Videoconferencing rocks for a lot of reasons. It lets us get things done quicker and more efficiently than ever before, but there is one little thing that seems to keep coming up regardless of how much you think you are prepared for your meeting: the time difference. Seldom, if ever is one actually lucky enough to be in a virtual office space where everyone is in the same time zone. So when the time comes for you to attend that 9:00am meeting, which is in all reality 4:00am your time, here are some pointers to help you stay on your toes and put your best face forward.
Table of Contents
Try to Sleep
Okay, facing a major presentation or group collaboration, is enough to leave anybody with a few more grey hairs and a lot lost sleep, but the added pressure of having to be up at an hour that isn’t your norm can keep haunting you all night. Avoid those nights of constantly checking your clock by establishing a few standard norms.
For starters, invest in an alarm clock. Not the one on your cell phone, not the one on your tablet or pc, but an honest to goodness, plug into the wall, back-up battery, alarm clock. The more you can actually avoid having to rely on electronics the better. Use your cell phone if you find the alarm clock to peacefully wake you up, but if you are a nightly clock checker it is a good idea to be able to set the clock, put it out of eyesight, and peacefully rest those peepers. Once you know you can fully trust your alarm clock you can give yourself the space fully let your mind rest so you can recharge.
Listen to Your Own Clock
Some people over time have relied on power naps to get them through their daily activities. Some sleep envelope-pushers even practice what most of us would deem radical sleeping patterns in order to maximize their productivity and enhance their mental performance. Lots of them are more focused on sleeping in very short bursts which provides the brain just enough time to reboot and then it is back to production.
Who knows whether or not this works, but when you have a meeting in four hours it is certainly better to go ahead and try to soak up as much rest time as you can. Going completely without sleep probably isn’t good for your meeting and it’s going to drag you down for the whole day.
Good Breakfast
Not to get on an entire health kick here about the proper amount of sleep and the right food, but if you have been burning the midnight oil and find yourself ridden with coffee gut in the morning you got to get something in your furnace to keep the fire burning. Think of it like running a marathon. There might be foods that under normal circumstances you don’t eat that much of, but in the delirious haze of a meeting production deadlines you have full permission to give in to your gut feeling.
Does this mean that deep fried chicken at 3:00am is good for you? It certainly doesn’t help your physique. But what it does do is give you the nice pleasure of comfort food that most likely is carb and protein rich which is which your brain is certainly going to enjoy.
The Reward System
This brings up the next system when all else fails in preparation for your videoconference. Use the reward system. If you have to tie yourself to your desk until you are done with a project and let the reward be getting to finally take your trash out. Yes it sounds like backward priorities, but when you are facing the clock and trying to keep your energy up you have to focus on priorities. Certain things can wait fifteen minutes while other projects get completed. The more that you give yourself the time to focus on your work, which in turn, gives you the sort of clean fuel you need to bring you through to the finish line of your project.
We’re All There with You
We all have active business lifestyles, and while work can be stressful at times, we take it upon ourselves to push further, and run ourselves longer. Unfortunately burning the candle at both ends has its costs especially when we spread ourselves across a global market place. To keep things fresh on your end when you are dealing with your clients across the globe, be sure to give yourself, and your business, the proper rest and nourishment that it needs so that it can grow in the right direction for you. It is totally a common sense notion, but for some reason we all forget it from time to time.
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