If You Move I’ll Kill You

“If you make so much as a sound … I swear I’ll kill you”, she hisses.

It’s 4.30am, my morning alarm has just gone off, and Liz has been up all night with our 18-month-old.

So I creep down the hall in the pitch black – past our sleeping toddler – praying that I don’t hit a landmine piece of Lego.

Why do I get up so early?

Well, with four kids, a book that’s about to be launched, and a full-time farm, life is busy … so I follow the army motto: get up before the enemy.

And it seems, post the pandemic, that we’ve all won the battle of being able to work from home … yet we’re losing the war. A new study from La Trobe University has found that working from home increases the likelihood of weight gain, exhaustion and burnout.

The main reason cited in the study is a lack of routine. So, as someone who’s been working from home for the past 20 years, I thought I’d share with you my routine.

You need to get up at 4.30am and START BLOODY WORKING!

Just kidding.

It’s not just the start of the day that matters … its also how you end your day. So let me tell you about a simple little ritual I follow at the end of each day that has radically reduced my stress and overwhelm.

First, I set an alarm on my phone for the end of my work day. When the alarm goes off, I grab a nice knock-off drink and close every single one of the tabs in my browser(s).

Then – and this is important – I shut down my computer.

Watching the computer screen go blank is my visual cue that the work day is over. And then I go full 1980s and leave my computer in the office.

My final step is to go for a walk outside without my phone. Sometimes it’s only 10 minutes. It’s just a way to get my body moving, and it helps me mentally transition from work-Scott to taxi-dad.

Soldier on!

Tread Your Own Path!