10 Tips to Make Working from Home Easier

I hope you are claiming some benefits during this time of COVID-19 lockdowns and keeping yourself attuned to a peaceful frequency as much as can be. Feeling your feelings too of course.  But as many of us are working from home, I am sharing what I’ve learned to make it simpler and more effective, with less stress. 

I’ve been working on Master Your Mind and I guess I’ll publish it on Friday but I’ll let you know. I wanted to put it out asap to help everyone during this time, sharing what I do and have done since I was twenty four to create peace within. And manifest. The subtitle for it is create peace within. Although I do share how I manifest and all I’ve learned about this, especially in the last few years since the brain surgery.

I know it’s a very uncertain time. But so is having stage IV breast cancer for three years! If I was to dive too much into the worst-case scenarios, I don’t think I’d have beat it. Or at least I’d have felt very worried and anxious through the process. Tune the world out to tune into what you desire. Of course take the precautions and action steps. But there’s such a thing as information overload as well. And we are the creators of our own reality. What matters is what’s going on right here right now, in your world. And so I bring you..
 
10 Tips to make Working from Home Easier

It’s been 7 years I’ve been working from home or  almost 14 if you include when I was working on Wonderlust. There are many things I wish I’d known to make it easier when I was working in my coaching business. I was overloaded and stressed and so I share with you the following in the hope that it helps you too. 

1. Structure

Before I had a morning routine that used to run until mid-morning and then I’d be stressed and always chasing my tail. Now I have a more succinct morning routine, getting up by 6 or 6.30 and starting by 8/8.30am. Then I work until lunchtime with a break after 90 minutes for fruit and standing in the sunshine. Other things that are structured for me include when I go to the supermarket (Tuesday late afternoon), when I buy fresh produce (Monday lunchtime) and then I make do with what I have for the week. 

2. Routine

I eat the same breakfast every day and pretty much the same lunch, plus wear the same clothes for two days in a row. I write my museletters every Tuesday afternoon a and do writing work in the morning. Routine reduces stress by cutting down on the number of decisions we have to make, our mental load, and it gives us more energy and space for creativity. I also use apps to help me with this. One is To Do and there I put lists of regular things I have to do. Like shopping lists so I can just mark off what I need or when I had certain kinds of Jobs to do on a Monday, for example, I’d put it and mark it off there. It takes a little preparation but once you’ve done it, you have a system. 

3. Priorities

There is usually one thing that is most important to do. Make a to do list, tackling the most important job first, when willpower, energy and focus are high.Usually I’ll get two or three main things done during the day.Ticking lists (achieving goals) actually produces dopamine, the feel-good chemical, in our brains and makes us feel successful and happy.

4. Simplicity

Every day I pretty much make a salad with beans and whatever else I have for lunch. It’s important to not eat too much as this makes us tired. With blood sugar levels out of whack, our liver and pancreas are also working to control this and not processing hormones properly, as I learned in Womancode by Alisa Viti. Another idea is to make up a hearty soup once a week and then freeze some. Other things I keep simple during my work day are the clothes, jewellery and make up I wear. It’s pretty repetitive and minimal. 

5. Focus

I keep my phone on flight mode until lunch time and there are no notifications that come up on my laptop except text messages. I know it can be a challenge to focus in our world of swiping. I’ve been finding that reading more books is making me that much more focused too. Focus by working out the blocks of time you are working in and then don’t waver. Sometimes I’ll stand up and walk around or go to the mirror and pluck, but that actually helps to get more inspired. In five minutes, I’m back at work. 

6.  Schedule

When something is on your schedule, you know it’s going to happen. This reduces stress because it means you don’t have to do everything today. Every few months I’ll make a new schedule for myself on the electronic one. I could be using this more but it’s already an improvement. I schedule in my fitness time and leave time for relaxing. So I know if I don’t go to the gym on a Tuesday or Thursday evening and yoga on the Wednesday, it’s not going to happen because Monday and Friday evenings are for relaxing.

7. Movement

Be sure to include movement in your day, especially before starting work. I always stretch and before I’d walk down the street to the cafe but now I go for a walk/run round the block before starting and maybe down to the cafe later to pick up a coffee or a walk at lunchtime. Also getting up and stretching throughout the day and taking breaks is important. I am no fitness guru but I’ll do some squats or lunges while waiting for the coffee to boil, for example. 

8. Air

Be sure to have the window open a crack. It’s important. Oxygen energises the brain. I do find I work better with fresh air coming in. If you aren’t able to go outside, open the window in the morning and yell “Good morning!” Haha. Only if you want to. You could also whisper it.

9. Preparation

A guy I dated used to say “preparation is key” and though it annoyed me at the time and I thought it was super boring, he was actually right. Things I prepare in advance now include setting my supplements out once a week. If I don’t do this, I forget to take them. Usually I do this on a Sunday evening. I’m sure people go as far as setting out the clothes they are going to wear the next day. But I am not that person. Still, whatever I can prepare in advance helps. And yes, it’s scheduled in. 

9. Goals

Write out your goals for the week.  There is perhaps one top one and two others. I put this for the week of my physical schedule to keep the focus. Then I have other lists of more long-term goals on my pin-up board. Right now I have lists of Books I’m Writing, Books I’ve read in 2020, My Desires and a list of Work goals and Personal goals. It’s fun to check them off as I complete them, but I’m not in a rush, just doing it as they come. Writing it down is half the work done and it gets it out of our heads for more focus, creativity and freedom. 

10. Limits

When the day is done, the work is over. Switch off. You’re done! This was one I was never good at running my coaching business and found myself working all the time. Now I have once a day when I post on social media (3.30pm or around then) and that’s the only time I check it. The other important thing is to not do your housework or beauty while working. Schedule that in too. Perhaps some people do find it relaxing to  sweep up as a break, but if we are constantly thinking about what needs doing, it’s very stressful. I put the blinkers on and focus on my work when I’m working. 

My dear, I don’t know if this is all just plain obvious but it wasn’t for me. In fact, the only book I read for a year after the brain surgery was L’Art de la Simplicité and have been applying it ever since.

Before I go, did you get your FREE Release Your Feelings Guide?

Let me know if you did and also which of these ten tips was most helpful or what you do to work with focus and ease. 

I wish you a wonderfully productive and easeful week and look forward to letting you know about Master Your Mind as soon as it’s out. 

Lots of love,

Mireille xx