Personal Wellness on Earth Day: Headsets, Standing & Tungling

Odds and ends to contemplate for your own wellness on Earth Day.

Headsets & earpieces: I recently coached a lawyer client a tiny bit around headsets and earpieces. Her back problem isn't helped by holding a telephone to her ear with her hand or shoulder for long periods of time. Her consideration for her colleagues on either side of her office keeps her from using the speakerphone, even with the door closed.

Many people dislike looking as if they are taking an order at a drive-through. Others dislike wireless earpieces in public because all of a sudden the man next to you is either talking to himself, to you or is on his phone. It's annoying.

I use a headset I bought at RadioShack for about $30. It plugs easily into my land line handset and my cell phone. It works well and I haven't even seen any gawkers when I wear it occasionally in the car. It works much more reliably and without the static and other noise that I experienced with various wireless type earpieces.

Try a headset or an earpiece in your office if you are concerned about your back or posture. But by "in your office", I mean within the walls that form the working space that contains your individual desk and telephone. Don't walk around in the halls or stand over your trusty administrative assistant while talking on the phone. You will drive people crazy. This reminds me of one of my former partners who had a reeeeeeeeeally long telephone cord on his phone so that he could be on his phone and stand out in the hall at his secretary's desk at the same time. It drove her crazy.

Standing: I read something last week about how people who stand on the job burn more calories than those who sit. I don't think I'll make standing the key component of an exercise plan, but this bit of information did make me question why I always sit while coaching my lawyer clients on the phone. I can't recall where I read the article, but I just Googled the topic and the results include a suggestion by the Mayo Clinic. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/office-exercise/sm00115 So stand while talking on the phone sometime. Improved posture, better circulation, burnt calories. What's not to like?

Tungling: I learned about http://www.tungle.com/ this morning from a lawyer I know in town. It's a free online scheduling tool for making appointments and avoiding doublebooking and email tag with your clients and other people. The website doesn't reveal what "tungle" means (!), but it does have a short video demonstrating how the tool works. I haven't used it or tried it, but it looks easy and my lawyer friend likes it. Check it out.

What Color Is Your Success?

As I entered recurring lawyer coaching appointments in Outlook well into 2010 for three new clients this week, I used my coaching color. In designer speak, it's a "warm" color. To me, it's a "happy" color. (Perhaps also a "hoppy" color.) It's also prevalent in my home.

As I see my calendar continue to fill with this color, I can easily assess the growth in my coaching practice over the past year. I can also easily compare it against the amount of green entries - - for obvious reasons - - for business development activities. The green quickly shows me when I spent a lot of time on business development, when there were lulls, and what lies ahead in 2010. Of course, because I enjoy these activities, they could be the happy color as well, or the coaching calls could be green. But systems help us stay organized and on track, and this one works for me. As these colors expand in my calendar, I see the benefits of what I've been doing and I keep moving forward.

So here are my questions for you: What colors do you want in your 2010 calendar? When will you start coloring?

Another good question comes from a discussion I had with one of my non-lawyer clients this week. She is a young engineer in a management position and we talked about delegation and developing a key direct report. Working with him on his role, she advised him to "do [this] and it will set you up for success the rest of the day." This struck me as so simple and yet so powerful that it felt like an absolute guarantee. I turned it around and asked what would set her up for success on her challenges every day. Since that conversation, I've used this process every morning myself. How about you? What thing can you do that will set you up for success the rest of the day?