How to Love Spring Cleaning

It’s that time of year again. There’s something primitive in the sense we get come springtime. Maybe we’re just wired this way. Spring brings with it a desire to clean house, to get rid of the stuff. The stuff that has magically survived the selection process and found what seems to be a permanent home in our garage, closet or pantry. We used it before, a long time ago, and it would really come in handy if that time ever came again. Yet it hasn’t, so it just sits and waits another day.

Here at ABRG, there are two things that describe us well: we love research, and we love learning about how to be more efficient (try running a thriving boutique research firm with four people and you’ll understand why). Recently, we had the opportunity to do both. While in an ideation workshop with a client, we conducted a practice brainstorming exercise on the topic of spring cleaning. To get people geared up and in the mode of ideation, we typically have them practice on an off-topic, non-business subject that’s ripe for multiple ideas.

The topic of spring cleaning fits well, so we asked them to come up with as many ideas they could on “what’s a creative way you could attack a spring cleaning exercise”? To set the stage we give them some guidance on how to keep coming up with ideas:

1. Land on something, and think of other solutions
2. Wish list it – what could I do if….
3. If you feel that you can’t relate, think of who you could ask
4. Work individually first, then as a group
5. When you’re stuck, move around or talk to someone

The answers were creative, practical, and fun!

A good ideation generates multiple ideas without judging them on whether they are good or bad, because sometimes the crazy ideas lead to break-throughs of innovation.

• Live in a hotel.
• Open a bottle of wine.
• Make the kids do it.
• Buy stock in cleaning companies.
• Ask Alexa.

Some responses had themes of minimalism, which ironically asserts that happiness is achieved in life by having less, not more. The less stuff we fill our space and lives with, the more we are open to things that really matter – time with family, focused effort on our passions, appreciation of our surroundings. One blog we follow at ABRG is Becoming Minimalist. If you follow the thread of minimalism you’ll recognize these suggestions to overcome decluttering:

1. If you haven’t used it in three months/one year, throw it out.
2. Does it bring you joy?
3. Don’t start reminiscing.
4. Would it be that hard to replace?
5. Have I worn it in 2 months?

Some ideas had efficiency in mind, how to get through the emotionally tough nature of the process in a way that works. At ABRG, we follow Asian Efficiency and have gotten a ton of great advice through their resources over the past few years. There were some good ideas on how to best go about it:

• Go room by room.
• Clean as you go.
• Hire people and give them each a room.
• Go through the out-of-site, out-of-mind places.
• Make someone else go through your stuff and throw out anything that doesn’t look good.
• Buy storage bins with labels – prioritize what you store, and once the bin is full throw out the rest.

This year, we’re going to make this painful process more fun and efficient by tossing in a few of these ideas. We hope you pick up a few tips that help you, too!

2016 Reflections - Firewalking with Tony Robbins: More than Just a Physiological Impact

As 2016 ends and we take some time to think about some of the year’s highlights, Tony Robbins' Unleash the Power Within was one of them. 

How do you describe Tony Robbins?  Almost more than human.  The conference is something between a hardcore rock concert and a very dynamic church service (a long church service).  And while on the surface, those events may seem very different –Tony Robbins brings and maintains both elevated emotions, senses, and inspiration to the table all at once.

Twenty years ago, a co-worker of mine REALLY got into Tony Robbins.  In fact, at the time, I felt she was akin to a groupie, and I didn’t really understand it.  I remember thinking the whole thing seemed kind of “cultish” and therefore, didn’t engage to really understand why she was so into it.   Fast forward many years later - I’ve learned (the hard way several times) that judging something without understanding it is, frankly, my own ignorance. 

More recently, I was reacquainted with Tony Robbins through a blog I religiously follow called Asian Efficiency.  AE’s productivity content has been extremely helpful in both work and personal life due to their “holistic” approach - energy management, help with Omnifocus, a productivity "cheat sheet", a productivity "blueprint", including morning rituals, etc.

They profess in their content how much Tony Robbins has influenced them, and that his UPW conference was “transformational” for their work.  So, when Tony scheduled one of his shindigs in Dallas this year, I decided to go.  I wanted to see what it was all about.

While some of his tactics are a little hard core (i.e. fire walking on the 1st night), he is one of the most powerful speakers I’ve ever encountered. The days were incredibly long - 2 of them were 15 hours.  When I showed up the 1st day, I was so glad I had a car so I could make a quick get away when I became tired of sitting in a hard chair amongst 8,000 of my new friends!  However, believe it or not, his energy was so captivating that it was easier than I expected to stay engaged.

