Bonjour. In this video, I want to share one simple suggestion that can make a big difference to your well-being.
Due to COVID, many people are working from home, either a few days per week or every day. At the beginning most people were quite pleased about it as it meant: less commuting, being on time for dinner with the kids, and less distractions.
Then reality kicked in. A lot of people I’ve spoken to have said that it has not been as ‘exciting’ as it sounded at the beginning. I have found that many people are working the same amount of hours, in fact some people are even working more.
Crazy…
One of my clients expressed their concerns and has come to the conclusion that ‘the main issue from working at home is that very often my work bleeds into my personal life.’
I asked for clarification on what they meant by ‘bleeds into my personal life.’
‘Well’ she said ‘I now work from home. In the evening at six o’clock which is the time I would like to finish my working day; it is very easy to push it little bit more and work a little longer. Before you know it, it’s 7:00, 7:30, sometimes 8pm. There is always an email to finalize or an urgent request to respond to. This is what I mean by my work bleeds into my personal life’.
Let me make a few suggestions: close, check, disconnect.
Close – the last thing you should do during your working day is to close the loops. Check what you had planned to do but didn’t get round to. Then write it down. The last thing you want is an hour later worrying because you have forgotten something important. Write it down and action it the next day.
Check – have a quick look at your calendar for the next day: what time you are starting, what you have on etc.
Disconnect – spend five to ten minutes at the end of your working day to disconnect. For the people commuting back home it could mean listening to some relaxing music on the bus or reading a good book on the train. One of my clients who works from home has decided to have a quick walk around the block.
Put this ritual in your calendar. Decide what time you are going to stop working every day. Create a recurrent meeting and write down what you will do to close, check and disconnect.
The rules of work smarter: live better are as important if not more during Covid. In the last few months I have been asked to conduct many workshops on not only working smarter, but working smarter remotely, or actually working smarter hybrid. If this could be of interest for you and your team, drop me an email.
This is this week’s
Work Smarter: Live Better tip. I hope you enjoy it.
A bientôt
Cyril
