7 Ways to Prevent Illness
With cold and flu season about to hit the Midwest hard, and members of my team already catching the bugs that are going around, here are a few ways to avoid (or at least prolong) the germy season
Get a flu shot – an ounce of preventive medicine never hurt anyone, and getting a flu shot is an easy and affordable way to prevent the bugs from gripping you.
Stop shaking hands – one of the other managers at my firms stops shaking hands in late October, and doesn’t shake hands again until March, to avoid spreading anything with his team and the other managers.
Wash your hands frequently – Take a few extra opportunities every day to wash your hands can make sure the hands you shake don’t shake your core and send you off to bed
Use hand sanitizer – If you can’t wash your hands as often as you’d like, or if you spend a lot of time traveling or in board rooms, put some hand sanitizer in your pocket and use it frequently to slow the spread down
Clean the telephone handset – the grossest place on many people’s desks is their telephone handset. Take 15 minutes today to de-dunk it and clean the ear boogers off to make your handset just a little cleaner
Use a headset – Better than cleaning your handset is using a headset. This will stop bugs from living on for years to come. Make sure you turn the headset away when you need to cough
Clean your coffee cup – How long has your coffee cup been sitting at your desk? Take it home today, run it through the dish washer or wash it with very hot water and soap and get it super clean.
What are you best tips on preventing the cold and flu season from debilitating yourself and your team?
Photo credit to Rogue Sun Media
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POSTED IN: management hack
2 opinions for 7 Ways to Prevent Illness
Darth Sidious
Nov 13, 2008 at 8:39 am
Well when I’m on my private Imperial Cruiser I have very little overlap of facilities with other people, so it’s not much of a problem.
But when I go to a germ infested Death Star with thousands of people contained in one area, and all those hands touching the same things… it just freaks me out.
Though I haven’t gotten sick in a long time. The #1 transmitter of the cold is door handles. So watch out for high usage door handles (e.g. bathroom doors, or major entrance doors)… I’ll either pull down my sleeve enough to cover some fingers, or just use my pinky finger to turn a door handle.
Once on your hand, the cold virus needs you to touch your nose or your eye to get inside. So, the other thing you can do is to keep your hand away from your face.
Holly
Nov 13, 2008 at 10:47 am
I am a self proclaimed germophob, but I think it’s a little excessive to stop shaking hands. With flu season coming up, I try to take precautions, but I’m a little skeptical on the flu shot. I work for a staffing company, Hollister where they are offering all their employees the flu shot, but I’m not sure if I’m going to get it based on conflicting opinions, but I think it’s great that they are offering it.
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