Tip #334: 6 Tips For Better Presentations

6 Tips For Better Presentations

Regardless of your profession, your presentations need to be dynamic, engaging and interesting. Otherwise, you will fail to capture and maintain your audience's attention, and without their attention, your presentation will fizzle and fall flat. How can you avoid this happening to you? The key to making powerful, effective presentations is in your preparation.

Dynamic Presentations Begin With Your Preparation.

One of the biggest misconceptions people have is that the final product (an article, a book, a presentation) arrived that way on the first try. This is never the case. They are just the last of several drafts and iterations built up, broken down and then reconstructed. The same is true for presenting. Even the most naturally gifted public speakers still need to prepare accordingly. This is why we drew up the six tips below -- to act as a roadmap for your presentation preparation.

6 Tips For Better Presentations:

Tip #1. Develop An Outline: A dynamic presentation is many things, but first and foremost, it is focused. Without focus, the presenter winds up floundering to find cohesion. Remember, your primary goal isn't to entertain the audience, but rather to make a point. We recommend devoting the entire first day of your preparation to honing in on your key talking points.

Tip #2. Research Your Audience: Your audience will determine the style and language you choose and how you speak. For example, let's say you are presenting to an audience that is unfamiliar with what you are presenting about. In this situation, you may want to include a list of definitions before your presentation begins.

Tip #3. Practice Extensively: There are two main hurdles with presentations: How well you know the material and how comfortable you are speaking in front of others. Both can be addressed through practice. By practicing the actual delivery of your presentation, you continually expose yourself to the material, and strengthen your memory's hold on it. By practicing your presentation in front of friends or colleagues, you will get used to how it feels to present to an actual audience.

Click here to read Lifehacker's tips and tricks for delivering presentations that are more memorable.

Tip #4. Tell A Story: The most effective way to get your audience to relate to the subject of your presentation is to include a story to which they can relate. This will draw them into the experience. For presentations, a story allows you to paint a picture as to how a business principle or idea would operate in a real situation, and help the audience connect with your presentation on a more personal level.

Tip #5. Include Visual Material: Using presentation software like Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple's Keynote is a powerfully effective way to complement your talking points. Without some sort of visual element to your presentation, you risk sounding like someone lecturing. The trick is to design a visual slide that works for you, not against you. In other words, avoid bogging down your presentation with images, sounds or videos that distract the audience.

Tip #6. Psych Yourself Up: The moments leading up to a presentation ought to be spent mentally preparing yourself to go out there and do it. Public speaking coaches talk about this all the time -- rituals and techniques that get presenters in the right headspace. This, of course, is intensely personal. Depending on your personality, the process will vary. For some, blasting loud music and singing along pumps them up. Others need to attain a Zen-like peace before stepping out in front of a group.

Executive Summary: It is important to remember your final product represents only a small percentage of what people really see -- all the research, revision, refinement and practice it took to get to that final product go unseen. At the end of the business day, the preparation you invest in your presentation is what will separate you from the rest of the pack.

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Tip #333: 5 Spring-Cleaning Tips For Any Business

5 Spring-Cleaning Tips For Any Business

Spring is a time of renewal. For most, that renewal comes in the form of that weekend-long clean-a-thon known as spring-cleaning. However, spring-cleaning is not limited to just homes. Smart business leaders can ride the momentum of spring-cleaning and springtime renewal to improve their businesses as well.

Spring-Cleaning Your Business Will Help Streamline Your Operation.

The drive to clean and reorganize in the wake of winter's passing is extremely useful for any business. Anything from desks and drawers to computers can benefit from a cleanup. All of this will help streamline your business operations and improve the work environment.

To help you implement spring-cleaning at your business, we developed the five tips below.

5 Spring-Cleaning Tips For Your Business:

Tip #1. Update Your Business Cards: If it has been a while since you last updated your business card, spring is a good time to tend to it. And not just your contact information, but the overall look of your business card too. A smart-looking business card is great for branding your business when you are at conferences, meetings and other networking events.

