How are you feeling today?
Rise and shine, they say. But for many of us it can be a challenge in the morning; and you may just not be in the mood for ‘shining’.
Emotions, of course, play a big role in how we function in the workplace, and in day to day life. Keeping track of your mood can help you enhance well-being, and even your productivity.
How?
There’s a phenomenon called The Hawthorne Effect in psychology, first observed during a series of experiments on factory workers which were carried out in the USA in the 1920s. The experimenters aimed to investigate how environmental changes, such as brighter or more subdued lighting, influenced the workers’ productivity.
When the lights were turned up, productivity increased. But much to the experimenters’ surprise, it also increased when the lights went down. In fact, each time the lighting changed, productivity went up. The conclusion was that the workers responded favourably to the interest that was being shown in them, so they became more productive when they knew they were being observed.
Your Emotions Tracker
A good, free tool that we use from time to time that helps you understand and track your emotions is called ‘Moodscope’ (link given below). It allows you to track daily on ‘how you are feeling’. It lets you see the ups and downs of your feelings and emotions over the course of time. You can then analyze possible triggers and decide if you want to do certain things differently.
There are plenty of examples in other areas of life which suggest that monitoring something regularly can lead to positive change, especially those who believe in ‘what we measure, gets done. It’s less usual to do it with fuzzy emotions, but it’s a personal choice; try it and see! https://www.moodscope.com/
