Founder Fuel: Surviving startup disruption, put YOUR oxygen mask on first…

How are you shoring up?

At a time when everything feels disrupted and unsettled, it’s so important we take a moment to ask each other that, and make the time to listen to the real answer. For the good of ourselves, our teams, and our businesses.

Put YOUR oxygen mask on first…

In these strange times we have to increasingly isolate ourselves, yet this is when we need our communities the most. In the weeks ahead we will need to be resilient, adaptable and innovative. We can do this better
together. With that in mind, we’ve been working on how we can bring our buoyant founder community together to support each other, problem-solve together, laugh together.

Introducing Founder Fix Up Fridays

Grab a cuppa (or your lunch) and join us on a Zoom meet-up. It’s free, but there’s limited space so sign up to grab your spot now.

Dates:

Friday 27th March

Friday 24th April

Friday 22nd May

Together, we are stronger. #FoundersFuellingFounders

Keep yourself productivity and well

For many of us a WFH day is normally a welcome respite to the urgency of an office-based day; but the length of time we’re going to be WFH now is likely to knock even the most regimented WFH-er off. If we’re not careful we can end up with blurred lines between work and rest, and as such you get little of either. Lose-Lose.

As reported by McKinsey, always-on, multitasking work-environments kill productivity, dampening creativity, and making us unhappy – and that’s before we had no physical boundaries. In this climate, then the ability to disconnect is key for productivity.

Try these practical tips to stay productive and well:

Set your work-life boundaries

It’s likely that to juggle family commitments the time when you work might lose some of it’s regularity. Embrace that – it’s a benefit of WFH – but build some structure around which is which, so that the lines don’t get blurry. “Always on” is a dangerous and unproductive mindset – even the best athletes on the best teams require time to rest and recover. So be intentional about when you are working and when you stop.

Do whatever you can to set up your work space in a different room. Always take lunch in a different room to your ‘office’, and set a routine around getting up, losing the pyjamas and sitting down by a set time – just as you would if you commuted. Our brains love routine – it means they can think about other more important things – so give your brain this opportunity by creating routine wherever you can.

Be kind to your eyes

In the office you’ll likely spend time chatting to colleagues and attending meetings – which means your eyes get a rest from the screen. Now, we’re all meeting via screen and sat at our desks the rest of the time, and that takes its toll on our eyes. To help prevent this building up into headaches and migraines over time, when you’re planning out your tasks for the day seek out things you could do with pen and paper instead and move away from your screen.

‘Commute’ with movement

With the average British commute sitting at 58.4 minutes each way we’ve just gained nearly two hours’ time back each day. What do you want to do with those two hours? Even out of adversity can come opportunity. Rather than letting yourself just work longer, how about using some of this time to get more movement into your daily routine – start the day with a little home yoga, do a lunchtime body-weights routine, or go for a run in your ‘commute’ time home.

Now let’s look at how to keep your teams on track in part 2…