Are you feeling the January blues? It’s bleak outside, and you’re lacking the motivation to kick start your New Year resolutions plus you’re stuck at home working. Without the re-assuring repetitiveness of your daily commute and the friendly banter from your co-workers, you may be feeling down and demotivated.
Here are some tips to help you cope with January blues:
Set New Year Goals
Make sure that you understand what your longer-term goal is and the impact you are looking for. Ensure your goals are manageable and achievable. This will help you make a start, and it increases the likelihood of you sustaining the effort beyond the first few weeks of the new year.
Create a routine
Structure makes our brains happy because the patterns allow our brain to go into autopilot. Establishing a set routine (with some room for flexibility) will give your day some structure. This should make you more efficient, productive and hopefully more at ease in these uncertain times.
Be Prepared
Feeling as prepared as possible will also help you feel less nervous and more confident. At the beginning of each week, make a work schedule. Of course, things are bound to come up at the last moment but outlining a list of tasks will stop you from feeling overwhelmed. Schedule no more than 90% of your time instead of 100%; some unexpected tasks are bound to appear, and some jobs take longer than expected. Remember, planned flexibility is part of being prepared.
Have a designated workspace
Working in bed may be comfortable in the beginning but it also leads to back issues in the long run. And working in bed probably won’t put your mind in ‘work mode’, so try and set a special work area. If you don’t have a desk, the dining room table or even the sofa are better places to work than your bed.
Get outdoors
Seeing the same four walls non-stop isn’t good for anyone. Exercising outdoors will stop you feeling lethargic from sitting on your rump all day. Try and go for a walk or a run early before the start of the day or at lunchtime to refresh yourself in the middle of the day.
Stick to your work hours
Finally, we’re all aware of how bad screen time can be for your health. So, unless you have a particular deadline that you need to hit, you should stick to your structured work hours as much as possible. It’s important to be able to relax after your workday and not keep thinking about work. This is easier to do if you shut the laptop and ignore your emails from the moment your workday ends.
These tips should get you over the January blues and get your new year off to a productive start. Let us know if you have any tricks and tips you use to get over the winter blues in the comments below.