Why look out the window is not a waste of time, by a work coach

Watching the window may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you plan to stimulate productivity.

Kirsty Hulse, motivation speaker and work coach, thinks that it can help us find joy and creativity in our work.

The author of “Don’t Swear at Work: The Rule Breakers’ Guide to Workplace Brilliance” has said that she often tells people that looking in space is a precious use of their time.

“People are still laughing,” she told Business Insider. “Isn’t it radical that it is funny? We are so conditioned to think that thought is not precious, that it is funny even as a concept.”

There is a limit, of course, but if your brain encourages you to look in some time, it is wise to pay attention, said Hulse.

“Your brain is like a snow globe. If you are shaking a snow globe, it’s so noisy, then it will start slowly – and we need a snow globe to be able to solve problems.”

Girlboss burned

The first Hulse company was a large marketing agency, which it started at 26 years old.

From the outside, she managed to succeed, won huge customers such as Virgin Atlantic and IBM, opening offices in London and San Francisco, and expanding her team.

However, at the end of the twenties, she began to feel serious chest pain. After a few tests, the doctors concluded that her heart was fine, but she had panic crises.

Hulse, a millennium, grew up at the time “Girlboss”, when the hard work and the success were priority over everything else.

“I thought I manipulated it,” she said. “I was strong in resilience and all these things that women are conditioned to be, but my body gave me all these subtle clues.”

Hulse realized that she needed a change, so she pivoted to learn everything she could on the neuroscience of success and work and what makes us productive beings.

Now she is a trust coach who trains people in the best companies, including LinkedIn, Amazon and Spotify, to be more confident and how work places should be structured to bring out the best of people.

Here are his best tips:

1. Do not ignore your emotions

Hulse said that many workplaces were still working as they did in the 1950s, when emotions were not as welcome.

She said that the prioritization of intellectual rigor on our own personalities is not the way humans operate naturally, leaving many people to feel as if they are not themselves at work or to develop impostor syndrome.

“If we have the impression that we must have a kind of personality transplant and suddenly, a serious and robust professional, that is in our head,” said Hulse. “We are emotional beings. We make emotional decisions, emotional choices.”

In the AI ​​era, Hulse thinks that general skills will help workers stand out.

2. Find out what the game looks like for you

Hulse said that the opposite of the game was not work; It is depression. The game is a need “as much as food and water”.

She often asks that people liked to do for fun when they were small, like running in the forest or playing board games. “Then I ask them the question” How can you connect it more to your work? “There is almost always a clear path,” said Hulse.

It could be one hour a week spent taking a pottery lesson, painting, playing the guitar, taking a yoga lesson or running. “Something you like that really feeds your creativity and your development.”

3. Create where you do your best

Instead of worrying about the perception of working hard or being busy playing, Hulse recommends determining where you are doing your best: “We are paid for our thoughts, we are paid for our reflection.”

Hulse has said that people often tell him that the best place is in the shower, which can be because “innovation is neurologically silent”. Looking out the window has a similar effect.

“We offer nice things all the time, but when your brain goes quickly and you do tasks and you check things on your task list, you can never hear your innovative ideas,” she said.

“It is not that we have our best ideas in the shower is that it is the only time you can hear them.”