Five to Thrive 9/16/2019

UMD’s Thriving Workplace Initiative is making the University of Maryland a great place to work by providing tools and support to foster engaged, inclusive and empowered faculty and staff across campus.

Each Monday, its Five to Thrive list offers five strategies crowdsourced from research, experts and our own UMD community to help your workplace thrive.

Want to build a Thriving Workplace? Here are this week’s tips:

• Tackle goals one at a time. Goals require laser focus; set too many at once and you’ll be spreading yourself too thin. Consider a “goal queue,” similar to a task list. As goals come to mind, squirrel them away—as you achieve one, pull another out of the queue.
• Give yourself time to process and recover from brutally honest feedback. It can feel like a punch in the gut, so exit the conversation gracefully and give yourself time to examine the criticism. Once the sting abates, consider re-engaging the critic to get on the same page.
• Prep yourself. Before you leave the office, get your desk in shape for the next day. File any papers, clean your coffee cup and make your next day’s to-do list.
• Frustrated by a process? Maybe it’s time to rethink that process. Schedule a meeting with colleagues involved and ask them to bring their ideas for devising a new strategy.
• “If you don’t schedule your time, something else will.” Slating blocks on your calendar to accomplish different tasks will ensure the time and motivation to complete the assignment.

Looking to have more meaningful, productive and fierce conversations in 2020? Join the Thriving Workplace Initiative for Fierce Conversations, interactive learning sessions to help transform your daily conversations and build a more thriving workplace. Watch a sneak peek here. Learn more about Fierce Conversations here.