Category: Sleep

How To Make The Best Use Of Your Downtime

Have you ever stopped on a Sunday evening and wondered where the weekend has gone? Those 48 hours between Friday and Monday have vanished again without a trace. Have you felt frustrated about going back to work knowing there were things you wanted to do, people you wanted to see and places you wanted to go?

This is a really common situation and it doesn’t just apply weekends. It could be that week’s holiday you booked to catch up on home projects where the time drifted away. If you’re self-employed, it could be those few days waiting between projects where nothing seems to happen.

It’s important to recognise when your body is telling you it’s time to rest, relax and recharge. This is the time where your mind can process everything that’s happened and work through solutions to problems. Have you ever written down something that’s bothering you, gone to bed, and then the answer has presented itself to you the following day? Our minds have the extraordinary ability to solve almost anything with time and patience. Sometimes the more we think about something, the harder it becomes to think clearly. We can’t see the wood for the trees.

Missy lives in the moment, exploring everything as we should be doing in business
Missy lives in the moment, exploring everything as we should be doing in business

Some of the common signs telling us we need to slow down are feeling tired, slow, difficult to think or speak, loss of interest in hobbies, not wanting to see people and, if left untreated, this can start to affect our physical as well as our mental health. So, we can all agree it’s good to have downtime. But how can you make the best use of your downtime?

I’m talking about making the best use of this time, not treating downtime as work or a chore. I hope you will turn your downtime into time you take for yourself. I want to help you feel as though the time has been well-spent and not wasted.

The first step is to know when your downtime is coming. It could be looking forward to the weekend, or it could be a random day off if a client cancels a meeting or if a project is postponed.

The second step is to know what you want to achieve in your downtime. For me, I like to take a break from work to walk my dog, Missy. She enjoys the time we spend together, and I love being out in the fresh air walking in my local park. After our walks I always feel revitalised and ready to take on new tasks.

Another form of downtime for me is helping Mum with her weekly shopping. Before lockdown we would do this together, spending an hour going to the supermarket and then I would help unpack and put the food away afterwards. This usually involved a cup of tea, some biscuits, and a good catch up. Now I carry out the food shop and have the cup of tea and catch up standing outside while she packs things away.

As well as my routine of walking Missy and helping Mum, I have also added some personal projects to my Achievement List of things I would like to do. One of these is to carry out the scanning and filing of many thousands of photographs I’ve taken over the years. From a hard drive filled with random images, I am slowly working through labelling and organising the photographs into categories, holidays, people, and events. This has been on my list of things to do for a long time and it feels good to take the time to put things in order.

The third step is to put this into practice. So, the next time you have a spare half hour, half day, a week, or any period of spare time, have something ready to achieve. You’ll feel better about going back to work if you have achieved something in your downtime. It could be something as simple as making a phone call to a friend, or organising your photographs, or going on that day trip you promised yourself. But make the time to do something for yourself during your downtime and it will pay off in many different ways. You’ll feel re-energised, and ready to take on new tasks.

If you need a boost to help keep yourself relaxed and calm at work or at home, I can recommend the new calming products from Arbonne. These botanically based natural healers offer a truly relaxing experience. As the name suggests, Arbonne’s InnerCalm and SuperCalm remedies are perfect to help you relax from the inside to the outside, taking care of your wellbeing and giving your body the opportunity to become revitalised and ready for new adventures.

For help making the best use of your downtime or to find out more about the relaxing remedies, please book your free 15 minute call. I specialise in helping business owners streamline tasks and processes to free up your time and energy for the things you enjoy the most.

Merry Christmas And End Of The Year Reflections

Over the last twelve months I’ve covered many different topics through the Focus Guru and RachaelChiverton blogs. Some of the blogs have been written to address common questions I’m asked about business and contracts and others have been about mindset, creating habits and making the best use of time.

End of year reflection, what have you achieved
End of year reflection, what have you achieved

Here is a re-cap of everything I’ve covered, from my Communications and Cashflow Workshop with James Perryman, to the business skills we can learn from our pets.

I’ve had some lovely feedback from clients in different sectors who are gaining huge benefits from the improved time management and streamlined processes I have helped to implement.

If I can help you or your staff with any business related issue, please contact me either by emailing rachael@rachaelchiverton.co.uk or by telephoning 07756 772950. I offer a free 15 minute consultation and will work with you to make small changes that make a big difference.

January

February

March

April

May

June

August

September

October

November

December

Thank you for sharing this year with me. As 2019 draws to a close, I hope to continue working with you, developing new strategies, boosting your social media presence, creating new habits and being accountable with sticking to them, writing your contracts and enhancing your processes and productivity. Let’s make 2020 your best year yet!

What Habits Do You Need To Change Today?

Over the last few months I’ve been writing about habits, how to create good habits and how consistently practising good habits will help you run your business more efficiently and effectively.

It’s all very well creating new habits, but what about the bad habits? Are there things you need to change?

When I chat with clients, one of the recurring themes is time management, how to make more time, how to save time, how to get more done in less time, and so on. The end result always comes back to the choices they make and the actions they take, which are largely dictated by the habits each person has formed during their lifetime.

Take the dog for a walk - best habit
Take the dog for a walk – best habit as fresh air, exercise and companionship

Setting an Alarm

For example, setting an alarm clock to wake you each morning is a habit many of us do. This habit makes sure you’re awake on time and can start your day. It’s perhaps something you learned in childhood which made sure you were on time for school. As an adult, continuing this habit, either with your alarm clock or setting an alarm on your phone, makes sure you’re on time for work, for networking, for meetings and other appointments.

Coffee and Emails

Another example is the habit of having a coffee and checking emails as soon as you arrive in the office. This habit can take ten minutes, or most of the morning, depending on your workload. It can be a good habit to divide emails into categories of importance and priority. If you struggle with this, I can recommend my Time Intensity Grid to help with prioritising your messages and putting systems in place to respond quickly to new tasks.

Fifteen Minute Slots

If you find you’re chasing around with low intensity messages and tasks, it’s worth analysing your time over the course of a day. Simply break your day down into fifteen-minute slots and make a brief note about what’s happened in each slot on a piece of paper or in a spreadsheet.

This makes it easy to identify bottlenecks and deadtime. If you continue this analysis over the course of a week or a month you can spot patterns and behaviours in yourself and your staff. This gives you the ammunition you need to make changes and create new habits.

Create a New Habit

Something I’ve just put into place is to have my food shopping delivered. It’s not something I’ve done before, but it’s saved me the time (and fuel) not driving to and from the supermarket. It’s saved time not hunting for the ingredients I don’t normally buy. Shopping online has saved time not queueing at the checkout. And, it’s also saved me time unloading the car as the shopping is brought to my front door.

Adding this up, this change in habit has probably saved me at least two hours a week.

That’s two extra hours I can spend with my family and friends.

The time has always existed, it’s not new hours in the day. There’s no magic trick. I don’t have a time machine either. The difference is how I’m choosing to use those hours. I can choose whether I spend the extra hours working, or whether I assign the time to house chores, or spend it with my family.

Making small changes to my daily habits is how I’m saving time and making more time for the things I want to do. I can show you how to do this too.

If you’d like to find out more simply book a 15-minute exploration call with me and I’ll help you find the time to create great habits at work and at home.