life & style diaries | march 20th
HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE, I thought I would dust off a little bit of colour for the occasion as here in the UK its supposed to be quite a sunny and bright weekend ahead. I managed to resist one of the three bottles of Jam Shed wine that my husband came home with after going food shopping last night. We’ve been trying to get our hands on some since we had Mexican night at our friends Vic & Alex’s aka Frow Home last week and we were not defeated in our quest so I did my best to save it for tonight as I’m really trying to be quite strict with myself with regards to my normal routines i.e. working Monday – Friday and then letting my hair down at the weekend, I just don’t want to lose my routines as I’d find it all too disruptive.
I’ve spoken a lot about routines across my channels over the years as its been one of my biggest struggles to get to grips with being in a job thats a little all over the place a lot of the time. So one of the big positives I’m taking from all this is the ability to improve on my routines even more, I know these aren’t huge positives for everyone but for me, someone who craves structure, it makes productivity hit an all time high. But I know that a lot of people will be struggling with functioning right now whether thats due to anxieties surrounding health or the lack of structure from not going to the office so, as a seasoned “Work-From-Homerer”, I thought I’d shed some light on how I create structure when there isn’t any.
SLEEP PATTERNS
If you have all of a sudden gone from working 9am-5pm in an office, to kind of making up your own rules working from home it can cause all the structure of your days to fall apart. Even in 2019, due to being unhappy with a number of things professionally, my structure, routine and balance fell apart and only now that I have a strong group of people working with me do I feel like I’m able to get on top of things, create structure and exercise boundaries. One of the main areas I had to focus on was my sleep and this is even more important now. Loosing your sleep pattern is something that I feel like I’m exceptionally good at, I’m one of those people who aren’t good at ANYTHING so we really have to scrape the bottom of the barrel when it comes to talents but royally messing up my sleeping pattern is definitely one of them. I can lose mine at the drop of a hat and in turn everything goes crashing down with it. I had to come up with a realistic way of sticking to bed times without them feeling too rigid by giving myself a 2 hour window so that I never feel too rushed and it still feels like I’m taking myself to bed when I want rather than it being restrictive. As long as i go to bed between 9pm and 11pm I run no risk of over sleeping/under sleeping and only ever have problems in the morning now if I have a bad nights sleep. It’s taken the pressure off going to sleep immensely and has made mornings far more manageable. Now the test we have right now is trying not to stay up too late watching every episode of whatever is binge worthy on Netflix.
PLANNING MY DAYS AND WEEKS
Writing down the plan for your day is going to really aid your productivity and making work loads more manageable for each day. I get over whelmed easily so writing everything down means that I know what I’m doing which reduces any anxiousness I feel over my workload because lets face it, we just don’t need more anxiousness right now.
Another good thing to plan into your days are breaks, regular breaks whether its coffee breaks or “Three Time Tea Time” that is a regular fixture in our house, taking regular breaks is important for clarity and reenergising yourself to tackle your next task. If you are safe and able to, get fresh air by walking around your garden or even just opening a window. But i must stress, only if you are safe, able and it falls within the parameters of your governments guidence.
CREATE A LOVELY WORKING ENVIRONMENT
There are really small things you can do to turn your working environment into a more relaxing or enjoyable space so that you feel better about working in it. I love playing my favourite classical artists at a nice low volume whilst either burning a candle or putting my favourite fragrance in to my diffuser, this brings me so much joy and are totally inexpensive which is always a bonus. If you worry about candles and safety or the smoke they give off. I recently picked up some candles from amazon that are made from real wax but are battery powered, its not exactly the same but still gives a lovely relaxing candle lit glow.
I’d also make sure your workspace is as comfortable and clear as possible. Tidy desk, tidy mind and all that!
WORKING HOURS
Wherever possible, stick to your normal working hours. When working from the place that you live, you don’t want to blur the line or even lose the line completely between it being your home and your place of work so as soon as the clock strikes 5pm (or whatever time you usually clock off) pack everything away nicely until the morning and get back to all those things you’ve been putting off doing around the house for so long.
Do you work from home? What are your best tips for making it manageable/enjoyable/structured? It’s taken me years to get to a point where I feel productive but I always feel like there’s areas to improve so any tips are so welcomed as well as any audio books you recommend for improving efficiency. Let me know in the comments below!