Tip #2. Give Your Office A New Look: People grow tired of with the same old same old. This is why people redecorate, paint their walls and buy new furniture. A simple change in layout can go a long way. For starters, try rearranging desks and furniture. If that's not enough, swap out old desks and tables for new furniture if your budget permits. You may even want to go as far as painting the office.

Tip #3. Organize Your Computer: Not unlike filing cabinets, computer files and folders can get over-cluttered and over-packed. If you find your desktop's wallpaper hidden behind a sea of random files and folders, it is probably time to organize. Take fifteen minutes one morning to declutter your computer files just as you would declutter and reorganize your desk at home. Be sure to delete old, unused documents, or store them on an external hard drive.

Tip #4. Freshen Up Your Company's Website: Website designs and content can quickly grow outdated, stagnant. Unfortunately, many businesspeople grow complacent with their websites, and leave them untouched for far too long. Try swapping out images (especially the homepage image), replacing outdated copy with something new and original and tightening up any wordiness, needless clutter or anything else that does not contribute to a streamlined website. Once done, send a press release to your entire database to announce your new look. Doing so will generate a lot of buzz, and even drive in sales.

Tip #5. Launch A New Marketing Initiative: Chances are some new idea or pet project for your business has been simmering on the backburner for some time now -- one that has been forgotten due to the shuffle of daily responsibilities and duties. Well, use the start of spring as an opportunity to invigorate your company by launching a new initiative. Having something fresh and new to develop and work on will galvanize your workforce, and come as a breath of fresh air to everyone at your business.

Executive Summary: Your business' appearance has a profound affect on not only its employees, but also its database of clients, prospects and referral sources. So take a serious look at your business cards, website, marketing collateral and design of your office. Why? Because the initial appearance you give is what everyone judges your business by. To keep your appearances fresh and up to date, use spring as a time of renewal for your business. And if you can't organize it on your own, it might prove cost-effective to hire someone who can organize your office for you. To locate someone in your local area, consult the national association of professional organizers.

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E-Tip #332- 6 Reasons Why Customer Retention Is Crucial To Your Business

Because of all the advances in telecommunications technology, your clients, past clients and prospects have access to your competition at the tips of their fingers. So, one bad experience with your business and a few tweets later, the results could be disastrous for future sales.

The key to retaining your clients is through strong customer service. Good customer service shows your clients and your future clients that you care, and opens the door to cross-selling additional products and services to them.

6 Reasons Why Customer Retention Is Crucial To Any Business:

Reason #1. Existing Customers Are More Profitable: Researchers have repeatedly conducted studies to determine the expense of gaining new clients versus the expense of retaining one. These studies have proven that it can be up to five times more expensive to win over a prospect than it is to keep an existing client. Furthermore, existing clients are far more likely to increase their business with you by taking advantage of additional products or services.

Reason #2. Satisfied, Loyal Customers Refer Other Business To You: Satisfied customers can contribute to your sales efforts through their recommendations. In essence, they become a referral source. Satisfied, loyal customers make particularly useful referral sources because they are able to provide a first-hand testimonial when recommending you to someone they know who could benefit from your business.

Reason #3. Service Is More Memorable Than Products Or Prices:Price doesn't have as much sway in the sales world as it once did. That isn't to say that price doesn't matter, or that customers aren't drawn to lower prices, just that they just rank customer service higher than price or product these days. Most people are willing to pay a little more for a product or service if it means having an amiable relationship with a business.

Click here to read an insightful USAToday article about social media and customer service experiences.

Reason #4. They Will Take Their Business Elsewhere: Customers, by and large, are non-confrontational. Most will not outright voice their complaints. Instead, they will simply take their business to your competition. Don't assume your customers are completely satisfied if they are not complaining -- remember, they vote with their pocketbook.

Reason #5. Satisfied Customers Are Loyal Customers: A customer's loyalty to your business directly relates to your customer service. The better you treat your customers -- that is, the stronger and more exceptional your customer service is -- the more satisfied they will be. And the more satisfied they are, the more loyal they become.

