The Bare Minimum

Have you got that end-of-year, second lockdown brain fog yet? Our resilience and need for self-care has been sorely tested this year. Forget banana bread and yoga, how about using the enforced time at home to fill your head with more things that are useful, beautiful or just amusing? Read on to get some quick-win professional and personal self-improvement goals – with a twist.

Do a professional tidy up…

Look after your Linkedin

When was the last time you updated your LinkedIn profile? Spend an hour making sure that your professional self shines. Swap out your photo for a better one, review the descriptions of your work accomplishments, respond to request to connect, ask for (and offer) recommendations and update the list of your skills and experience.

Doing anything on LinkedIn often induces fatigue and instant insecurity. So limit your time, set yourself a few tasks and don’t go down the rabbit hole of wondering why you are not a ‘global change maker looking for new opportunities to make a difference’.

Delete your unused profiles

If a recruiter was to search for you by your email address, what would they find? An ancient MySpace account, a Twitter profile where you blow off steam by indulging in mad rants or an Instagram where you share too many photos of big nights out / your under-clothed body?

Google yourself – what comes up on the first page? Delete the accounts you don’t use and never will, make your settings private and consider just how many pictures of your kids /sunsets/pictures of your feet the world needs you to share.

Do your homework

Is there a company that you’d love to work for, or a leading figure in your industry who you look up to? Make sure that you’re following them on social media and spend time looking at their website or online work. Most are dying to engage with their audiences through free-to-read content, ranging from big thought leadership pieces to earnest white papers or simply a running commentary on Twitter.

Get into their mindset and see where others get their inspiration. In short, if you want to know what they’re thinking, what they’re doing and what kind of people they work with, they’d be happy to overshare with you.

Expand your horizons…

Embrace the empty spaces

Making time for enriching cultural experiences is good for your soul at least. With empty galleries and no audiences, art curators, theatre directors and musicians alike have found new audiences online. Donate if you can – remember that these institutions are losing the usual admission fees that enable them to do their work. Check out the National Gallery of Ireland’s online collection here or the V&A’s here, and get 14 days free on Marquee TV for live and recorded performances.

If you never made time to go to that show, or actually get a handle on the whole classical music thing, you can now do so from the comfort of your own sofa.

Set yourself a (silly) physical challenge

Of course, you could and probably should get back on the wagon with the Couch to 5k business and hit that 10k-a-day step count. But also, what about doing the splits? Get started on a 30-Day Splits Challenge (lots of free options online) now and you could be fully splay-legged on the floor by Christmas.

What’s the point? More flexibility, yadda-yadda. But also, it’s fun and silly. See also, hula hooping, limbo dancing and learning how to walk on your hands. Who says that a mid-life woman applying her full powers to doing the perfect cartwheel isn’t a great goal?

Stop decluttering

If you didn’t make that charity shop/tip run during the last lockdown, then you could either fall over that enormous and annoying bag every time you walk into the hall, or you could empty it all back out again and use it to construct a comfortable nest to sit in like a happy spider.

Decorate your clutternest with fairy lights and festive decorations. Scraps of wrapping paper and tinsel will add to the comfort levels in the coming weeks. Best of all, you can inform any haters intoning ‘But-you-said-that-it-was-all-for-the-bin’ with the assurance that you have taken the efficient step of turning your junk into a cosy corner. Come the new year, it can be re-situated by the hall door, this time in a solid form bonded together by old Celebrations and chocolate coins.