Working Happy in Lockdown (don’t laugh)
Are you sick to death of being told to go for a walk to make yourself happier?
I reckon that another waterlogged tour of our local park will be the thing that tips me over, especially as the kids have regressed to throwing themselves into giant, filthy puddles.
Which is why this week we’re exploring what really makes us happy, with Ashley Whillans, author of Time Smart: How to reclaim your time and live a happier life (Harvard Business Review Press) based on her academic research.
3 things from her research:
1. First, being time poor makes us:
unhappy
anxious
unhealthy
less productive
…and more likely to divorce.
We often do it because we think earning more money will make us happier, when actually the happiest people give up their money in favour of more time.
2. To be happier, Ashley’s research shows we we should:
PLAN our time (so we don’t piss it away doom scrolling)
EVALUATE what matters - social connections, challenge and relationships
ACTIVATE (sure, the sofa feels better than that couch to 5k but…)
OUTSOURCE things we don’t like
3. It is really important that business leaders help people to manage their working time—especially now we’re WFH—otherwise we easily make the wrong choices and burn out. Which is why Microsoft has introduced daily virtual commute time to ensure people take breaks.
Based on Ashley’s advice, I started:
More sewing, however incompetently, which to Ashley’s findings is still rewarding. And, yes, I made this blouse.
Art—no I am most emphatically not showing you—but am highly recommending signing up to ‘Drawing and Art with Sam’. Free classes every Saturday afternoon that get you over your ‘not good enough’ block and release the inner creative.
Having a jigsaw always on the go.
TV hour with the kids before bed: currently working through back series of Doctor Who, the current Junior Bake Off, and Anne with an E on Netflix (the latter I cannot recommend highly enough). On the creative theme, if you’re not dipped into the the Great Pottery Throw Down you're missing a gem. All good material for dinner chat.
Outsourcing the 7yo’s birthday party to a Zoom entertainer called Gilbert. We're hoping for an improvement on the year the smoking clown fell off his unicycle and nearly brained someone’s kid.
But, most of all, by celebrating my new mutt.
Do share the things making you happy… and share this with anyone who needs a little lift to get through.
-Christine x
