Many companies today have some kind of free gym on-site for their employees, but a lot of times the employees aren’t aware of it or don’t take advantage of it. A gym at work is a great thing and shouldn’t be overlooked. I like it because it allows you to get your workout done while you still have an ounce of motivation (before you hit the couch at home). If you don’t know if there is gym at your office, ask around. Remember, it’s free and convenient, two great reasons to take advantage of it.

Why? The answer to this is simple: You never know when it’s going to rain. It could look like a beautiful day outside, however you never know when those ominous rain clouds are going to rear their ugly heads. With your luck, just when it starts to rain you’ll get a call from your client across the street asking if you can come over, guaranteeing a soaking. This can all be avoided if you keep an umbrella at your work. It doesn’t have to be a nice one (I have one from CVS that was $9.99), it just has to shield you from the rain.

Remember, if you end up taking it home, bring it back to work the next day. Otherwise, you’ll never remember to bring it back.

Guys: When you get really busy, it’s easy to forget the little things like getting your haircut. Before you know it, you look like the shaggy dog. This is obviously not good for the office. However, a quick way to clean yourself up before you can get to the barber is to clean up your sideburns. You don’t have to shave them off, but at least straighten them out. I use my regular razor (non-electric), however if you have an electric razor they usually have an attachment made for trimming your sideburns. A couple of things to keep in mind:

• Putting a towel around your shoulders and/or around the sink will cut your cleaning time immensely.
• Make sure to do this before you get dressed for work, otherwise you might have some extra hairy passengers on your shirt when you stroll into the office.

I think you’ll be surprised how many people ask you if you’ve had your haircut recently, and more importantly it provides you a little more time to actually get your haircut.

Lazy Saturday updates:

• Be on time on at work with this Tip of the Day on setting your clock forward.
• See the newest installment in our Basic Excel Functions series, this one highlights the MIN and MAX functions.

That’s right, you too can join the Green Tea bandwagon without having to suffer the awful, natural taste! See the updates below.

• Today’s Tip of the Day provides a great alternative to regular Green Tea via instant Green Tea.
• Dreading reviewing your co-workers work? See this article on How to Effectively Review Other People’s Work for some tips on how to make this as painless as possible.

Once again, more common sense that most people don’t seem to listen to. We’ve all been there: Working on a document for hours, slaving over it, getting it just right. Then, tragedy strikes: The power goes out. Just like that, your document is gone in an instant. When was the last time you saved it? Probably yesterday. Hopefully it wasn’t too much trouble formatting each section exactly the same, because you get to do it again.

What’s the moral of this story? Save your work, and save it often. It takes two seconds, but it could save you from redoing an entire days worth of work.

Contrary to popular belief, just because you have headphones on doesn’t mean that nobody can hear the music you are listening to. If you turn the music up really loud, and your headphones aren’t that great, you can be certain that your next door neighbor is probably hearing everything that you are. It’s always a good idea to ask your neighbors at work if you are playing your music too loud. They’ll appreciate the concern and maybe you’ll hold on to your hearing for a few more years.

Most, if not all, business professionals today carry around some type of cell phone. It is almost essential in the workplace today in order for people to contact you on the fly. However, there is nothing more embarrassing than going into a meeting and having your custom ring from “The Police” start playing while the meeting is going on. Save yourself the embarrassment: make sure to put your cell phone on vibrate before you enter the meeting, or leave it at your desk entirely.

Ever had one of those days where you get up for work in the morning and all you have is wrinkled shirts to wear? This is awful, as there is obviously is no time to go to the dry cleaners, and it starts your day off on the wrong foot. However, there is a quick trick that I use that can help to take out or at the least make less visible these horrid wrinkles. All you have to do is put your shirt into the dryer, along with a DAMP (not soaking wet) washcloth. Turn it on high heat for about 10-20 min. Depending on the shirt, you will have varying degrees of success. I get the best results when I use this trick with polo shirts. In the worst case scenario, the shirt is no worse off than it was to begin with.

It’s a good idea to do this before you take your shower, or maybe while your eating breakfast, so it’s ready by the time you’re ready to get dressed. I would go no less than 10 min, otherwise your results probably won’t be as good as they could be.

Chances are, you’ve heard the term “Work Safe” thrown around your office when talking about email.  What does this mean? 

To begin, I’ll define the context in which you probably heard it used. “Work Safe” is usually used in the context of personal email received in a work account.  This could be email forwards from your friends (which are usually pretty rampant), or any other email that contain non-work related information.  Most of the time, you are not the only one in the office, so a “Work Safe” email can be defined as an email that is able to be read by you at work without having to scurry to close a browser window, run to turn down the sound, or even shut your laptop down to stop the display on your screen.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that the email doesn’t contain something that could cause these actions; it just means that you knew that there might be problems before you opened the email, so you took the necessary precautions (headphones, etc.).

It is a good rule to follow when sending personal email to label it “Work Safe” or “Non-Work Safe” before you send it out.  This can save your friends a lot of embarrassment and possibly even save their jobs if the wrong person is walking by when they open the email.  You should always place this in the subject of the email, so your audience doesn’t have to actually open the email to find out.  ALWAYS specify if something may not be appropriate for work, I’ve seen people get into a lot of trouble for this kind of thing.  Even if you just send a link, make sure before you forward it on that you know if your friends are safe to open it.

Overall, if your email is not “Work Safe”, you probably should be sending to a personal account instead of a work account anyways.  However, if you are going to send it, make sure to be specific as to what the email contains.  This can save embarrassment, friendships, and even jobs (usually all of the above).