Jump Start: Self Care September: Day 8
It’s a new week for our Jump Start month, and it’s also time for a change of theme. Welcome to Get Organised & Get Motivated Week, where we’ll be looking after ourselves in the workplace and in our personal lives.
Here’s a day-by-day schedule for the week:
- Shorten your To-Do list (see below)
- Bust your backlogs
- Fast and slow day
- Do one scary thing
- ‘No’ is okay day
- Tea break dreaming
- No motivation required
Let’s start with today’s activity, which is to Shorten your To-Do List in the workplace and hopefully reduce your work-related stress levels at the same time. A very long daily task list is a daily task list that almost certainly isn’t going to get completed – so today it’s time to put a stop to this. If you can’t physically get through it, then don’t demoralise yourself unnecessarily. There are only so many hours in the day, and most of us could do with improving our work-life balance.
So, first thing this morning, divide your day’s working hours onto four sections, then pick one main task to concentrate on, plus two secondary tasks, and also allow for a decent-sized block of admin. I read somewhere recently that most of us grossly underestimate the amount of administrative and/or relatively mundane work we actually need to do each day, and that’s probably true. In the past, I’ve been guilty of forgetting to schedule it in at all on some days…not any more though.
The other thing you need to commit to today is to leave on time (unless there’s a genuine emergency). Get your important tasks, including your admin, out of the way and then go home at a sensible hour.
Forget about that extended To-Do list that’s been getting you down for the evening. You’ve tackled the priority tasks, so it should be under control. If you’re just in the habit of worrying about these things then relax, there’s some good news for you: we’ll be burning through the backlogs tomorrow.
By the way, if you can’t choose your own schedule for tasks during working hours (e.g emergency services, production lines, caring professions, in education etc) then you might like to try an alternative activity. Schedule an hour today for ‘home administration’ instead: filing/paying bills, making health appointments, tidying up and/or doing housework, and so on. All those things we tend to put off but we’re really glad once we’ve got them out of the way. Focus on these tasks, setting a timer if necessary – you’ll be amazed how much you can get out of the way in 60 minutes while the clock is ticking.
