Friday 04-09-2020 - 13:49

So far so good…

Last week, I spoke about our workloads and the changes we had to make to look after our mental health. Since then, we’ve all been focusing our efforts on looking after ourselves and each other. Working from home can be really hard; leading to feelings of isolation and being unable to shut-off in the evenings. Here are some of the things that I’ve been doing that I would recommend to others:

• Stick to your work hours and don't cram too much in! I like to allow 30 minutes either side of any meeting, to do any prep/complete any actions - my favourite new phrase is “Sorry, I’m rammed this week – how is next week for you?”
• Establish a workspace and only use it for work – for example, during work hours I sit in the armchair in the living room but use the sofa in the evening
• Pack your work things away at the end of the day – you could even refer to this process as ‘going home’, then in the morning, say you’re ‘going to work’ while you unpack your things again
• If you have work-related apps on your phone, make sure you log out or silence them at the end of the day - replying in the evening doesn't make the next day easier, in the long run, you actually create more work for yourself
• Try to get out of the house! It doesn’t matter what, when, or why, just leaving the house once a day (or as much as you can manage) makes a HUGE difference
• Water yourself, you are basically an emotional plant – I keep a pint glass on my desk and keep refilling it throughout the day, now my skin is super smooooth and the late nights don’t affect me as much

Cool, now what have I actually achieved this week?

Well, we’ve managed to deliver some last-minute events for the PGCE welcome week! These have taught us a lot about how we are promoting things and where the technology will fail us. But fear not! It’s now all ironed out (we think), ready for a larger audience during everyone else’s Welcome Week!

On Wednesday, I attended a really interesting meeting about the Stonewall Workplace Equality Indices – “benchmarking tool for employers to measure their progress on lesbian, gay, bi and trans inclusion in the workplace”. It’s still a fairly new project but I am excited about the ideas that were discussed, and I can’t wait to share with you all!

Other than that, everything else has been kind boring (Frank made us start at 9am on Wednesday, with a session on writing committee papers, tight innit), or mostly catching up on emails and social media messages! But it was exactly what we needed; I think!

See you next week and have the MOST WONDERFUL weekend <3