7 Unusual Steps to Office Zen: Mind, Body, Spirit

MIND * Keep a stack of small origami squares on your desk next to an empty jar. Any time your mind is wandering from your task and you want to keep your fingers busy, fold yourself a paper crane and place on in a jar. Pretty soon, you will have an entire jar of little paper origami cranes. Paper cranes represent good luck and peace. Give them to a stressed friend who needs good luck, or thread them together in a chain to decorate your home. * If you must waste time online because you can’t focus on your project, waste it on Free Rice, a website that donates ten grains of rice for every trivia question you answer correctly. You gain knowledge that will impress people at your next dinner party, and you help fight global hunger. Double-win. * Mentally step into your co-workers’ shoes. Exercise the wild imagination your inner novelist. What are your co-workers’ dreams? What ticks them off? How would they react to a worldwide zombie attack? You just might have a successful screenplay fermenting within you right this moment. Just try to keep that weird smile off your face when you’re imagining your cubicle mate skydiving from an exploding building. BODY • Exercise your hands with these hand stretch exercises on this page. Especially if you’re in front of a computer all day, those fingers of yours are working hard! Stop being a slave-driver and give your hands a nice stretch or two. For extra credit, keep some hand lotion on your desk, something that is nicely scented and not cheap. Ahhhh. • Drink lots of water. And not just for the usual reasons. Drinking a lot of water will make you want to go to the bathroom a lot, and that will give you minimal exercise in preventing back muscle strain. This I can personally attest to. SPIRIT • Bring homemade baked goods to the office. I mean, seriously. It fosters good office karma so much faster than prayer or affirmations. • Meditate, sort of. When was the last time you looked at the texture of the material of your desk and really felt the Desk-like presence of the desk? Or analyzed the mysterious bumps on your cubicle walls? Or really felt your fingers touching the surface of the keyboard as they typed out the latest departmental memo? Think of all the secrets of the universe hidden within these mundane things that you may have been missing out on this whole time. Try not to weep.