Plan a value-driven daily schedule

It can be difficult to stay motivated and inspired without a team of people uplifting us and driving us forward on those inevitable off days. Nix Jones believes that we can overcome the working-from-home blues by creating a values-driven schedule. ‘When things go awry at work, it is often because you are spending much of your time on activities that are not in line with your personal values. Common values include creativity, kindness and health.’

In order to identify what you value most, Nix Jones suggests visualising an ideal workday five years from now. Make a list of all the activities you imagine yourself doing, no matter how outlandish. Then go back and assign a value to each activity. So, if you imagine that your commute is walking through a green space, that value might be exercise or time in nature. Assign values to every activity.

‘Now, tick off how many of those values you’re connecting with in your current schedule. If you have breakfast with your family and connection is a value, that gets a tick. In this way, you can identify the values that are missing from your life and start to find ways to include them in your working day.’

Prepare to be surprised by this exercise, warns Nix Jones. When she did it, she discovered that while two of her core values were love and relationships, she was spending almost no quality time with her husband – despite him working in the same room with her every day. If, for example, you value teamwork and you are working almost exclusively on your own, look at creative ways to add more virtual brainstorming sessions to your calendar.