Reason #6. Existing Customers Provide Better Metrics: One of the most effective ways to improve your business is through your existing customer base -- by taking advantage of customer satisfaction surveys. We recommend doing both an e-mail survey and a snail mail survey once a year, 6 months apart.

Executive Summary: When it comes to retaining your existing clients, customer satisfaction is king. It is a vital component in your efforts to retain your existing client base and, more importantly, cross-sell them additional products and services. There are numerous reasons to place just as much emphasis on retaining clients as you do prospecting -- not the least of which is the potential revenue it could generate for your business.

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E-Tip #331- 5 Tips For Handling Conflicts At Work

Conflict is an aspect of human nature. Sooner or later, we all bump heads with someone in the workplace. Since productivity and employee morale are on the line when conflict sparks in the workplace, it is imperative that leaders and managers quickly extinguish the flames. That's where having a conflict resolution strategy comes into play.

The Faster You Resolve Conflict, The Faster Your Business Gets Back On Track.

Conflict and the emotions that fuel it -- anger, frustration, stubbornness -- are a huge waste of time as none of these emotions benefits anyone. This is why you need to resolve conflict quickly and easily, so that your employees can go back to focusing on their work. To assist you in your conflict resolution endeavors, we have put together five proven tips.

5 Tips For Handling Conflict Resolution Fast:

Tip #1. First Thing, Cool Off: When tempers flare and conflict bubbles to the surface, the first thing everyone involved needs to do is walk away and cool down. As conflict rises, strong emotions tend to fuel matters rather than logic and reasoning. And when that happens, any sort of resolution becomes impossible to negotiate. Heated arguing only tends to exacerbate the issue further, not fix it.

Tip #2. Investigate Each Side Separately: Before pulling arguing employees into your office for mediation, attempt to sit down with the each one separately and learn about their individual issues. Make sure not to focus solely on complaints. Find out what the positive angles are -- what your employee wants or needs to come out of resolution.

Tip #3. Gather And Unify Solutions: Ultimately, everyone involved in a conflict will have their own ideas for what constitutes an acceptable solution. As an objective mediator, your only hope at resolving the matter is to stitch together a solution comprised of the most agreeable aspects of each employee's individual solution. This way, the solution you put into motion appeals to everyone and does not seem one-sided.

Tip #4. Implement Your Solution: Now that you have a solution in mind, it is time to implement it. That means having a plan in place and steps to take that will remedy the current conflict and prevent any residual anger from generating any brushfire conflicts. Your plan needs to be accepted and acknowledged by every party involved. Without proper solution implementation, conflicts are destined to break out again in a never-ending cycle.

Tip #5. Follow-up To Avoid Future Conflict: Scaling back a boil to a simmer does not mean the heat is entirely gone. The second half to any conflict resolution should be following-up with everyone. Doing so is a great way to be not only proactive, but also ensure that any lingering bad blood does not affect your business in any way, shape or form.

Executive Summary: Conflict, in life as well as the workplace, is inevitable. There are no tricks to avoiding conflict -- it just happens. Nevertheless, there are steps to managing conflict quickly, effectively and reasonably so that you minimize any disruption to your business and maintain a positive work environment for everyone at the company. By following the tips outlined above, you can tackle any conflicts that arise in a professional manner.

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E-Tip #330- 7 Tips For Developing Your Leadership Skills

As someone who has been in the professional training industry for a long while now, people often ask me for advice on how to improve their leadership skills. While the best bet would be to attend one of our leadership classes, I decided to put together the tips below to help get you started down the path to becoming a better leader.

7 Tips For Developing Your Leadership Skills:

Tip #1. Get Personally Acquainted With Your Team: By taking the time to get to know someone, they will come to be better acquainted with you, too. If nothing else, asking coworkers about their family and interests fosters a friendlier work environment. You will also find they will be more open to helping you, and taking extra time to get things done.

Tip #2. Respect Your Colleagues: If you want to be in a position of leadership, you need to start building relationships with the people around you. This means showing them the respect they deserve. Respect their position, their job function, their professionalism. Everybody wants to be respected for what they bring to the team.

