Working from home lets your day get hijacked by notifications. Pick 3 to 5 self-care activities the night before, from your list of about twenty options like meditation, exercise, or journaling. Schedule calming ones before stressful meetings and restorative ones after, then bookmark your day with a morning thing that excites you and an evening ritual that marks completion.
Chapters
Hi guys, today is Friday. We're all excited about the week that just came to an end. Well, the week, the work week, that is right. But does it even feel the same? Does it even feel— do you still feel that angst or that sense of relief that you once felt when you actually had to go to a 9 to 5, which I know that there are people, you know, essential workers who were still doing that. Um, but you know, for the majority of us, we are working from home. So does it still feel like the work week per se? So today I want to talk about just briefly, um, about being intentional about your day. You know, a lot of times we all wake up with the intention of, you know what, I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to work out. I'm going to, you know, I'm just going to have a good day. Right. But we really only think about the first couple of things in the morning. We generally don't think about how do I create a, like the whole day? How do I create a great day? Not just a great morning, because immediately, you know, most of us get up, we grab our phones and then we are, you know, we become reactive to the things that are, you know, coming into our phone, whether it's answering emails, whether it's, oh, so-and-so didn't give me a like on my, my social media post, right? And so I feel like where our day is already hijacked, and sometimes that can set us up to, to be just pissed off the rest of the day because we started the day off on the wrong foot, right? So something that I like to do that I find works really, really well for me is I love a sense of anticipation. You guys have heard me talk about this before, anticipating what's to come. And so one thing that I'm working on is actually balancing out that the trip that I'm anticipating ends up being, you know, the best trip ever. Like I, I'm working on balancing out the level of anticipation and the outcome of the actual like vacation trip. But you know, every day in our lives, we can actually kind of feel like we're on vacation, even if we're going to work, right? Because there are certain things that you do on vacation or that you do when you just don't have to go into work that are just for you. Right. So for instance, if, um, you know, like I like to start my day off with, you know, some meditation, some journaling, some gratitude. I, you know, I say my prayers. I like to start my day off on a right positive foot. And then there are also things that, like, times during my day when I, like, I, I'm a napper. And so my body tells me, hey, you didn't sleep so good last night, so this is probably a good time to lay down and take a nap. So sometimes I like to take a nap. What also makes me feel good is eating clean, getting up and doing a workout, especially early, you know, whether it's cardio or strength training. You know, I love all those things. Sometimes I just love to have a beer. So the way I proactively plan out my day is let's say I have 3 to 5 activities that, you know, I have this list that I've created where I have 20 different activities and I'm going to pull from that list 3 to 5 things the night before. I'm going to go, OK, I know I have this tough meeting tomorrow. I know I have something that's probably not going to, you know, set me off on a right positive foot. Something that might get a little bit under my skin, might create some anxiety. So instead of meditating in the morning, maybe I'm going to meditate right before that meeting. And then right after that meeting, maybe I'm going to switch my thinking and immediately go into a nap if I'm at home, because once I go into a nap, I know that I'm not thinking about that meeting anymore and it's gone. Right. And so I proactively bookmark my day also, you know, just kind of like, you know, you have something that you're going to do in the morning because that gets you excited to get out of bed in the morning. So if all you're thinking about is just waking up and going to work and not doing anything for yourself, for your self-care, for your wellbeing, then it's probably a good time to, to analyze if that's working for you. So I like to do something in the morning so that I can have that to look forward to. I do something, I bookmark, you know, like the bookends of the day between a major assignment or activity that I have to get done. And I also like to do something at night, you know, like today is Friday. One of the things I'm looking forward to is I'm going to have a craft beer tonight. And so it's Friday, it's the weekend. I feel a sense of completion. I feel a sense of success with all the things that I've, that I've gotten done this week. And I have learned to celebrate even the small things. So what are you doing in order to ensure, in order to be proactive as far as getting things done in your day and making it feel like every single day you're on vacation? What are you doing? How are you working that out? Thanks, guys. Hope you have an excellent weekend. See you soon. Peace. Later.
