5 tips for a productive lockdown
Hello,
Happy Monday my lovelies, I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and had a special day yesterday. I spent my Valentine's day with my best friend, watching Netflix, catching up and eating some good food! I definitely don't mind being single this year!
Now that my birthday week is over, my best friend had her birthday and Valentine's day is too, I am back to focusing on my goals and reaching for the stars. I have one more special person's birthday to celebrate this month but I can't celebrate in way I'd hope too, so I am saving all of my happiness for when I can shower him in surprises.
This lockdown, Lockdown 3.0 as it's called in England absolutely sucks! The coldness, the dark days and the never-ending feeling of gloom doesn't help. I feel as though we are all sick of the news, sick of watching people break the rules for no reason other than their own selfishness and we are absolutely sick to the back teeth of it being so bloody cold!
I have five tips to share with anyone who is looking to become more productive during this lockdown because let's be honest, we don't know when this will actually end! We might as well make some good out of a shitty situation.
5 tips for being more productive during lockdown
1. Plan your tasks
Planning your week and separating your most important tasks from tasks that can be done at a later date make it so much easier for you to be productive. From having a to-do list on my desk to my Goal setter planner from Mal Paper which keeps my daily tasks at check point helps to keep me at my most productive. Make sure you plan your whole week ahead, two weeks in advance if you can, work out what's urgent, when you have the time to do them, what other appointments you have which may need to take priority etc. You should then have a steady plan on what you're doing that week and hopefully have a balance of free time as well as work time.
2. One task at a time
The tip is to not make yourself feel overwhelmed. Now that we have our tasks laid out in front of us, this can help break that down. Feeling overwhelmed and unproductive is the worst combination because you then feel guilty about not doing enough. Try and set one main task for the morning and two-three smaller tasks, take a break and do the same for the afternoon. Breaking them up helps to keep you focused but it's also a good idea to remind yourself not to overwork, because it'll have the opposite effect.
3. Keep a normal routine
Lockdown or not, we should all have a routine. Having a normal, healthy routine is the most important step to avoiding feeling unmotivated. Try to wake-up at your usual time (the time you'd wake up for school or work) and get yourself ready accordingly. Don't forget to have breakfast and two meals (whether that be breakfast and dinner or lunch and dinner etc) at the same time each day, your body will get used to this routine and therefore help you stay on track. If you're feeling hungry, grab some snacks.
4. Dress up!
It's all well and good getting up and carrying on with your normal routine but if you're doing that in your pyjamas then you're not going to be as productive. Our brain automatically correlates pyjamas and loungewear as outfits for cosiness and not working, so trying to be productive in them is just creating an inward battle that you could easily avoid. I'm not saying you have to put on your suit and tie Monday-Friday or wear your heels but putting on day clothes will help get your brain into working mode.
Take this for example, after spending three days in my pyjamas completing next to nothing work wise, I got up, dressed into day clothes and ended up finishing a project that's been sat there for over two weeks!
5. Screen break
We spend an awful lot of time on our screens a day, from zoom meetings, school work and scrolling endlessly through social media. Your brain and your eyes need a break. That's a fact! Get yourself up and moving away from your screens, whether that's going out for a lunch-time walk to let that fresh air into your lungs, baking an afternoon snack to enjoy with a cup of tea, reading a chapter or two of your book to get lost into a different world. Pick your favourite hobbies and make time to do them, your phone will still be there when you get back and trust me, you wouldn't have missed much news!
Thank you for reading today's post, I hope you have all had a great day. If this has helped you be sure to share this to your friends who are struggling to stay productive too. Let me know if you've put these tips to task over on my Instagram
I'll be back soon with another post,
Until then,
Stay safe.
Alanna Jean x