Tip #3. Build Stronger Relationships: Great leaders know the value of relationships. They make a conscious effort to get to know team members better -- what's important to them, what motivates them. The better you understand the people you work with the better you can support them. And when you support others' goals, they will support yours in return.

Tip #4. Find The Positive, Not Just The Negative: In the business world, it is easy to be critical and negative -- especially in this economy. People aren't perfect, and while you need to call someone on their poor performance, you also need to acknowledge when people are doing a good job. Doing so builds a positive work environment that helps make people feel appreciated.

Tip #5. Know Your Strengths: We all excel at something. Chances are, that "something" is the reason why you were hired. So naturally, it is better to improve your strengths than pour all your energy into weaknesses. While addressing weaknesses is certainly useful, by working on your strengths, you will find you can rise to the expert level sooner than you would by working solely on your weaknesses.

Tip #6. Rely On Others To Complement Your Weaknesses: As mentioned above, we all have strengths and weaknesses. Great leaders recognize their weaknesses, find people who excel where they fall short and rely on them to contribute to a well-rounded team. That's because great leaders don't hide their weaknesses, but rather use them to build a strong team.

Tip #7. Strive For Self-Improvement: Great leaders are always on the move, always finding new ways to better themselves and strengthen their skills because they realize how damaging being set in their ways can be. So they take the road less traveled, knowing that the risk is sometimes greater than the reward.

Executive Summary: Ultimately, what makes a great leader great is their ability to lead -- to generate team unity by fostering not only their own personal growth and develop, but the growth and development of their team, the other crucial pieces that work in unison towards a business' success. To accomplish this, great leaders cultivate genuine relationships founded on mutual respect.

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Tip #329: 5 Tips For Setting And Achieving Goals

5 Tips For Setting And Achieving Goals

About this time each year, we start to see business leaders lose focus on all the goals they set for the new year. This happens because many sales leaders fail to put a plan in place for achieving them, believing that just having goals in mind is enough. But in reality, without actively striving to achieve your goals, you will never attain them.

Achieving Goals Puts Another Step Towards Success.

If you do not have a clear plan in place for what you want out of your career, how can you hope to achieve it? Sure, you could throw caution to the wind and see how far along you get shooting from the hip, but that leaves a whole lot up to chance and fate. However, having a structured set of goals like most experts and successful business leaders do provides the surest route to success. To that end, we have gathered the following five tips for setting and achieving goals to better aid your endeavors.

5 Tips For Setting And Achieving Goals:

Tip #1. Be Specific, And Set A Deadline: Vague and ambiguous goals are unattainable. While the goal of "bringing in more sales" is an admirable, it is also lacking specificity. Your goals need to be realistic and measurable, which means you need to be specific about your objectives. How do you intend to bring in more sales? What specific steps do you need to do to accomplish this? Once you establish specific goals, you need to assign them deadlines in order to ensure you see them through.

Tip #2. Develop A Plan Of Action: Even with specific goals, you still need to have a plan for achieving them. Goals are a lot like trips -- you cannot expect to reach your destination if you do not know what route to take. For goals, that means creating an outline or punch list that breaks down your goals into bite-sized, manageable steps easily integrated into your daily work life.

Tip #3. Review Goals Daily: Working with a team is one of the best resources available to you, even for achieving your goals. When team members read their goals to one another at production meetings, it helps foster a sense of team unity and support. Reviewing goals allows everyone to get on the same page as their follow team members, which helps employees work more efficiently.

Tip #4. Incorporate Goals Into Work Life: Attaining your goals is a process, one that is reached gradually. They will not fall into your lap already realized. Instead, you must find ways to blend your everyday workload with strategies and tactics designed to achieve your goals in a concerted effort that simultaneously advances progress on your goals and improves your productivity.

Tip #5. Be Prepared For Changes: Life throws you curveballs. This is a fact. Make peace with it and move on, because part of reaching your goals means being ready for those curveballs, being able to acclimate and being prepared to adjust your plan of action on the fly. Goals are rarely, if ever, reached without a hitch. Besides, adaptability is crucial in the business world.

