The Undead Office Apocalypse: Sleep Deprived and Unfocused Zombies

tire woman on ipad

It’s 1:00 P.M. in the afternoon on a Monday. The office is quiet, and you are fading in and out of focus on the work in front of you. Maybe staying up until midnight for that new episode of The Walking Dead wasn’t worth it; maybe it was. All you know is that you can barely keep your eyes open, your coffee is all gone, and you’ve accomplished a third of what you should have so far. Sounds like somebody’s got a case of the Monday’s! Who even says that!? Luckily, there are many different techniques to help workers retain their focus and keep themselves from drooling on their desk!

Jam Out to Paperwork & Mozart

Monday detox

A great way to stay focused is by listening to music at work! If your office is quiet enough to where you could hear a pen hit the floor, then it’s probably quiet enough to fall asleep in! It’s time to invest in some headphones! Researchers heavily recommend listening to classical music or instrumental music, because you don’t have to focus on lyrics or speech of any sort. But, if you’re trying to stay awake, you might want to try something a little more hardcore or poppin’ than Chopin or Mozart.

Priority List or Procrastination Agenda?

Another method of hyping yourself up for the rest of the day or week is to create some form of to-do or a priority list! It will help you see what needs to be done the soonest and what you can put off the longest! Hooray for universal procrastination! If you want to break your list down even further, you could set realistic goals for each day of the week to accomplish. Nothing is a better motivator than getting to scratch-out multiple items on a to-do list!

Data Detox: No Notifications, No Social Media

Some companies are very relaxed about phones and laptops in the office, as long as the work is getting done. If that’s the case, then muting notifications on such devices will help to prevent any unwanted distractions! It appears whenever we hear phone’s ring or ding, attention and focus both just leave the building! And when Facebook, Snapchat, or Instagram is opened, we immediately fall into this never-ending abyss of posts, messages, and cute cat videos!  So, leave those pesky reminders behind at work and take the chance to disconnect for a while!

Water vs. Coffee: The Epic Smackdown of the Centurycoffee or water on Monday

Something many people don’t think about is how dehydrated they can become in a short period of time. The more dehydrated you are, the more your body chips away at your concentration levels. And, even though coffee or soda provides caffiene, both can result in midday caffiene or sugar crashes. A good idea to prevent this is to watch what you are eating and drinking throughout the day! Keeping a full water bottle on the desk at all times also helps to form habits of drinking water regularly throughout the day.

Move Around the Office: Follow your Career Path!

If at work you can feel the sleep-time fuzzies in your head, then the last thing you should do is sit a warm, cozy area! That means it is time to get up and start moving around! By taking a quick walk through the office, you have the opportunity to clear your mind, raise your body temperature, and shake off the mid-afternoon slump! On long work days, standing up and stretching at your desk will also help wake you up and loosen your shoulder/back muscles. Not only will your back thank you, but your chiropractor will as well!

Time Yourself to allot breaks!

A popular way of keeping yourself on track at work is by setting up a time schedule or Work-On/Work-Off schedule! You can do an hour of work followed by a five-minute break or two hours of work with a fifteen-minute break! This method is a great way of determining how long you can stay focused on work before you need to take a minute or two for yourself. Otherwise, there’s a good chance you’ll become unproductive and not want to take breaks in order to get more work done. We want to help you avoid that!

Fighting the Office Apocalypse

By keeping yourself focused and alert throughout the day, you will see drastic productivity boosts! Plus, you’ll be in a much better state of mind first thing Monday morning. No more employees unintentionally putting on their best “walking dead” impersonations!