THE ZONE

THE NEXT NORMAL
The Experts
FITNESS AND WELLBEING
SPECIALIST
Editor of the zone, Fiona Bugler is a former coach
who likes to look for solutions. Here are her tips for
living in a new normal – with wellbeing at its core.
■ Get up early – In the first issue of the zone, we reviewed
Hal Elrod’s book, The Miracle Morning. Hal set out some early
morning steps in the acronym SAVERS. Start your day with
‘S’; silence or meditation. Next, say out loud some affirmations
(the ‘A’), i.e. stating positive beliefs and statements. ‘V’ is for
visualisation; see how you would like your day to look or spend
time looking at images of inspiration, such as a mood board. ‘E’
is for exercise; keep it simple, just jog on the spot or do some
stretches. ‘R’ is for reading – a book or magazine – it doesn't
matter what it is, as long as it inspires you. And finally ‘S’ is for
scribing or writing and refers to taking some time to write in
your journal. Hal says we can do all this in six minutes.
■ Always get dressed for work – Working in your pyjamas
isn’t good for mental health or productivity. Whatever clothes
you choose to put on for work, tune-in to see whether you feel
you’re in a work mindset. You don’t have to don a three-piece
suit, but some kind of home-working uniform can help get you
in a positive and proactive mindset.
■ Move – You might think working from home would be a
place you’d get easily distracted and be up and down from your
desk but, for many of us, it’s much easier to stay seated in one
place for hours on end. Make sure you get up and move, stretch,
and do some yoga or simple breathing techniques.
■ Get outside – Try to step outside every day. As little as
10 minutes of walking can transform your day and your mood,
and you’ll probably find that, once you’re outside, you’ll go for
longer than 10 minutes.
■ Make good habits non-negotiable – Eating plenty
of fruit and vegetables and wholefoods, drinking water, and
exercising consistently are easier to stick at if you don't give
yourself any get-out clauses. Set yourself some simple rules
to live by and don't fix the habits into your day. Check out my
review of Atomic Habits in Self on page 52.
■ Stay in the moment – Allowing yourself time every day
to meditate, or simply taking time to breathe and be in the
moment, appreciate being alive, the sunshine, the work you
have to do, really does help to deal with the upheaval we're all
facing following this global pandemic.
WORKPLACE WELLBEING
SPECIALIST
Heather Beach, founder of the Healthy Work
Company (healthy-working.com), has been running
businesses in the health and safety community for
more than 20 years. She suggests the old normal
wasn’t working and explores lessons we can learn.
Normal wasn’t working for many of us. We were constantly ‘on’
and too busy in every area of our lives, which was having a direct
impact on our stress levels.
We are seeing that many employees don’t want to go back to
normal: in a poll on our Facebook group, we found 43 per cent
want increased flexibility on when and where they work, with
only 16 per cent being in a hurry to get back to the office.
■ Trust is vital – Prior to the pandemic, some jobs were
considered to be completely unsuitable for home-working. One
of these includes our customer with a call centre of 900 staff
who managed to get home working successfully up and running
within two weeks. They believe the success came from staff
feeling they were trusted.
■ Measure results not hours – Our findings reveal many
employers plan to extend existing flexible working and many
are also looking at how to make that truly flexible, i.e. not just
where you work from, but making work more output based.
■ Make time to reflect – The enforced lockdown has made
us re-evaluate our lives and that hamster wheel we were on, and
while we are definitely grappling with the separation between
our home and work lives, we can reclaim an hour or two a day
used for commuting, for exercise, taking the kids to school or
even starting work earlier.
“ Employers are
planning to make
flexible work more
output based. ”
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