Executive Summary: Everyone has goals, whether they realize it or not, but it is those who lay their goals out, study them, dissect them, that have the greatest chance at attaining their goals by means other than dumb luck. If you are ready to start setting and achieving realistic goals, begin by creating an outline of your specific goals. From there, draw up a plan of action that will get you to those goals and then blend your plan of action into your everyday work life. Within weeks, you will start seeing more goals realized and more success at your business.

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7 Ways To Foster Team Member Engagement

Team Member Engagement Directly Impacts The Success Of Your Business.

Businesses with engaged employees benefit from having fewer absences, excellent customer service (acknowledged by their clients), stronger internal communication and employees who are generally more enthusiastic about their jobs and, thus, more productive. To help you create the sort of dynamic work environment that team member engagement generates, we put together the seven tips below.

7 Ways To Foster Team Member Engagement:

#1. Talk To Your Team: Communication is a two-way street, but someone has to put the keys in the ignition and get the car started, and that someone has to be a leader. If you want your team members actively communicating with one another, you need to lead by example. Throughout the day, talk to them about what is happening in the business, about work in the team and about their personal interests.

#2. Get To Know Your Team: Developing a rapport with your employees works in tandem with talking to them. By genuinely getting to know your team members -- their likes, their dislikes, their passions, their goals -- you will gain a better understanding of what makes them tick, and in the process help them feel like unique individuals as opposed to human-shaped representations of their job function.

#3. Make Time For Your Team: As a leader at your business, it is important that you are available to the members of your team when they need you. If you come off as unavailable or detached from the main body of your team, you will create a barrier between them and you. This will lead to a serious disconnect and inevitable breakdown in communication, directly affecting your business' success.

#4. Promote Fun At Work: "Fun" in this instance has less to do with fun in the sense of "fun and games" and more to do with employees being enthusiastic about their jobs. When employees are having fun at the workplace, they are considerably more productive and contribute to a positive energy that influences the success of your business.

#5. Actively Support Your Team: Feeling supported by the rest of the team and the leaders at a business is an important aspect of team member engagement. Said leaders need to look for ways to help their employees grow and attain their business goals in order to combat complacency and prevent employees from growing disheartened with their job and their role in the company.

#6. Provide The Tools They Need: If you want your team members to perform at the top of their game and deliver the very best they can produce, you need to supply them with the right tools for their respective jobs. Expecting employees to make due with what they have in essence cripples them, and can leave employees feeling that their job is far more of a struggle than it ought to be.

#7. Be Flexible: Ruling with an iron-fisted "my way or the highway" mentality stifles growth and development and creates a static, unchanging, complacent work environment -- the antithesis of innovation and design (read: success). Strong leaders know when to admit their weakness and when to concede to employees who may know more about something than they do, in the process engaging the employee by acknowledging their experience and relative expertise.

Executive Summary: Team member engagement, for any business -- no matter what you do or what your size -- is absolutely crucial. As a leader at your business, it falls on your shoulders to take the first steps towards engaging your team members. It may take a bit of effort, but in the end, the payoff is immeasurable. Engagement motivates employees, creates a work atmosphere charged with excitement and energy, better communication and so much more. Bottom line: Team member engagement improves your business in every way.

6 Tips For Business Networking

Networking Requires A Plan Of Action.

To help you become better at networking in the business world, you need to put some effort into the process -- even if you are uncomfortable with engaging new people. Having a clearly defined plan for networking certainly helps alleviate such discomfort. To that end, we have listed below six tips to help you overcome your fear of networking and help you put a networking plan in place.

6 Tips For Networking In The Business World:

Tip #1. Network Genuinely: When attempting to build trust, credibility and business relationships, you need to present yourself in a genuine light. You should only attend networking events if you genuinely wish to help others. If you attend networking events or situations with the intention to sell, you will come off as self-serving and fail to connect with other attendees, wasting your time and theirs in the process.