But what did I learn.  Here are just a few things…

1.     There is an Art to Fulfillment – One of his many provocative statements he made was “The brain is not designed to make you happy.  It’s a great strategy tool – but it’s not good at enjoying.” Deciding to live in a beautiful state of mind is 100% my responsibility.  To do this, I must become aware of my own thoughts and basically, STOP believing them! 

2.     Changing my Feelings starts with Changing my Focus, Language and Physiological State. This hit home because so many times when I get knotted up about something I want to change, I believe I need to stop feeling bad BEFORE I can make a change but according to Robbins, that belief is what holds me back. 

·      Focus = feeling.  What I focus on creates the feelings I have.  My pain and suffering is not necessarily dependent on what happens to me - it’s more dependent on the “story” I create about it.  I don’t HAVE TO suffer no matter what happens.  “As you think, so you feel”, he says.

·      Use Language that Lifts, Not Limits You – so often, my thoughts are a repeat of the thoughts from yesterday or the day before.  I can interrupt those patterns by creating “incantations” – sounds a little over the top but the idea is to create statement that addresses an Empowering Belief (instead of a Limiting Belief).  An example of one of my own Limiting Beliefs is:  “I can’t lose weight because I have thyroid issues” vs. this Empowering Belief I replaced while in the session: “I am strong and healthy overall, and I have the ability to make almost anything happen that I want to make happen.”

·      If I Can’t Change My State of Mind, I can change my “State” - The shortcut to changing my emotions is to change my “state”  (i.e. if I “feel” sad, I can change that feeling more quickly if I change something physiologically first - my posture, my breathing, my face expression, etc.). To close the gap between how you currently “feel” and how you want to feel, you need to visualize experiencing it.  In fact, the best advice he gave on visualizing is to not only visualize it but also, to imagine having it taken away – once you get a “taste” of something, you’ll fight to keep it!

3.  Stress is the Achiever’s Word for Fear.  This, too, hit home for me. Not only had I never related my “stress” to fear, I also did not realize how “universal” fear is.  He spoke of 2 primary fears that we all share:  “not being enough” and that “we won’t be loved.”  What he suggested was to dance with fear – instead of fighting it. And of course, Tony showed us this by dancing on stage with imaginary fear so that we could understand his point – it’s there and moving with it (instead of running or fighting it) releases its hold on us.

If you want to learn more about Tony Robbins and his style, you now can without attending one of his events.  A documentary was released in 2016 and Marie Forleo interviewed him about it. Good interview…

Oh, and I walked over hot coals - I, too, am a fire walker!  …although yes my feet hurt a bit afterwards. =)

How a 1-Day Conference Helped Me Come to Grips with what Truly Matters

When you get an invitation to an event that promises to help you “live the life you love”, you would immediately say yes and pack your bags. And that’s what April Bell Research Group did last January to attend the "Think Better, Live Better” event in Austin.

We were invited to the event by one of our favorite online “productivity experts”, Asian Efficiency. The event was hosted by Marc and Angel Chernoff, professional coaches who “hack life”. They both have spent the past decade writing about and teaching proven strategies for finding lasting happiness, success, love, and peace.

The full day session was packed with topics and tools that reduce stress and increase positive results in 4 core areas:

- Personal/Professional Happiness
- Motivation/Focus
- Successful Results
- Life Balance and Relationships

Throughout the event, there were several key learnings that the team felt was relevant in our daily work-life.

The Beliefs that Hold You Back & The Questions that Will Set You Free (Marc & Angel Chernoff) We keep hearing people say that "questions become thoughts, thoughts become words, words become actions, and actions become character". And when we encounter challenges, it’s the strength of our character that sees us through. Now, who doesn’t experience obstacles in life? Marc and Angel shared Self-Inquiry Process tips to do a raw brain dump or questions to ask yourself when we feel we are in a bad space:

- Is it true? Can it be scientifically proven?

- When I think this thought, how:

        - Does it make me feel?
        - Do I treat others?
        - Does it make me deal with the situation?

- If I completely erase/remove this thought, how:
        - Do I feel?
        - Do I treat others?
        - Do I deal with the situation?

This session helped us become aware of our inner dialogue and attitudes - to stay positive and focused in challenging situations. It taught us a new way to think about our project work but also with our spouses!

Overcoming Procrastination & Roadblocks to Do What Matters (Joshua Becker) All too often, I find myself running out of time; I find myself saying that 24 hours isn’t enough and if I could just have 1 more hour to do this or that. This session talked about uncovering the secrets to "making time" vs. "finding time". Joshua shared tips on how to simplify life, eliminate excess, and rediscover lost time to focus on things that truly matter to you. Here are some of my biggest takeaways:

- Your Possessions - yes, having too many can complicate our lives. They drain our bank accounts, energy, and attention. Investing time to remove nonessential possession will considerably make us feel lighter.

