How are the New Year’s resolutions going? Are you finding it all a bit of a chore? I know I am failing miserably to renounce my 4.00pm twix cravings and to maintain a facade of inner calm when faced with a printer that has jammed three times this morning already.
Office Breaks An afternoon celebrating Chinese New Year
Why not take a different approach this year and embrace lifestyle changes instead. What do you want more and less of this year? For me, this includes more quality leisure time and less pre-occupation with work-related challenges. (Interestingly, spending less time working was rated 7th in a survey of top 10 resolutions by myvoucher codes.) To address this, I am creating an indulgent wish list of the places and activities that I want to look back on by the end of 2017.
What was your fondest memory of 2016? For me, it was fulfilling a childhood dream of spending a somewhat crampt but idyllic weekend in a gypsy caravan in the wilds of Suffolk. What are the “one day” things that you would really like to do?
Gypsy Caravan
A bit like the work to-do list, the office-break wish list will provide a break-down of all the things that you want to do with your leave this year. From hot-air ballooning to a hot-stone massage, the act of committing it to paper will set the wheels in motion and transform a vague someday happening into soon-to-be-realised wish fulfilment.
Once you have your list, the organised ones may want to develop a handy-dandy spread-sheet, (I know how you love them) and start plotting them against the dates that you have booked for the coming months. Alternatively, if this all too much faff and hassle, simply jot them down in your outlook calendar instead.
Next to help keep you on track, take ten minutes a day to dedicate to internet research on your chosen places and activities. You can do this as part of a mood-boosting lunch time break (if lunch-time still exists where you are) or some much-needed escapism on the commute home.
As Michelle Obama, the first lady of the United States, once said: “We don’t have a lot of time to take care of ourselves. We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own to-do list.”
So what is on your wish-list? What have you always dreamed of doing? What is the one thing that you will look back on this time next year?