If you’re working from home and mostly working alone, it’s not always easy to keep yourself motivated, stay on track, or find yourself brimming with ideas. And when you mentally start sputtering out, recovering can be difficult if you’re already in a workflow rut.
What you need is a double dose of inspiration, but it’s up to you to be the one that shakes things up. Here are some of the most reinvigorating ways to approach each workday from a more inspired place than yesterday.
Read More: 5 Ways to Move Your Body More When You’re Stuck Working From Home
Wake Up Early
Give this a try: wake up 30 minutes earlier than usual. Having a full moment to yourself at the start of each day can really make a difference in your drive, energy, and stress response. The idea is to put yourself in a healthy headspace before you start working or going through the daily motions.
What you do with the extra time is up to you. Stretch, meditate, go for a morning walk, or read. Or just sit and drink your cup of morning coffee more leisurely than usual. Whatever you do, ease into your activities rather than rushing to start your daily obligations. Sometimes, how we set the tone for our day makes the biggest difference.
Turn off Distractions
No matter how difficult it may seem, steer clear of all distractions for an entire day and see what happens. Chances are, you’ll likely be pleasantly surprised by what it does for your productivity.
Oftentimes, our devices are much more of an ingrained part of our routine than we realize. By turning off your phone, avoiding the internet, and staying off social media completely, you’ll stop dividing your attention in too many directions at once. You might think the TV is just background noise while you work, but your mind is still engaging with what’s going on around you even if you aren’t doing so consciously. In fact, we’re always using our brain much more than we realize. So if we are splitting our attention, we are draining it faster too.
Do Something For You
With all the things we regularly juggle, putting ourselves first isn’t always easy. Still, it’s important, especially if you’re looking to be inspired each day. Carve out some time that’s just for you and stick to it. Find a creative outlet or new hobby, take yourself on a date, take a cooking class, or reorganize your closet if that’s what floats your boat.
The point is, setting aside time for yourself and doing a “personal check-in” can go a long way. No matter how busy we get, we should never put off the most important relationship that we have: the one we’re forever building with ourselves. Obligations will always be there whether we’re in the mood or not, so it’s up to us to take our daily fulfillment just as seriously.
It might sound counterproductive to do things that have nothing to do with your daily responsibilities, but most times, a little rest, relaxation, and centering are necessary to have the drive to get everything else done. Remember, it’s all about balance.
Take an Actual Break
Throughout the day, step away from your work once in a while. If you’ve been hyper-focused on your tasks with no downtime, you need a true breath of fresh air. That doesn’t mean reading work emails over lunch. I’m talking about a true break.
If you devote every waking moment to your workload, inspiration will run dry. You’ll find yourself burning out more often than not, and much sooner. Take a walk every afternoon or maybe take a nap if you can swing it. Your energy level will thank you, and you’ll return to your work with a reinvigorated drive.
Meet a Friend For Coffee
Few things are more inspiring than a really good brainstorm session, free-flowing conversation, or simply coworking in the same space as a friend. That’s because these things add a level of organicism to your consistently structured day.
To avoid a workflow rut that can leave you feeling stagnated, make it a point to get out of your head and talk to someone else. Not to mention, having someone to vent work issues to/with can take a great weight off your shoulders, allowing you to return to your regular workday from a clearer, reenergized place.
Set Small Goals Throught The Day
Sometimes large projects can feel the most burdensome and daunting. You may find yourself slowed down from reaching your biggest goals simply because the near seems nowhere in sight. Furthermore, you may not know where to begin.
Nobody likes to feel overwhelmed and good can rarely come from it. So instead of putting all of your energy into your biggest accomplishments on the list, try setting smaller goals and reaching them more readily. Big or small, a sense of accomplishment can do wonders for your inspiration levels. You may want to break down your big projects into smaller pieces and focus on one step at a time. Gradually, that big project will feel smaller and smaller, and the result will come from a more inspired place.
Practice Mindfulness
What inspires you? You may not be sure if you don’t slow down and take things in often enough. That’s why practicing mindfulness is so useful. No matter how you go about it, the idea is to fully connect with yourself once a day. Whether you meditate, journal, or go on a nature walk, focus on being present. And as you begin to notice the things that inspire you, make little notes and return to them when you’re feeling flat.
Never underestimate all the wonderful things finding inner peace can do for you. Practicing mindfulness can help reduce stress, enhance resilience, and improve overall well-being. And because you’ll be more in tune with what’s going on within and the world around you, it is perhaps the one thing on this list that will most easily ensure being organically inspired on a daily basis.
Organize Your To-Do’s More Meaningfully
It takes more mental energy to do tasks that mean nothing to you than tasks that you care about. Look over your to-do list and make some meaningful adjustments. The first change should be reducing the tasks that you don’t care about at all. Yes, some things you have to do, but your list should strike a balance of absolute musts and meaningfulness. This structure will help you stay more motivated to check things off your list.
Making a to-do list where you’re accomplishing things that get you closer to more meaningful goals will help you stay focused. Carefully look over your list. Can you eliminate any tasks? Are some actually unnecessary? Sometimes, things remain on our list so long that we don’t even know why we put them there in the first place. Consider those the first to take off your list.
Relocate
If you work remotely, it might be time to change up your setting. Your creative muscles could use some stretching, after all. Not to mention, a change of pace will boost productivity. Even though you’ve already got more freedom than those trapped in an office space, it’s just as easy to get into a rut, go stir crazy, and hit a wall. So mix things up.
The moment you’re unable to get in the zone with what you’re doing where you are, stop, pack up your “office,” and find a new spot. Whether you go to a coffee shop or set up in your backyard, working from a new location can be incredibly stimulating and pull you out of even the most crippling lull.
Celebrate Small Wins
There’s nothing quite like the long-term payoff of all your hard work. But the keyword is “long-term.” And if all you have to look forward to feels far away, it might undercut your oomph significantly. Little wins are just as important as a big win, and it’s easy to forget how good they can be for our systems if we don’t stop to celebrate them on a regular basis. It’s also easier to stay motivated when you have something in the immediate future to look forward to. When you have a small victory treat yourself in a little, but well-deserved way. Acknowledging those little pieces to the big puzzle (and how far you’ve come so far) can be profoundly gratifying.
Reclaim Your Passion
You only have one life to live, so don’t turn your back on your passions. They’re the source of your deepest inspiration. Finding our inner drive in our day-to-day lives has a lot to do with not neglecting the things that are most true to who we are. As Joan Didion once said, remembering who we are “is always the point.” If we get too far from the things that ground us, uplift us, and help us grow, we are simply going through the motions. And that’s no way to live an inspired life.
Above all else, don’t let the daily drudgery replace the things that you’re passionate about. Make time for all parts of yourself. If you love to paint and you “haven’t had time,” now is the moment to get back into the swing of it. Or, maybe you’re running a business that once filled you with inspiration and now just feels like work. Reconnect with what you were most passionate about when you first started your business journey. And if you’re busy, don’t worry. It’s not something you need to do every single day. But you should make a habit of it once a week.
