A week in which your alarm goes off at 5 in the morning, you train to the maximum, take good care of yourself and stick to your diet. It sounds like you would never do it, but this exercise promises to boost your professional and personal success. This is called survival week and it starts with 5 rules to follow all week. The goal of the survival week is to become a better you, to be more productive, get rid of bad habits, create new good habits, become an overall more effective and happier person.
Seven days to be your best self
Survival week has 5 rules to follow all week long. It starts at Sunday sunset and ends the next Sunday morning. These rules are based on the book Hell Week by author and former Norwegian paratrooper Erik Bertrand Larssen. A book that promises to unlock your best self in seven days. Besides the 7 rules, there is one other game-changing rule: you’ve got to stay up all night on Thursday, which is the toughest day of the survival week. This helps you to boost your productivity and pushing your limits. Let’s dive into it!
1) Early to bed and early mornings
Go to sleep at 10 pm and rise at 5 am, that’s seven hours of sleep every night for 7 days. It might be that you are one of those people who needs eight hours of sleep rather than seven. We know that one hour makes a big difference. Try to keep it up for the 7 days and create a routine that helps you to start the morning. The fact is that you are constantly tired which makes it harder to do the other elements of the challenge. But keep going!
2) Look your best every day
There will come a day when you won’t have the energy to look your best. You don’t have to rush out to buy a new wardrobe, but it is recommended that you brush your hair, have your nails groomed, and iron your shirts. Schedule some time beforehand for yourself.
3) Exercise, exercise and exercise and Eath healthy
Train every day for 7 days, this means every day can be a long walk, a dance with friends over zoom or a run. This will help you achieve a goal each day and do something with your time in the morning or evening. Eat healthily, try to avoid junk food and alcohol. Realise that this also bans all junk food and alcohol on weekends. This survival week is all about healthy eating, exercise and productivity.
4) Be focused on everything you do and try to ban social media
Try to be hyper-focused on every task you are doing. Social media gives a lot of distractions and makes you less productive. Of course, we would like to connect, plan your social media time when you travel or when you are not at work. Grayscale Mode is the latest feature on your smartphones. The purpose of this mode is to make your phone less destructive. It turns your device screen into white and black, technology is engineered to be addictive and that’s the reason why it’s designed with a lot of colours.
5) You’ve got to be in it all the way
Remember that during this survival week, the lack of sleep is intense. You have to prepare, tell the people around you that you are doing this survival week (this helps with motivation) and find a week where the work is not so busy. If you need to turn some aspect of your life around, a week of exercise, healthy eating, and solid sleep habits couldn’t hurt. Good luck!
How can Fit for Work help?
To learn more about setting up or managing an ergonomics program that supports staff working from home or in the office or support with staying legally compliant, you can reach out to Fit for Work. For more information on our Ergonomics Self-Assessment and Education Tool, contact us.