- Your Time Commitments - if your calendar looks like a never-ending Gantt chart, it’s time to release yourself from time commitments that are not in line with your greatest values.

- Your Goals - yes, I thought that having a long list would make them more achievable. Reducing it to 1 or 2 will give you more focus and better success rates so list down things you want to accomplish and choose the 2 most important. When you finish 1, add another from your list.

- Your Connections to the World - yes, relationships with others are good but constant streams of distraction are bad. Learn to focus on the important, not the urgent.

Conquering Mental Fatigue (Courtney Carver) Growing up in an era of open innovation, I always found it very interesting how creative minds work but over the years, I realized that the market is complicated with so many new products and takes a toll on my decision making process. Not that innovation is bad but there are times when we just want one less decision to make in a day. Courtney shares some tips on how to minimize decision fatigue and help people make the right decisions.

- Simpler meals

- Perimeter grocery shopping (if you can!)

- Pretend the internet is broken (ha!)

- Her Project 333 helps create a decision free closet (33 items inclusive of clothes, shoes, jewelry to wear in 3 months). 

- Habit stack your morning routine

- Simplify! Just get rid of things that do not matter in your life.

The same holds true for work –to avoid that early morning stress of trying to figure out what task to complete first, create time blocks for when you want to focus on your task list and eat your frog too!

Indeed, choices can be debilitating rather than liberating so eliminate distractions to minimize decisions. It’s easier to make the right choices and decisions too if you only have a handful to choose from.

Living The Perfect Day (Karl Staib ) Who doesn’t want to do that? But with all the distractions, this seems unattainable. I used to think that perfect days don’t exist especially because so many things are just out of our control. Karl’s session made me realize that this mindset is causing my imperfect day. He says that to live a fulfilling life, we need to define what the ideal version of our life is, one day at a time. How? By:

- Designing our day

- Getting feedback

- Building on feedback

This session motivated our team at April Bell Research Group to improve each day and work like a well oiled machine by designing our days individually, respecting boundaries, and staying resilient when there are unexpected surprises.

At the end of the full day session, I realized that when you redefine what’s already in front of you (or what's possible), living the life you love isn’t farfetched at all. These topics have already paved the way to a more realistic plan to keep improving. They are indeed inspiring lessons to live a more positive and productive life!

The Productivity Blueprint by Asian Efficiency: Their Secret to Success

Working in Market Research means living a fast-paced work environment but also doing really focused work. It is easy to get sucked into a vortex, lose focus, and get bogged down. In our attempts to figure out “stress-coping” (productivity!) mechanisms for our “heaviest” days, April introduced us to Asian Efficiency.

Asian Efficiency is a team that has one specific goal – make the world a more efficient place – to go about doing things with the least amount of effort, delivering the maximum output.

During office training and staff development sessions, we have discussed their Productivity Blueprint and Rituals, mainly:

• Productivity Blueprint
  • Beating Procrastination
  • Focus & Self Discipline
  • Distraction & Interruption
• Rituals
  • Waking Up Earlier
  • Morning
  • Meditation
  • Exercise
  • Structural Productivity
  • Breaks & Downtime
  • Evening
  • Studying & Learning
  • Journaling
  • Uninterrupted Time

They have loads of great, free content, and I have purchased quite a few of their programs, and would highly recommend their Productivity course as well as their Rituals Course. They also have loads of good free content on their site. Two of the most helpful rituals we have been working on as a team are – Structural Productivity and Breaks & Downtime.

Structural Productivity is about maximizing your days by planning them in advance. In a way, this is deemed as the master ritual of the 10 listed above because it strings together all your other rituals. If you are able to plan your day ahead, there is less stress and less chance of beating yourself up thinking the day could have gone better. It also allows you to track progress day to day and monitor accomplishments. More importantly, you can iterate and correct problems with the day gone by and get to a point where your days are always productive – both at work and after work. This ritual, based on the premise of planning, also lessens decision fatigue, prioritization of important vs. urgent tasks, and respects time boundaries you have set.

