We here at the good ship Make Me A Plan are big fans of small ways of incorporating coping and managing techniques into everyday life; be that for your health, wellbeing, ability to thrive, feeling positive.

With the longest day of the year coming up this weekend, this Philosopher-in-Residence thought it would be a suitable interval to pop up with some tips for getting through any days that seem very long, or to be weighing heavy.

Here are the top five tips – please try just one of them, if this sounds like your day/week/month/life and I’d love to know how you get on.

1. If you’re overthinking or overwhelmed: stop thinking, just for a bit. Pick a random and easy activity that takes a few minutes. This could be doing the dishes so that’s not another area feeling like a task you have to do, something totally different like drawing a picture of a tree – it justs needs to be something that makes you concentrate on something else and away from the looming thoughts, just momentarily.
2. Write down something positive about yourself, on a piece of paper, and place it near where you are today, and keeping looking at it.
3. Coach yourself to think about time, rather than numbers. Zero inbox might not be feasible, but spending 20 minutes dealing with some emails might be. This way, you’re giving yourself a to do list that you can tick things off, a pat on the back rather than a frown on the forehead.
4. Delegate. Even if you don’t have a team, or assistant, if you have a ton to do, there is likely someone who is helping to generate this workload. Have the conversation with your kids about helping with the next laundry load. Pop on an email auto-reply explaining you’ve got a really high volume of emails currently.
5. There’s a reason “flogging a dead horse” is a turn of phrase. If you’re totally exhausted, and still crawling through housework or emails, you will be way less productive than you even realise, and making subsequent days worse as you exacerbate exhaustion. Take an hour’s proper break, and focus in on whether your work til you drop attitude is helping or hindering your wellbeing and outlook.

Next fortnight I’ll be writing On Me. Quite literally, you can ask me anything! Please get in touch with any particular aspects of this subject you’d like me to write about.

In the meantime,

Happy Planning

PS If you want some other free tips for your business life, check out the Working Well blog – out fortnightly on Wednesdays, courtesy of Make Me A Plan’s Productivity Expert, Pen Le Kelly. Browse the latest edition here:

https://www.makemeaplan.com/news/building-a-more-inclusive-workplace/