Tip #2. Define Your Goals: Do not arbitrarily select a networking event. Before you go anywhere, take a moment to figure out what you are hoping to accomplish through networking. Different networking events have different focuses, like education or database growth. Knowing what aligns with your goals is the key to getting the most out of networking.

Tip #3. Visit Multiple Groups: Like when buying a car, settling on the first networking group you stumble across is usually unwise. We recommend visiting several groups to get a feel for each group's unique flavor and to see what they can offer you and you can offer them. Once you find a networking group that works for you, give it your full attention.

Tip #4. Ask Open-Ended Questions: Successful networking hinges upon your ability to ask the people you interact with a series of open-ended questions, as opposed to simple yes/no questions. If you rely solely on yes/no questions, your networking efforts will fail to encourage any sort of meaningful dialogue. Furthermore, an open-ended question conveys more sincere interest in someone.

Tip #5. Understand Your Business: In order to maximize your networking efforts, you must have a clear understanding of what makes your business unique. These differences, coupled with a concrete understanding of what your competitors offer, are the factors that will most interest the people with whom you network.

Tip #6. Follow-up With People: After successfully connecting with someone who might benefit from your business' products and/or services, you need to follow-up with them through drip marketing campaigns. But don't just call them and ask, "So, are you ready to do some business together." Building trust, credibility and brand recognition takes time. By taking this approach, you will not only put more prospects in the sales funnel but also help nurture your future sales.

Executive Summary: Successful networking requires genuine effort and a plan of action. In fact, smart business leaders and winning salespeople have one thing in common: They all attend networking events in an effort to expand their database of prospective buyers and referral sources. More importantly, they use networking events as a means to connect with people and establish mutually beneficial relationships.

6 Ways To Improve Your Communication At Work

By Improving Your Communication Skills, You Will Improve Your Productivity And Morale.

One of the biggest things that affect communication is our perceptions of others and their perceptions of us. Believing that someone doesn't "get" you or that you don't "get" them leads to poor relationships. This is why it is crucial to actively strive to improve your communication skills. To assist you in doing this, we have provided below a list of six ways to improve these skills. These tips will not only strengthen your communication skills, but also improve other aspects of your work life in the process.

6 Ways To Improve Your Communication Skills At Work:

#1. Get To Know People: When people are hesitant or uncomfortable speaking to someone, communication breaks down or fails to take off altogether. Being comfortable around your coworkers is key to developing a healthy environment for communication, and the only way to get comfortable around others is to get to know them. So occasionally ask about your coworkers' lives and listen attentively when they respond so they stop being a relative stranger and start being a unique person you know.

#2. Encourage Others To Talk: Listening attentively, effectively, is just as much an active skill as speaking. The talented listener knows how to give 100% of their attention to a speaker and how to mentally flag key words and phrases to recall later. Furthermore, listening is the fastest way to get to know someone. Most people enjoy discussing their lives -- you just need to ask the right questions to get them to start sharing things with you.

#3. Create A Shared Sense Of Purpose: A lack of team unity can lead to a breakdown in team structure. Instead of being on the same page, you will find one person micromanaging or dominating the flow of the project while others sit idly by and let the project come together without giving more direct input. The trick to developing a shared sense of purpose is to find a way to utilize everyone's best skills on the project -- to tailor each aspect of the project to a specific team member's strength.

#4. Get Involved, Stay Involved: When you find yourself working on a team project or sharing work, make sure you remain actively involved as opposed to holding off on your own and completing your share of the work in a vacuum. Regular communication during a major project will also help foster a more communicative atmosphere in general, and will show others how you are a team player invested in the project's successful completion.

#5. Follow-up Sooner, Not Later: If you are even slightly uncertain about something communicated to you, follow-up on the matter immediately. The reason as to why is simple: Working under assumptions is working under a serious communication disconnect. It is better to make sure, to the point of pestering, that you are on the same page as someone else than it is assume you know what needs to be done only to find out, in the end, you were mistaken.

