Woody Wonders

Commute time ...  more important than you thought The first thing that popped into my head when I was told I was going to be working from home for the foreseeable future was “hurrah, no more commuting for a while” .    However, your commute is actually a very important part of your working day - it’s the transition period from home to work and work to home.   In the morning, i t’s an opportunity to look ahead and plan the day and in the evening it's a time to reflect and unwind from the day.    It’s for these very reasons that I didn’t want to lose that ‘commute’ time when I started working from home as I realised it played a vital role in my day.  I usually left home around 7.15 am and returned home about 6.30 pm.  So I had a huge chunk of time both morning and evening in which to do something productive.  I didn't want to fall into the trap of staying in bed then immediately starting work in the morning and then finishing work and getting s...

"The problem is not the problem;  the problem is your attitude towards the problem' I absolutely love this quote which I heard recently.  It was a timely reminder of how we use any excuse other than ourselves when things don't quite go to plan.  It's also very relevant at this moment in time as we seem to be caught up in a blame culture - we blame the government, governments in other countries, the economy, economies in other countries, our own companies, even our own colleagues, family and friends.  In fact, anyone or anything in our firing line, rather than taking control and being accountable for ourselves. When we feel we are not in control of a situation, we tend to lash out at others.  It's perfectly normal; it's a self-protection mechanism within us all.  When we don't feel in control, it's often because we're scared and feel vulnerable.  So what can we do to change our attitude and take control of something we don't feel in control of? I...

... and it's not about the aesthetics that's for sure As the government prepare to announce plans for a tiered lockdown, whatever that means, but I'm sure it'll be really easy and simple to understand(!), I thought I'd do some reflection.  It's the perfect time to think about the last 6 months, considering it was World Mental Health Day yesterday. I've certainly come to realise what 'self-care' is and is not over the past few months.  Self-care is not about having a skincare routine using the latest fancy products, it's not about having a full face of make-up and immaculate hair, nails and clothes, it's not about having an extreme diet and crazy exercise routine to make you look good on the outside. Self-care is about doing things to make you feel happy on the inside so you then radiate on the outside.  It's about doing something because you want to and not because you have to.  Although I very rarely go a day without doing some form of e...

To the end of the year ... and beyond You don't need me to tell you that it's been a tough year, we all know that, the whole world knows that.  What I don't want to happen though, and I've mentioned this in a previous blog, is to start wishing time would speed up so the year can end.  We have to continue living in the moment.  I don't want to sound negative, that's not my style, but I do want to be realistic.  Things are not magically going to change on 1st January 2021.  We're going to be in this sh*tstorm for a long time yet and in order to deal with it, we have to acknowledge that and tackle things head on rather than bury our heads in the sand. What can we do to help ourselves?  Well, for a start, we can't control some of the things that will happen to us BUT we can control how we react to them.   This week's blog was intended to take a look back over the last quarter to see how we've done with our goals, so let's start there and do just...