Monkey Puzzle Blog

There are many ways to be happy and successful, there is no magic formula. Instead happy and successful people live by some useful Principles and do them their own way...

It’s simple right? Follow some time management rules; make a list, work out what’s important and work your way through it. Not so simple. Even people who really focus on managing time well are being secretly sabotaged by their own brain. Why?...

The art of reframing is a management, leadership and coaching toolkit staple, but how effective is it? Reframing is the ability to show someone an alternative more useful perspective or ‘frame’ on a problem situation. It should be useful for that person, not just make you or them feel better...

Employee Wellbeing is not a big shiny initiative you need to implement, the most effective way to develop a really healthy culture is to embed it at the heart of everything you do. This is actually much easier to do than you might think at first.

We all know them, the space invaders, the time suckers, the creepy too friendly people at work. They waste your time, make you feel uncomfortable and make you say and do things you don’t want to. A lot of people have issues with setting and maintaining boundaries with others. Boundaries are the physical, mental and emotion ‘line’ between us and other people.

The ability to elegantly handle objections is a key success strategy in the workplace. It is not easy to do though as the objections are often about things we care about - either at work or personally. Because we care about them (probably more than the other person) we are more likely to respond with our emotions rather than logic. Here are some ways to handle objections without arguing or getting defensive - and more likely to get you a good outcome.

Time sometimes really does seem to slip away? We lose time often not because we are busy doing something important, but because our mind is stuck in it’s naughty bad habits. If you can identify your habitual time wasters and change them even just a little bit, you will free up more thinking time, more energy and the ability to get a lot more done. Here are a few top time wasters and how to address them:

Is is that time of year again? Time to organise the team away day or strategy day. To be successful Strategy Days need to generate ideas, be done in an environment that stimulates freedom of thought and involve the right people. Without a clear plan and enough structure you cannot have a successful strategy day.

Everyone can recognise that familiar tug of war inside us; go out or stay in and catch up on work, make a fresh dinner for the kids or finish catching up on e mails; work late or go to the gym? These are common everyday dilemmas we all face but have you ever stopped to consider that this constant tug of war could be impacting your health?

Negotiating is something we do on a daily basis - even if it’s who is stacking the dishwasher. It is a skill a lot of people find difficult and often intimidating though, particularly in the workplace where the stakes can be high. Improve your negotiating skills with these easy to implement strategies modelled from successful negotiators:

Can you get things done better and faster by actually slowing down? Speed has many benefits but also some drawbacks in that speedy decisions can be less thought through and have unintended consequences that can take you by surprise, wasting time, money and energy later. Instead, consider trying out some of these strategies:

Do you find it hard to say no? The problem many people have with saying no is that they don’t want to offend or upset people, or they are afraid it will damage the relationship in some way. Here are some top tips for saying no and being polite from Time Mastery; Banish Time Management Forever...