Avoiding Time Confetti to Dial-Up your Wellbeing Efforts
When you are busy juggling multiple demands at work, there is often no time to look after yourself. Here are six tips, to help you, courtesy of Wellbeing Specialist, Lauren Parsons.
1. Daily Non-Negotiable
Make an appointment in your calendar (and set an alarm in your phone) to get out for that 15-minute walk, sit and eat lunch in a relaxed setting, or read your book for 10 minutes with your favourite cuppa. Small breaks in the day help your biochemistry reset and switch you out of fight-or-flight mode, that demands, and deadlines can trigger.
2. Avoid Time Confetti
Block chunks of focused time to work on key projects to avoid days filled with time confetti (where you shred useful blocks of time into tiny pieces). Switch off all alerts and remove visual distractions. Set a countdown timer and get in flow on that key project so you can knock it out of the park. When you’re done, ‘snack on exercise’ or have a dance party. Movement boosts your mood and energy ready for the next block of focused work.
3. Celebrate the Small Stuff
Sign off the day by sharing your wins with a colleague (or your notebook.) Reflect on the day’s highlights. This doubles your happiness factor as your brain doesn’t distinguish between these great things happening and you reliving them
4. Set Clear Boundaries
Clearly and respectfully communicate your boundaries. These can be things like staying off your work phone on Sundays; not checking emails before 8am or after 6pm or on the weekends; only attending meetings with clear purpose and agenda.
5. Dial the Right Things Up and Down
Sick of listening to negative news on repeat, doom scrolling or watching people’s highlight reels on social media? Take practical steps to limit the negatives. Choose one reliable source of news and tune in just once a day, once a week, or whatever frequency suits you. Remove social media from your phone and access it only via your laptop. On the flipside, ring-fence time for uplifting content such as inspiring TED talks, podcasts, and articles.
6. Switch on Your Internal Motivation
Want to nail that fitness habit? Rather than picturing yourself out there pounding the pavement – your lungs aching, muscles burning, instead, picture yourself running back up the driveway feeling proud, elated, and energised. You need to ‘picture the satisfied feeling of completion’ to switch on your motivation to get started. This works for anything you’re putting off. Imagine the joy of working at that decluttered desk, holding the published book in your hands, or getting those tax records sent off.
Which of these six tips will you start with?
As always if you need help implementing a wellbeing strategy as part of your health and safety improvement do not hesitate to reach our. Click here to contact us.
Date Posted: 09 September 2022