Take a look at your calendar
And then mentally fit the rest of your stuff around it. Make a mini-plan for tomorrow so that when you wake up you know exactly what you’re getting up to for the day. You’re not going to forget to tell your Project Co-ordinator to pick up the ghost chairs, or that you’ve run out of lunch and need to stop at Tesco on the way to work. When you wake up, you’re going to feel certain, which makes it a lot easier to get out of bed.
The three minute sweep
Pop a three minute timer on so you know how long it’s taking. Right before you settle down for the evening, after you’ve mentally tracked the following day, run around tidying whatever you can within three minutes. You’ll find there’s a LOT more you can get done in that time than you’re thinking, and that each day will feel just a little bit more satisfying. I haven’t yet met an event professional who doesn’t have a sweet spot for good organisation and waking up to that predominantly tidy house tomorrow is going to fill you with such joy.
Stay away from social media
The blue glare shines up at you from your lifeline. Your eyes are starting to hurt so you close one at a time. You check the time, midnight. Six hours of sleep, IF you turn your phone off right now. But it’s hard, right. People are arguing over whether or not the straw ban is insensitive to people with disabilities and you haven’t read enough to form an opinion yet, you can’t stop reading now. Half past midnight, five and a half hours sleep. You must have insomnia, check Google.
It’ll be hard at the beginning, but start ignoring your phone at least half an hour before bed. Tech has a way of keeping you hooked, but it’ll get easier and easier to ignore the sweet pull of midnight’s shiny light, and you’ll find your life dramatically improved.
Read for fun
Now that you have this spare half an hour without technology, read something. It doesn’t have to be Shakespeare or Heidegger to start with. Nor does it have to be magazines on keeping up with event trends or books about successful business mastery. Try mini books with titles like My First Love and The Evil Billionaire. They’re sort of like watching Facebook, but potentially less jarring. Or if you can’t bear to give up that many brain cells, read some books you’ve been wanting to get into and feel free to put them back down if they get boring. The point isn’t education and self-improvement, event professionals get enough of that in their day to day lives. The point is in two weeks you’ll find you’re probably feeling much happier and better rested.
Decide if you really want to be drinking chamomile tea
I know chamomile tea is great for you. I also know that sometimes it feels like every lifestyle magazine is pushing the chamomile tea on us kind of aggressively. It’s reached the point where I feel so guilty that I can’t get it into it, I can’t be the only person who has had to live with the crippling guilt of not really wanting a chamomile tea at night. Stress and guilt are a lot more damaging to health than not drinking chamomile tea. Event profs already suffer enough with their endless to do lists. If you don’t want the tea, don’t drink it. I’m glad I got that off my chest.