Topics Covered This Week

Take some simple steps now to avoid the dreaded burn out.

Working from home means the temptation to quickly check your emails is more tempting than ever.

In this episode I detail 8 ways to make working from home that little bit healthier and sustainable.

• Refill creative well
• Discipline colleagues and managers
• Routine
• Exercise
• Fresh air and diet and hydration 
• Own productivity secret
• Interaction
• Avoid burn out

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I help newbie writers and mid-lifers gain the skills and confidence to take their passion for words to the next level, with practical steps and motivation, enabling them to find balance and take back control of their life.

I’ve reinvented my life and help other creatives do the same, building their writing confidence, alongside improving skills in social media, organisation and online business.

If they do all this with a back pack I celebrate with a brew (tea of course!)

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Hello. It’s the 11th of October as I’m recording this in 2020, and we’re on episode nine and this one is not specific to midlife, but I think it’s really relevant and I’ve titled it. 

‘Why taking time off is more important than ever’

and really that’s exactly what I’m going to talk about. That whilst we’re in this Corona/Covid crisis, dilemma, situation, whatever you prefer to call it, we’re often working from home or in different routines. 

The temptation is when you’re working from home, not to take as much time off as you should. It can be very easy to get into a sort of settled routine of picking up your phone, your tablet, sitting down with your laptop, whatever it may be, and just sort of checking your email. 

It might be while somebody’s cooking tea and the kids are watching telly, but you pick up your computer.

It might be that if your kids have all left home and you’re a later mid-lifer that you think, well, I haven’t got much else to do. I might as well work. 

That’s a really dangerous road to go down because you’ve not got that commute into the office. You haven’t got that work separation. 

A lot of people now are beginning to realise that actually they need to go to a workspace. If you’re somebody who invest in stocks and shares investing in companies that make home offices might be the ideal thing to invest in at the moment, because there’s definitely going to be a growth area in that over the next few years. 

As people realise that working from home is an amazing opportunity and it does require some form of separation if you can afford it, and if you can do it. 

I’ve got a few points that I’ve just scribbled down to run through with you. As you know I’m a social media person.

You know, I am, I’m a keen enthusiastic for it. I firmly believe it’s got real energy and social influence and power, in a good way. Obviously it has negative connotations as well.

The social media around entrepreneurship, around working from home, around any stage of your life really is that you should be constantly striving for something else. 

You should be striving for that Instagrammable kitchen picture or the amazing house with the pool in the garden, or even just working from home. 

You know, it should, you should, have all the accessories that it needs, and you should be able to only work three hours a week. There is actually a book on four hour work week, and it’s this constant striving for something new that again is a bit of a dangerous tendency. 

I want you to realise that you don’t have to constantly be striving.

The one advantage of the pandemic and the lockdown has been that actually people have been able to take a little bit of a step back reprioritise and reassess what’s important to them. 

One – 

Regards taking time off, one of the first things is to discipline your colleagues and your managers, people that you work with and your clients, that there are certain times when you won’t be available. 

It doesn’t mean that you’re not caring or that you’re not committed or you’re not professional. It just means that certain times, it may be a certain time of day, a certain day of the week or multiple days of the week. You could set an out of office on your email. You don’t have to totally neglect people, but you need them to be aware that if they contact you, you may not reply that minute. 

And I don’t think that’s unreasonable.

Some employers are very highly demanding, but they must accept that when you’re working from home, you still have got a routine. 

You have got your priorities, your family, your own mental health, your downtime. 

You’ve got to be able to prioritise that. 

So work something out with your managers and your colleagues as to when your downtime will be and try and stick to it because it’s no good saying to your manager, ‘I’m never available on Tuesday’ and then using your Tuesday to catch up on all your emails and sending them out that day because you’re giving mixed messages. 

You can do the work that day, which I would strongly recommend you don’t, but you can always schedule work for other days of the week. 

Two – 

is to refill the creative well on a regular basis, make time for creative activities, whether that be reading, whether it be fishing, whatever fills your creative well and replenishes your soul.

If you like to call it that make time for that. Schedule into your diary. If that’s the type of thing you have to do to keep on track with that, get a new routine. 

It’s very easy when you’re in a difficult, you might be settling into it now, but when you’re in a difficult situation, it’s very easy to sort of make do, and constantly be running on that hamster wheel to catch up. 

Three – 

So try and get a routine that suits you find out. 

If you’re a morning person, are you a night person? 

When is your most creative and productive time of day? So find that out. And if you come work to those hours, try and work to it. You know, you might not have to all the time because you may have other people on the phone and zoom meetings, et cetera, but try as much as you can to get your new routine.

My next point is really important. 