Breaks & Downtime is all about consistently getting the breaks and downtime you need to remain alert and productive. To be honest, taking breaks is a personal challenge owing to the personal belief that taking a break = wasting time. Asian Efficiency tells us that taking breaks or short rests leads to:

• Increased productivity
• Controlled and consistent energy levels throughout the day
• Effective stress management
• Increased motivation 

April gave us timers for time intervals/timeboxes to structure our breaks. I haven’t used mine for fear of disturbing colleagues when it sounds off so I use my phone’s timer to signal if it’s time to break. This is still a challenge for me because I’ve been so used to just churning output however long it took without breaks to ensure I meet deadlines but when I do use “time boxing” or the Pomodoro Technique, I felt re-energized after the quick break and ready to tackle the beast again. You can time box in 2 ways – depending on what works for you:

• 25/5 – work 25 minutes and take a 5 minute break
• 50/10 – work 50 minutes and take a 10 minute break

If you’re interested in learning more about this concept, I recommend reading “The Pomodoro Technique” book by Francesco Cirillo.

Either way, the important thing is to take that quick break and by taking a quick break, it means that you physically have to stop what you are doing and do something else – walk away from your work location! And remember to go all-out on your break, go outside and get some air, get your favorite beverage, or even play your favorite game.

Note the importance of writing down what you’re currently thinking if your break comes up. It will help you to get back on track much faster after your 5 or 10 minute break. It’s just a matter of looking back at what you wrote and picking up that train of thought!

What I Valued Most about a Boutique Agency's Values

Going in to my internship at April Bell Research Group (ABRG), I didn’t know what to expect. I liked that ABRG was part of a Women in Business (WIB) cohort in Dallas because as an Economics and Math major, I see myself in business. What I didn’t know was how interning at a Marketing Research boutique agency would correlate with my strengths, interests, and plans for the future.

What I discovered during my internship with ABRG is that I had found a place to combine my strengths with the company’s values, and it was a great experience!

Learning for Growth

“Learning to grow” was one of the values practiced continuously at ABRG, and I was lucky enough to be a part of applying this learning process. 

Specifically, many of the projects I worked on this summer involved growing ABRG’s online presence. They included the following:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

  • SEO increases your ranking and visibility in Search Engines, predominantly Google. I learned and executed my learnings about SEO on ABRG’s website in hopes of propelling ABRG’s online presence.  

• Affiliate Linking

  • April and her team enjoy sharing with other women, small businesses, researchers, etc. what they have learned.  And many online resources encourage sharing by creating a way to earn a small commission for services and products they believe in.  Her favorite affiliate to share is Asian Efficiency’s productivity content– specifically their Ritual Course has been the backbone of a lot of the team’s growth over the last year.

• Online Courses

  • ABRG has been asked by researchers the past few years to teach specific moderating and facilitation skills. I worked on researching the technical ins-and-outs of creating an online course so that when the time comes, ABRG can move forward with launching a successful course for researchers!

“Pit Crew” Teamwork

It’s clear that April & co. work well together as a team.  They often refer to themselves as a “pit crew”!  The company-wide effort to re-do ABRG’s website this summer involved a lot of teamwork. Everyone’s strengths were utilized for different parts of this project and we relied on each other to understand the bigger picture. The video below is the inspiration behind how ABRG aspires to work together in the most efficient manner.

The Championship winning F1 team Red Bull Racing practice their pitstop. They manage it in a flying 2:05 seconds. Absolutely mental. Watch it in slow-motion! Subscribe for more: http://link.base79.com/polepositionsub Pole Position is the place for motorsport fans and petrol heads covering the very best races, teams and drivers from around the world.

This Summer, teamwork looked like:

• Being OK with Not Knowing
  • Sometimes asking for help is hard, but I found it beneficial to our overall goal because I learned more when I asked. This new definition of teamwork – the one open to asking for direction – has reframed my thinking about asking questions and given me a new perspective on collaboration.
• Getting Unstuck Together
  • A lot of the online work I learned about was not only new to me but also to ABRG. When none of us knew how to do something or what to do next, we brainstormed. This helped me because it provided direction to move forward. Recognizing that being “stuck” is part of the process to move forward early on this summer helped me be successful at ABRG.
• Meeting Participation
  • Having everyone else’s perspective as well as my own at our meetings helped move along projects effectively and efficiently. Thus, teamwork is also about being open to other’s perspectives AND offering my own ideas, which helps a project be as successful as it can be.

ABRG utilized teamwork to raise the bar on what it could do for its new website and yielded successful results.

The projects I worked on this summer had many values instilled within them. The values of “learning to grow” and “pit crew teamwork” have taken on new meanings for me and were key to the positive experience I had in my internship. Because these values were at the core of ABRG, they were also instilled my mindset and my work, and I feel like I flourished this summer. 

By: Cecilia Esquivel, 2016 ABRG Summer Intern, Emory University