Most of us are now working from home or spending a lot of time in the home. For many this will be a new experience. Some of you may be enjoying it and for some it may be tough.
In many ways for me it is business as usual. Apart from when I go to teach at the Academy, I spent most of my day working from home before the lockdown.
I have also spent a lot of time working from home in previous roles, from corporate crisis management to consulting.
I have found that there are a few things that have made a difference:
- Getting up early.
- Start of the day routine – ‘Golden time’.
- Planning the day.
- End of the day routine.
Get up early
- I wake at 05.30.
- For me this is the Kings time of the day, before most people are up. It is peaceful and you can focus without interruption from colleagues, family members, emails or calls.
- Ceasar was famous for using this time to, ‘steal a march’ on his enemies. His ability to move his army vast distances in the early hours before dawn and be where the enemy did not expect him was legendary.
Golden time – about 90 mins:
- The first thing that I do is to pray or meditate for 5-10 mins. This cleans me internally relaxing and inspiring me.
- Mouthful by mouthful I slowly drink a bottle of water.
- I do some physical and breathing exercise to open up, stretch, relax and fill the body with breath. This doesn’t need to be a lot. Just 10 mins is fine. I usually run through the Systema pillars and a little ground movement.
- I then do a task that involves creativity or motivation to do, such as creative writing, business planning, solving a problem etc. I find that I am most focused and creative at this time of day. This is usually about an hour to 90 mins.
- Cold douse – Before the lockdown this would have been a shower, but now I leave a bucket of water out over night and then douse with it before I go in to break fast.
I find that this routine really sets me up for the day. I sometimes feel as though I have done a full days work before most people are out of bed. Don’t get me wrong, 05.30 hasn’t always been easy, but now I don’t even use an alarm, I wake naturally at this time. N.B sometimes I will sleep in till 6 or even 6.30. I don’t mind this as it means I needed it.
I then go back into the house and break fast with the family at about 07.30.
At about 08.30 I go back to my office. I know that I am very fortunate to have a separate office, but even if you don’t, try to have a habitual space in the house that is work, rather than sitting on a sofa with a laptop. It is good to separate work and home. It means that at the end of the day you can, ‘leave’ work.
Daily planner.
- I think that there is truth in the saying that if you don’t plan your day, someone else will.
- A plan leaves you less stressed. You can of course deviate from it, but at least then you know where you are deviating from and where you are going back to.
- I schedule my day in 30 minute slots. Obviously some tasks will take up a little less, some a little more. You also have the pleasure of crossing things off and seeing what you have achieved by the end of the day. Things that get scheduled may typically be things like:
- Content writing
- Calls
- Reading an article or studying a video
- Teaching
- Training etc.
- As well as work tasks I also schedule in reading time, downtime such as walking the dog, and spending time with Sarah and the children.
- I sometimes take a short nap no longer than 15 mins.
- I also see the wisdom in resting and recharging 1 day in 7. A Wednesday or a Sunday is this day for us as a family.
End of the day.
- My office work day finishes at about 16.30 and the final thing I do is a, ‘brain dump‘.
- All of the unfinished work, questions, threads and wisps of ideas that are running around my head get added to my, ‘to do’ list. This helps to stop them running around my mind when I leave the office and I can focus on time with the family.
- I then schedule the next day so that the following morning I hit the ground running and don’t have to spend the golden time figuring out what to do.
Of course this routine sometimes slips, but I would comfortably say it is in place 80% of the time and that is enough.
I hope that you found the odd useful tip in there.
I’d love to hear if you have any things that you do differently.
My very best wishes for your health and training,
Matt.
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