Do It Now
This is a “holiday week,” and we might be on “summer hours” for the next two months.
It’s easy to get complacent.
But it’s also a great time to regroup and structure for the rest of the year.
If you have a light work schedule and the weather is great, then leave work early and enjoy the beautiful day!
But if it’s wicked hot, soul-suckingly humid, and/or thunderstorming, then consider having some “workplace improvement” activities in mind that will make things better in the long run.
Clean out and organize the break room or office storage. Get rid of the expired snacks and clear out the extra toner cartridges on that shelf for that printer that died back in 2021.
Get current on your financials. Too often, we wait until end-of-year to go through tax deductions, receipts, or audits of our current projects. Take care of the first two quarters now, and document the parts that have already been completed, so you don’t have to repeat them in January (six months from now, you may forget where you left off).
Update any templates and forms your business uses that may need revisions.
Archive old projects, correspondence, and other hard-drive fillers you no longer need to access regularly.
Run any software updates you have been putting off.
Yeah, I know, these sound pretty meh. But if you get them done when the weather is bad, you will make life easier for yourself later (when you probably will have less time for them), and you will make your physical and computer space less cluttered, more efficient, and more usable.
The psychological benefit is also that you will enjoy those good-weather-day activities more, because you will feel a sense of accomplishment that you have been productive, and less anxiety over the things waiting for you back at work (guilt-free, since you know that you will get to the rest of them when it’s 97° out).
But whatever you do, DON’T spend time on these kinds of things when it’s sunny and 72° out. Prioritize work/life balance when the living is good!
(image source: https://www.upworthy.com/bizarre-but-effective-life-hacks)