedly involve costs for the company. Owing to social distance and other health and safety considerations. So if employees are just as productive at home, it makes sense to keep them there.

A one-time change

People came back in when costs reverted to something resembling normal.

The data demonstrates the benefits of remote working to organizations and the economy during the epidemic. However, it is still uncertain whether we would sustain the change seen during the Covid limitations in the long run.

Certainly, there are advantages and disadvantages to work-from-home issues that haven’t been solved yet, and it may take a few more years to see correct-correlation data.

What will the future hold for work-from-home employees?

The data in the future could be especially interesting if our ties with our coworkers are damaged, if the work-from-home crew has become estranged, and if social connections and project communications have suffered.

As several studies have shown, the onboarding and the collaboration and innovation that comes from deep connectivity with our peers have suffered. We’re less able to form relationships with our managers when we don’t see them at the office. These facts could limit personal opportunities for advancement professionally.

Although remote working has certain advantages, people should be careful what they want and demand in the work-from-home sector — as it may have unintended repercussions that we cannot possibly guess at.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko; Pexels; Thank you!

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