To think that doing something for yourself before work is important, especially for those WFH?

I have a weights workout routine and Pilates, I do that every morning. Def makes me feel smug 😂

@MargaritaPracticallyCan

That sounds great too!

it's natural to miss them when they've been underfoot for so many years!!

but slightly easier when the laundry takes 5 minutes & it doesn't look like the chimps held their party in the kitchen!! 😂

@AutumnTimeForCosy24, I would love to ship out sooner, but I need my salary for a bit longer, hence the 2 year timeframe. If I could find a WFH job which more closely matched my salary, I'd go for it, but all WFH posts I'm seeing which I might be able to do straight off the bat as an ex-teacher all seem to necessitate a 10k+ paycut. If I had the skills sets required there are obviously many other WFH or hybrid jobs I could do, but I accept it's reasonable to expect to be starting out on a lower paypoint when starting afresh in a new job. For ages, I wouldn't entertain the idea of WFH, given my experiences during lockdown when my workload while teaching from home became completely unsustainable, but having read about people's experiences of WFH in other lines of work, it sounds entirely manageable and actually quite nice.

I hate getting up early so getting up before DC and leaving the house or exercising is just not going to happen for me. I love my sleep.

But my DC have all left for school by 8:40, I then make myself a coffee and breakfast and sit on the sofa in peace until about 9:15 then i start work. I usually only take half an hour at lunch so the late start balances out.

One of the big reasons I love wfh is not having to get up and dressed and walk to the station. So the last thing I'm going to do is voluntary get up and go for a walk!

Quite !

Once awake, I'd FAR rather crack on and start work. Potentially then being able to finish a bit earlier, or add on a bit of flexi time to use usefully another day.

I suspect this is another headline where 'early birds' try to make themselves sound superior to night owls.

That sounds very hard!

can you find a way to WFH sooner than in a couple of years?

I try to do 20 mins of yoga or HIIT exercise before I WFH and most days I do. I also read for a 10-15 minutes before I start and after I finish. Works well for me.

I was never a morning person but post pandemic as an introvert suffering from NEVER being alone I forced myself to develop a habit of waking early just to get some time to myself. I have a sunrise light but I now almost always wake up around 6 and sometimes earlier. It has changed my life for the better I have to say. Just that hour or so of peace first thing in the morning to myself

Up to a month ago it was go to the gym at 6.30 3 times a week....I'm not a gym person at all, but it was a weights class and I just got up and did it. I've been ill for a month though so hoping to get back to it.

Previously I used to get up and do a 40 minute walk in the morning, along the prom, it was rather lovely and occasionally blustery or wet!

On days I'm not doing this I sit in the sun on the bench outside the front of the house and brush the cat and have a cup of tea.

All of these are preferable to me rather than a lie in!

I have to get up at 4.50am as it is!!! No thanks..

One of the big reasons I love wfh is not having to get up and dressed and walk to the station. So the last thing I'm going to do is voluntary get up and go for a walk!

I do however make a coffee and take it back to bed for an hour. I have some little games I play on my ipad so I have a bit of relaxation time before getting into work mode. Most days one of the cats will join me for a cuddle.

Adult DS also wfh and he's one of those that rolls out of bed 1 minute to 9 and starts work immediately. I couldn't do that, I do need time to wake up properly. He's got a treadmill so we both use that every day if we're not going out somewhere.

I wake fairly early naturally, & so does my cat. But it also makes the weekend lie-ins, when I get up, feed her & come back to bed with a coffee, all the sweeter.

Oooo I also do this while using a micro current device

seem to be stopping the jowls so far

m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag8fWHrrTIc&t=33s&pp=2AEhkAIB

Yes, I always get up an hour before logging on. In good weather I potter in the garden with a coffee, maybe do a bit of deadheading and feed the fish.

I've tried, I find I don't enjoy doing much before work as I am just thinking about getting started so rather just sleep and roll out of bed and get cracking. I do however take a 2 hour lunch between 11 and 1 to walk the dog and have a leisurely lunch.

Sometimes i walk to the shop and get stuff in for lunch before work, which I enjoy doing, but obviously I don't need to do that everyday unless I start getting through a loaf of bread and pack of eggs in one day

I wish I was a morning person. I’m 200 metres from the beach but I struggle so much to get up of a morning that I never do anything before work.

That said, I did used to take calls out walking on the beach, so maybe I need to do that again if I have something in the diary where I don’t need to be actively using my laptop.

Actually, who am I kidding, I stay in bed until the last possible moment whether I am wfh, onsite or whatever.
No amount of calm contemplation in some zen setting will compensate for not being horizontal under a duvet.
Although, er, great if some sort of morning activity works for you.

I'm a big fan of Sarah Beth yoga. She has loads of videos on YouTube.
I've been trying to fit in a couple each day where possible. Usually just 10 or 15 mins in the morning after school run (or before kids wake up if its early enough) and then 20 mins or so later in the day. Makes an enormous difference to how I feel the rest of the day. I just choose a video according to what I feel like doing. You can choose by length/type.

I wfh, and I'd FAR rather treat myself to an extra 30mins of sleep than sitting in the garden with a coffee.

I quite enjoy the school run for this, it's only a fifteen minute walk there with DS (not relaxing), but then 10-12 home on my own, I like it when it's sunny but a bit chilly, earbuds in, podcast on, then WFH. My office is a 25 minute walk in the opposite direction to school so I tend to drive if doing drop off then the office, because I don't have time for a 50 minutes walk in the mornings, but on the mornings DH does drop off I walk to work, it always makes the day seem less frantic

When I was 100% wfh, self-care consisted of staying in bed until the last possible moment.

Good idea!

I'm pretty confident reducing my sleep even further, to get up at 5am just to fit in some "self care" kinda negates any benefit said self care would have.

I'm the same plus I take a bit of time out of my early morning (8am) start to do school runs some mornings, or to get away early some afternoons to fit around school so it means I rarely get a lunch break to relax- very stressful, I kind of miss my commute and coffee in the office - although I'm hopefully going back one day a week soon!

@AutumnTimeForCosy24 , my work is the one thing I can change. My mornings are quite intense in terms of caring responsibilities (elderly parent and DC1 as well as getting DC2 ready for school). Work starts early and is quite full on in terms of 100% A-game from the moment my pupils arrive, so few opportunities for self-care through the day. Audible audiobook on my way home in the evening is lovely though.
I need to do 2-3 hours work each evening to get things prepared for the next day, but due to said caring responsibilities, I'm not able to do it until DC1 is asleep, which can take a looong time. Once I close my laptop, it's usually the early hours of the next day. I can't get up any earlier than I already do, or I wouldn't sleep at all. So I'm increasingly tempted to take a salary cut in order to get a WFH role. It would be an absolute game-changer in almost every area of my life.