#6. Don't Take Things Personally: Part of operating within the business world is learning to detach yourself from taking professional criticisms, disagreements, different perspectives and different ideas personally. If you're the kind of person to let bumps in the road cause you to lose control of your emotions, you will quickly find yourself struggling to communicate effectively with others. Worse, others will be less inclined to communicate with you.

Executive Summary: The benefits of improving your communication skills at the workplace are numerous, from team projects moving more smoothly to others treating you as a team player. More importantly, communication at the workplace is an essential component to any business' success, so do your part by getting to know your colleagues, learning to be an attentive listener and employing the rest of the tips listed above to help establish a stronger, more effective workplace.

Dealing With Stress Will Not Only Improve Your Work Life, But Your Home Life Too.

The thing about stress at work is that it feeds off itself and can seep into your personal life if you aren't careful. Similarly, stress from home can be brought over to work. But learning to manage and cope with stress can bring you a higher degree of peace.

7 Tips For Dealing With Stress At The Workplace:

Tip #1. Start Off On The Right Foot: Too many of us wake up and rush off to work, eating junk food bought from a coffee shop drive-thru window as we speed towards the work day. This hastened behavior frames our mental state for the rest of the day. Instead of rushing about, take a few minutes out of your morning for yourself. Start by sitting down at a quiet place and enjoying a relaxing moment. Whether you read the paper, sip some coffee or eat a nutritious breakfast doesn't matter -- just find time for yourself.

Tip #2. Be Comfortable: How comfortable you are directly affects your stress level. Make sure you pick comfortable clothes for work, even if you are required to dress up. Sure work clothes are designed to make you look professional, but that does not mean you need to sacrifice comfort in the process. Another important comfort is your desk chair. Office workers spend the majority of their time seated, and an uncomfortable chair can lend itself to back pains and sore muscles.

Tip #3. Prepare For The Day's Mistakes: While you should certainly strive to perform to the best of your ability, it is important to remember that mistakes are inevitable and part of the workday. We all drop the ball from time to time. That's why when mistakes crop up, we must be able to roll with the punches and own up to our mistakes. Otherwise, the occasional hiccup will become a splinter in your mind, stressing you out for weeks on end.

Tip #4. Avoid Conflict: Interpersonal dynamics affect not only your emotional health, but your physical health as well. As great as it is to foster relationships in the workplace, it helps to avoid being too candid about your opinions on topics such as religion, politics or sociological issues. If you can, have a standing agreement with your coworkers to avoid these topics if you know discussing them will only cause undue fuss. This way the workplace remains peaceful.

Tip #5. Get Out Of The Office: Unfortunately, most office environments lend themselves to a sedentary lifestyle, which combined with poor diet and lack of exercise can profoundly affect workers both mentally and physically. We recommend getting out of the office during your lunch break to stretch your legs and get a mental break from your surroundings. Take a walk around the building or use gym facilities if they are available. Whatever you choose, just getting out of the office briefly will definitely help you center yourself.

Tip #6. Manage Trying To Be Perfect: Striving for perfection is admirable, but obsessing over perfection will only cause more harm than good. Perfectionists tend to spend so much time fussing over little things that it winds up costing valuable time, or may cause them to drop the ball altogether. As mentioned in Tip #3, mistakes are unavoidable. The more you obsess over avoiding mistakes the more your stress level will skyrocket, causing you to overlook something and stress out even more.

Tip #7. Stay Focused And Organized: Multitasking enjoyed a brief moment in the spotlight, but is now regarded as more ineffective than efficient. Doing an adequate job on several things at once doesn't trump doing a great job on one or two things. Furthermore, splitting your attention means piling more on your plate, and the higher that pile grows the higher your stress raises.

Executive Summary: Just because stress is a part of our everyday lives does not mean we can't have more control over stress than it has over us. While scientists have yet to develop a cure-all for stress, there are some practical and easy ways you can manage stress. Starting your day off on the right foot and getting out of the office briefly, along with the other tips outlined above, will put you well on your way to a less stressed work life.