Last week, I was annoyed by the blog “10 daily habits that will radically improve your life“. Full of interesting ideas, I found most of them slightly irrelevant.

And this prompted the question: What is it that we should be doing to improve our commercial lives – usually something incredibly obvious and practical – but we feel we do not need to have time for it?

First, let me refer to the original article. Amongst the topics, it referred to wearing better clothing, reading more often and moving house. It also encouraged people to write. From my standpoint, none of this is bad advice. However, I feel my work as a business mentor in the Jerusalem area allows me to offer more direct and useful tips. Within in a few minutes, I had come up with about 12 counter points, and here are my leading five: –

1. Create a balanced diet. So many people that I meet from across the globe try to cheat the system, claiming they rarely have time for breakfast, let alone lunch. Let me be blunt. Your body is an engine. If you do not feed it quality oil, it will become tired and start polluting the surrounding environment. You will not function effectively with your colleagues, and eventually clunk out.
2. Develop a hobby. We all concentrate so much on our immediate work surroundings, devoting beyond 12 hours a day, that we leave little time for our own pleasures. Time and again, I have shown clients that by pursuing an outside activity – sport, charity, theatre, etc – you not only feel of more value. Incredibly you introduce additional skills that can be taken back into your place of work.
3. Choose something from your wish list and go for it. A couple of years ago, I wrote out a short wish list of things that I would love to do. It is multi-purpose, cutting across themes, continents and groups of people who know me. More than just putting it down on paper, I have started slowly to implement the ideas. Life now has added zest,  and that new motivation finds its way into the office space.
4. Set a time in the day to check your emails and another time for Facebook and digital chit-chat. I suggest the morning and the evening respectively. Such a policy will save you potentially hours every day. And you will not miss out on too much. Life will continue, just as it has done for tens of thousands of years previously.
5. Learn to smile more. The effect can be stunning. You will encourage others to be more proactive on your behalf. Check it out today.

Have a great week at work!