Tips to Manage Our Emotions AND Our Workloads

Here are some strategies that can help individuals cope with distressing news while still focusing on work:

Acknowledge Your Emotions: Recognize and accept your emotions rather than suppressing them. It's okay to feel upset or distressed about such events.

Set Realistic Expectations: Understand that during times of distress, your productivity might not be at its peak. Setting achievable goals for the day can help manage expectations.

Create a Supportive Environment: Surround yourself with supportive colleagues or friends who can provide a sense of community and comfort during difficult times.

How to Get Back Into a Routine

Prolonged holiday seasons, like those just concluded in the Hebrew month of Tishrei, present similar challenges.

Even with a schedule like this year, with much if the most stringent holidays occurring on weekends, observers found their workflows and routines greatly disrupted.

Since R+R is often associated with a weekend’s gift of “rest and relaxation,” let’s use R+S to connote our “return and success.”

Here are some “R+ S” tips to rebuild your routine and start getting things done.

Feedback from my "Break often but briefly" post

“Thank you for sharing these helpful tips about taking breaks. Somehow, I was already taking a walk, reading and eating during my breaks. I intend to continue doing them. However, I may explore listening music which I rarely do. Sometimes, one feels a sense of guilt when one takes a break. It is reassuring to know that it is beneficial.”

Break often but briefly

Breaking often to get more done may seem counterintuitive. I mean, who would think that that taking additional breaks would help you be more productive? Especially when you’re so busy as it is, and your to-do list is packed with things that must get done.

But hear me out. Because even if you pride yourself in your work ethic and your ability to concentrate for prolonged periods, your brain, your mind and your to-do list will thank me.

There are many reasons that we should be taking regular work breaks. Here are some of them.

Schedule tasks and block out time

The reason why time-blocking works is simple. When a task is jotted down on a list, odds are that it will take a while for it to be completed (many listed tasks never get done at all.) Or you may choose to work on the list “top down” even when items that are further below will deliver stronger benefits.

When a task gets scheduled, however, you are committing to getting that specific thing completed at a particular time and expect to have it finished when the period has ended. In effect, you’re telling yourself, “This one task is of great importance to me, and I will devote time and singular focus to it, to the exclusion of everything else.” It is as if you’ve created a meeting with yourself that cannot be interrupted. You prepare yourself mentally for the task and go all in.

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