Welcome back to BoultTips!

Lockdown is really starting to drag now, isn’t it?!  

The World Health Organisation has acknowledged lockdown is having an increasingly negative effect on our health. Our stress and anxiety levels have soared. We cannot predict what will happen.  

But there are strategies we can employ in the short term that can help us to cope. So let’s focus on what you CAN control. 

A sense of structure is so important if, like many of us, you’re losing sense of time.  Try to get up, go to bed and eat at roughly the same time. Whether or not in quarantine alone, you can easily lose those markers in the day, so things like setting alarms and listening to the radio can really help.

It is also so important to actively distinguish the weekends from the weekdays. You can do this with the clothes you wear, the foods you eat, and ensuring you at least do my “anti-bac wipe ritual" on a Friday. Do not let those boundaries blur! 

Some helpful feedback / tips I have received over the last few working days include:

• Get up at least half an hour before you start work. Setting an alarm for 8.59 am and shuffling half asleep to your desk does not make for a productive day;
• Avoid working on the sofa at all costs! You can end up with a sore back for the rest of the week;
• Set goals of what you want to achieve for the given day;
• For maximum productivity set yourself timings for each task. Take a short break after each one: if you can do so easily, just stand outside for a couple of minutes to get some fresh air. 

We at least appear to be keeping velour tracksuits out of public view.  

In fact I was reminded at the weekend of the fab New Zealand journalist and television personality Hilary Barry, who has launched #formalfriday over there. Tiaras are optional.  That’s how you do it, my friends.