Not yet on vacation or already back? We are not going to lie to each other, the summer period is often synonymous with calm at work, because there is less activity and/or the teams are reduced, holidays oblige. Sometimes it's hard to find the motivation, when we are generally more productive, since we are not constantly interrupted by emails, phone calls or questions from colleagues. What if we used this time to do things that we don't have time to do the rest of the year? Here is a small list of tasks to do.
Digital pollution (related to our online activities) is a huge source of pollution, since the exchange of data involves the use of servers that need a large amount of energy to operate. Concretely, each e-mail received or sent, with or without an attachment, represents at least 10 g of CO² sent into the atmosphere. This should make us see our mailbox with its 780 messages received and 1922 messages sent in a different light (especially since the heavier the said message, the greater the carbon impact). We therefore take advantage of a calmer moment to sort through our emails, archive those whose content we want to keep, save the attachments on our computer or a USB key (locally), and above all, delete all those whose we no longer need. This is also valid for our personal box...
Perhaps you are one of those people who tidies up their office daily or at least weekly? Maybe not. If not, then it's time to tidy up. A good way to really sort is to remove everything from the surface of the desk, and put back only the objects that you use regularly. The rest ? We classify, we throw away, we tidy up! In short, we empty our minds and finally get rid of old pens that no longer write too much, notebooks that have been started-but-not-finished, old hand cream that we no longer like... see more clearly (and we think that finally, we have a big office, right?!).
Each year has its own objectives, this is a golden opportunity to take stock of the one that has just ended. The goal here is not to depress and tell ourselves that we made 120 Excel spreadsheets, 46 meetings at 8 a.m. or whatever, but rather to tell ourselves that we managed the year like a ) pro, to celebrate our small victories and see what we can optimize (set reminders before certain deadlines, create rules for our mailbox, etc.).
Whatever our professional expectations, it is always good to take stock from time to time, to ask ourselves if our job fulfills us and what we can do to change things if this is not the case or, on the contrary, so that it continues if we feel good. In particular, we can list the tasks that we like at work and those that are more difficult, and think about ways to improve them. For once we have a little time, it's time to have clear ideas!
Rather than twiddling your thumbs and/or binge-watching series on Netflix, take advantage of having some time to update your CV (whether you want to change jobs or not, see point previous). This is an opportunity to clarify certain points, to refresh the look of our CV, to make several versions that can correspond to different positions, etc. That way, if we feel like applying for different positions, we won't have an old CV from 10 years ago at hand...
Any other ideas for things to do? Do not hesitate to share them with us!