Four – 

Physical exercise and posture for your health. This is a massive area where working from home can be very detrimental to your longterm wellbeing. 

A lot of people are sat in bed doing the laptop thing, the not sort of taking care of the posture like you would if you were sat in an office chair. If you’re doing something where you’ve not got Health and Safety reps on site, the temptation is to be a bit slack with that. 

I’m a firm believer in doing things where you feel comfortable. Different writers I know, you know, some write in bed, some in the chair, some sat on a yoga ball. Some people have standing desks again, standing desk is another growth market because more and more people are realising that the they’re not getting out and about. 

It’s very difficult in lockdown to get physical exercise, but make sure that you do look after your physical wellbeing.

Five – 

the one that follows on from that is mealtimes and fresh air, try and get some fresh air, open a window if you have to in the middle of winter to get fresh air. 

If you can’t get out and about every day, get the fresh air into you because it really is important. 

Mealtimes and water as well. If you are working from home, you might think, well, I’ll just check my email while I’m eating my cereal or I’ll just run this program while I’m eating my lunch. 

You need to have some defined mealtimes, especially if you live with family and you know, you need to make time for them. Maybe have the rule that applies to you as well as you kids that know no phones at the table.

Wherever that may be, but make sure you have at least once a day, a proper meal time where you sit down and you concentrate on what you’re eating. 

Obviously drink plenty of drinks and fresh water, not alcohol, but fresh water.

Six – 

Following on from routine is finding your own productivity secrets. 

You might not have had the opportunity to do this if you’ve been working for an employer for a long time, but you might discover that actually, by getting up an hour earlier, you’re really productive for the first three hours of the day. 

It might be that you’re a night owl and it suits you better to do work late at night. Find your own time. That suits you. 

If you feel that you’re a bit sloppy around the edges, get up, get dressed, get your make-up on, have a shave. 

Do your hair, do whatever you need to do to get your routine and feel as if you’re actually professional. 

That can be a mindset help, if you’re in your yoga pants and your sloppy sweatshirt, you might not feel professional enough to do that professional approach on an email.

So find out what your secrets are that you need to increase your productivity. 

When do you need to work? 

Where do you need to work? Are you better at a desk or are you better in the kitchen cabinet or at the kitchen table or whatever.

Plan your day out and take lots of breaks and make sure you schedule those in. 

It could be that you have a beeper on your computer. That every hour it makes you get up and walk around the room or look out the window while you make a cup of tea, whatever it may be, but find your own productivity secrets because no one else can find those out for you. 

That’s something you need to find out on your own.

I’ve got two more points that I want to cover because I do feel that these are important as well.

Seven – 

interact with your community. 

A lot of mid-lifers on their own quite a bit. 

It might be that they both work full time, so one’s out and about. 

The kids might be at school. The kids may have left, might be at university. 

It’s very difficult at the moment to advise on sort of how much time you’ve got with family and friends. 

Being forced together, doesn’t always mean you’re spending quality time with them. 

You can get under each other’s feet without actually communicating in a really in depth way. So maybe mealtimes are an ideal time to do it, but make time for your family, friends, and community. Maybe set up a little reminder to yourself, to reach out to somebody every day, whether that’d be a colleague or a friend, and just send an email and say, you know, are you okay today?

That encourages interaction, and if you do feel the need to get support, please reach out. 

Know that there are people out there you’ve just got to reach out and find them. 

Eight – 

The main reason I wanted to do this podcast episode was about burnout. 

It’s something that a lot of people are seeing at the moment or tackling because they’re not getting the time off that they used to have. They’re not getting that hour to drive to work, in that hour to drive home or on the train that can often be your wind down mechanism. 

You might have listened to books or podcasts on your way home. Or you might have just had that hour to yourself where you could sit and just think, and you don’t get that now. 

So it’s very tempting to just be constantly on that hamster wheel and you will burn out.

It’s not sustainable. So make time now, so that longterm you can carry on and achieve what you want to achieve. 

That might be a different job. 

It might be a different career. 

The situation at the moment, that we’re in, is giving a lot of people time to sit back and reassess everything and I’m a firm believer in that. 

And you know, that I’ll help you. 

I do 1-2-1 coaching with people who want to pivot and turn.

I’ve got a lot of experience going through that myself, so I know exactly how it is. 

I know that sometimes you can’t see the wood for the trees and just getting outside to talk about it can really help, but please try and follow some of these tips. 

I’d love to know which one’s been most helpful and how you’re going to sort of reassess,  do a sort of mini Health and Safety assessment, how you like your own situation and how you’re working and what routines you’ve got into. 

Okay. 

So thank you for joining may stay well, make sure you take time off and I’ll catch you again soon.