Resilience is about how you recharge… not how you endure. It is important to have a balance in your life and to set aside time to recharge, refresh and recover. This usually means having some form of work-life balance.
What works best will vary from person to person, but here are some suggestions for recharging:
- take regular breaks;
- create boundaries between work and home (whether this is physical or time-based boundaries);
- detach from work
- take your holidays
- avoid working long hours where possible;
- plan/schedule deliberate downtime.
Plan your Downtime
To create good habits – it is easier to actually plan out and schedule your downtime.
Here are some things you can do to fit in some downtime in your regular schedule:
- take regular breaks – I try to take a break between each “zone” / set of tasks – this will usually be in the form of grabbing a fresh drink. If I am working on something that needs a long block of time and there is no natural break I try to break at least every 90 minutes.
- Understand your natural rhythm. If you understand your productivity cycle you can do the challenging stuff when you are at your peak and have the most energy.
- Try not to schedule back to back meetings or if you do try and schedule your meetings (or offer your time) in blocks of 23 or 45 mins (instead of 30 and 60 minutes) so that you have micro-breaks between your commitments and have time to recharge and refresh.
Further reading: How to have a Good Day (Caroline Webb)
Prompt: Write a plan for how you can schedule some down time in your working week this week.