You know the saying about putting your own life mask on first, when its like that when managing teams as well as in life. I really wish I had considered and prioritised self care earlier in my career.
It’s so important to take care of yourself - we are not machines after all. If we are in good physical and mental shape we are able to give our best at work and not deplete ourselves in the process.
Four things I wish I had done from day one:
1) Guard lunchtime - away from your desk and always taken, it's a crucial recharge point in the day. Set the tone by not booking over lunch meetings and making sure your team is taking breaks through the day. Eating at your desk is such an easy habit to get into - don’t let it happen.
2) Regular exercise - before or after work but make it happen, once our work takes over it is so hard to get this habit back but make it a required part of your day in whatever way works for you e.g. step counts, cycle commute, gym before work - but fit it in most days.
3) Leave on time - the awful concept of presenteeism can mean many of us are feeling we must remain at our desks to be seen to do the work. This can be a hard habit to break, but one way of controlling this is always leaving at a set time. Do good work then stop, you will never get to the end anyway so don’t let work time bleed into home time. Again a great message and demonstration for your team. Worth knowing too that if you and your team can’t complete your work in contracted hours then you need to either do things differently, stop doing them or get more staff. Good for you to know where your team and workload are at.
4) Schedule holidays in advance - if you can this is a great way to make sure you have regular breaks across the year. When my husband was a teacher this was my first action back in the new holiday year and it really helped to space out work, projects and rest. Encourage your team to do the same.
Idea
What if you built in your breaks and downtime at the start of the month into your calendar as non movable appointments?
Action
Next month plan out all breaks, lunch, holidays, exercise, end times and rests - set them as unbreakable appointments and fit your work around them. How did it work? How did it feel? What is it telling you? Act on this knowledge.
Reading
Tamu Thomas - Women who work too much
Josh Cohen - Not working
Grace Beverley - Working Hard, hardly working
Photo by Ava Sol on Unsplash