Restructuring your work day

Yesterday, I wrote about replicating work life at home.

But, it’s also worth considering how you work best.

Take advantage of the time you have to experiment with how you structure your day.

Maybe you’ll find that:

You prefer to start at 7am instead of 9am

You’re more productive in the evening than the morning

You feel better when you take a break away from your laptop

You like to vary the hours you work day to day

It might seem pointless to change the way you work for this period of time. However, it is worth remembering that if you give yourself the chance to do things, in a way that suits you more, you’ll probably produce better results

Replicating work life at home

For a lot of people they will have reached a point where they have realised working from home just isn’t the same as being in the office.

Because it isn’t.

You might find yourself less focused, less productive and more distracted, especially if you live with other people.

And so it might be helpful to find ways to replicate how you feel at work in your home.

A few ideas are:

Create a suitable working space – Even if it’s just setting up at the dining table each day. Working from the sofa or your bed isn’t a suitable environment because they’re unlikely to places that you associate with work. Also it’s helpful to create some separation so that when you log off for the day you can move to the sofa to relax or tuck yourself into bed and read.

Get dressed – Not into your work clothes but wear something presentable instead if staying in your pyjamas or wearing a worn out pair of joggers.

Follow your usual routine – Whether that’s starting your day with a cup of tea at your desk, a mid morning snack, going through your inbox for the first 30 minutes of the day, having lunch at 1.30pm, whatever it may be.

Who you think you are

For many people if they give it some thought they’ll find that a large proportion of their character is based on who they think they are.

Often those opinions are made at a young age without any real judgement. Yet you carry them with you into adulthood without even checking to see if your mind has changed.

It could be something as simple as a food that you don’t eat. Perhaps as a child you weren’t willing to explore with what you ate so you told yourself ‘I’m not the kind of person that eats that kind of food’ or ‘I don’t like to experiment with what I eat, I just like simple food’. Twenty years later you’re still saying the same thing and maybe that’s true but maybe you haven’t changed.

We get so attached to the idea we create of who we think we are that we close ourselves off to anything that challenges that.

The new normal

Right now things might feel strange, they certainly don’t feel normal.

When we experience difficult or challenging situations so often we end up craving the way things were.

You might find yourself longing for the simple everyday things you used to do like working in an office building, travelling by train and seeing full shelves in the supermarket.

Once the situation passes you have to establish a new normal because challenges change you. It will be almost impossible to go back to the way things were because what you’re experiencing right now is significant.

We all have the opportunity to let this situation change us for the better. To become more resilient, self-aware and perhaps a little kinder or more thoughtful.

Gratitude through challenging times

I start each day with a gratitude practice of listing 10 things I am grateful for.

Things are changing quickly and becoming quite difficult in some ways. It can be difficult to keep up with gratitude through challenging times.

You might find yourself wondering what exactly there is to be grateful for in a time of such great uncertainty. But I find that if you focus on the good bits (no matter how small) there is always something to be grateful for. I have no doubt that before you know it you’ll have reached 10 things pretty easily.

It could be sunny weather, the people you live with, the food in your cupboards, your health, the smoothie you made, being able to communicate with loved ones far away, the fact that you’re able to work from home, the friend that sent you a song as a pick me up, the extra time you have now you’re no longer commuting to work or even your favourite (almost) daily blog.

It might be difficult to think of things when you’re fearful or overwhelmed but know that this the perfect time to put your daily gratitude practice into practice

Saying yes to exploration

The idea of exploring is one I don’t think is valued enough. I don’t mean travelling and exploring new countries or cities, I mean exploring self.

Being able to know your own limits whilst also being able to put yourself out there and experience new things.

It’s so easy to stay within the remit of what you know because there’s comfort in familiarity. However, it’s also worth considering when you don’t venture outside of that you lose the chance to learn about yourself about and understand yourself.

When you give yourself the opportunity to explore life a little more, you might find that you don’t actually believe the things you thought were true.

The dreamers curse

As a disclaimer I’d like to say that I’ve avoided writing this post because I don’t believe it’s healthy or helpful to identify with being cursed.

However, the title does have a nice ring to it so I couldn’t resist.

The dreamers curse is simply only having the ability to fulfill one half of the whole. To have dreaming ability in abundance with little capacity to get anything done.

It’s being in touch with your senses to the point where you can visualise with significant ease. Yet, when it comes to creating or making things happen you’re a boat with no oars, a floaty thing.

But if you’ve read a little bit of fiction then you’ll know that curses can be lifted.

People aren’t so rigid that they cant change, no matter how set in their ways they may be.