UScellular: Designing a Psychologically Rich Professional Life

ONLINE

The advice for optimizing productivity at work seems simple: time block, say "no" and protect your work-life boundaries. While these strategies work—and we will discuss how and why—the realities of modern knowledge-work often impede their implementation.  Due to our toxic relationship with technology, pervasive myths about the importance of multi-tasking, and the normalization of work interruptions, we need better strategies to organize and strengthen our focus.  We will explore the role of personal responsibility in reclaiming your attentional ability. We will talk through evidence-based experiments to improve your workflow and make space for work recovery. Armed with a renewed ability to focus, we will conclude by discussing how to specifically design a psychologically rich professional life, one in which you welcome novel, diverse and formidable challenges in the spirit of learning more about yourself, other people and your work.  

Grace Lemmon, PhD, is an associate professor of management and director of the Doctor of Business Administration program for DePaul’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. She is a research expert on topics related to stress management, including burnout, engagement, work detachment and work recovery.  She is particularly interested in how people develop more fulfilling relationships with work through value alignment. She has published her work in the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management, and Organizational Dynamics. She provides corporate training on topics related to stress, mindfulness, and barriers to leadership, such as perfectionism, procrastination and imposter syndrome.