The Pre-Work Warm-Up
My intention this week: Best next step.*
To many, myself included, today is the “first” day of the New Year – it’s the first Monday of 2019 and salads are being crunched and we’re back to a regular week of work. As I got down to my home office this morning I felt that creaky joint, I’ve been sitting too long feeling all over. It’s like I needed a warm-up for my workday, in the same way, I’d do a few stretches before hopping on the treadmill.
There’s an inclination to first “catch-up” with the internet. You visit some social media sites, look at the news, maybe enter yourself in a competitive game of email tennis (unfamiliar with this game you can read this) and then you start to consider that third cup of coffee.
When you sit down with said cup of coffee try this warm-up series for work:
- Close all open tabs, windows, emails, applications.
- Restart your computer.
- While your computer is restarting clear the surface of your desk and eliminate non-essentials.
- Grab a glass of water.
- Stretch. Stand up reach high and then low a handful of times and sit back down and do 10 shoulder rolls forwards first and then backward so you’re ending in a better posture to be productive.
- Pull up your to-do list or open your calendar and determine the one thing you want to call “done” today. Highlight it or write it down on a post-it note, create something that you’ll have the physical satisfaction of marking complete when you’re done.
- Set a timer for 20 minutes and without distraction, single-task focus on that one thing. You’re warmed up and ready for this.
The fact that I’m clicking publish before 9:30am on the first Monday of the year is a testament to this warm-up series working.
*Each week I’ll share my intention for the week – if you’re curious about what intention setting can do for you check out WISP our Weekly Intention Setting Partnership here.
