This summer could change your life

Plus: your anti-procrastination toolkit

British summertime: cloudy but wholesome

I have a childfree friend with no reason to live her life by term dates, but she uses them throughout the year to set herself mini goals and check in on her progress.

Autumn term: early September to Christmas.
Spring term: early January to Easter.
Summer term: mid April to the end of July.

With half terms in February, May and October, it’s six blocks of six weeks.

Six weeks is long enough to see progress, short enough to feel manageable. Also, it’s a flexible structure; she doesn’t have to deal with inset days and 3:25pm pick-ups. She can (and does) go on holiday during term time when it’s cheaper and quieter.

Which brings me to the best bit of her term life schedule: summer.

For those of us with school-age kids, the six-week break (or longer at some schools) can be a precarious balance of activity clubs and a tense game of annual leave Jenga.

For my friend, however, the summer break is a time to reset and make plans.

The office is quiet, so there are fewer meetings and more time for her to work out where she actually wants to be, in work and in life. Everyone’s situation is different but, for many, summer can be a time to press pause on the hamster wheel.

Like every year, I will be taking six weeks off Well Well Well.

This is not only for me to have a break, but also because I want you spending less time in your inbox, and more time in the real world - ideally in the sunshine with an ice cold kombucha and a book (Pandora Sykes has some good recommendations).

This summer (in fact, tomorrow, eek) we are moving house. We’re not going far: from East London to North London. But still. It’s a big change, and a new school for our kids. We’re all feeling nervous-excited-overwhelmed-giddy-a bit sick.

So we’ll be spending the summer getting to know our new neighbourhood. Not least because we’ve spent all our money on stamp duty and can never go on holiday again.

I did go to Greece in June so can’t complain

I’ll also have some time (thanks to summer clubs and grandparents) for work, and focusing on the big-picture things that I never seem to get around to. You know, the work/life/home project you have in your mind to work on “when things calm down”.

It reminds me of that meme I’ve seen doing the rounds: “Life is just saying ‘after this week things will be easier’ over and over again until you die.” Life is so filled with daily deadlines and never-ending admin, that actually sitting down to concentrate on your dream project can feel an impossibility.

Which brings me to procrastination; particularly an issue in the summer. Because who can focus on anything much when the sun’s out?

I recently discovered an app called Ahead, which sells itself as “Duolingo for emotional intelligence”. It’s a fair comparison: just as Duolingo gamifies learning a new language, making it fun and interactive, Ahead does the same thing with building confidence or managing anxiety or anger. 

And it has an interesting backstory. “A girlfriend broke up with me,” says co-founder Kai Koch, “and she said that, if I ever want to be in a happy relationship, I need to work on my emotional intelligence.” I mean, what else to do but develop an app promising exactly that?

He had his own summer of personal transformation. “I read all the books, listened to all of the podcasts, but it felt passive,” he says. “They were inspiring, but inspiration and action are two different things. If you want to learn to ride a bike, you don’t read a book about riding a bike - you get on the bike.”

My favourite one of Ahead’s courses is procrastination, which is a massive issue in our always-on, highly-distractible world. From Kai’s advice, to tips from the app and my own experience, here’s my screenshot-and-save guide.

12-point anti-procrastination toolkit

• Timebox. A traditional to-do list is too easy to ignore. Use your calendar to block out the times at which you will do important tasks. Marc Zao-Sanders has a brilliant book on this.

• Eat the frog. I hate this phrase - ugh, gross. But the point stands: identify the most difficult of your tasks, and do that first.

• Clear your mind. Switching between tasks never allows your brain to recharge. Pick moments in the day to go out in nature, or meditate if that’s your thing. I like the hypnosis app, Reveri, which I wrote about in terms of managing anxiety but they have a whole section on focus and concentration. 

• Marie Kondo your phone. Delete social media apps - or at least hide them from the home screen so you won’t mindlessly open them.

• Replace those apps with something you want to remember to do. It might be Audible, Strava, Substack, Reveri or the Ahead app. Putting it where the Instagram app used to be will encourage your muscle memory to take you there.

• Inbox resistance. Switch off notifications, and set certain times in the day for emails. Then spend 30 minutes on whatever task is most important before opening your inbox at all.

• Remove distractions. Putting your phone in another room is the oldest trick in the book, but how often do you actually do that? It works!

• Set a timer. One of Ahead’s challenges is to gamify a boring task. Got some invoicing to do? Set a timer and see how much you can do in 20 minutes. I bought an hourglass so that I can do this with my phone in the other room.

• Embrace the shitty first draft. This classic advice for writing can be applied to anything. We often avoid doing something because we won’t be good at it right away. The first attempt will be rubbish! Accept that, and get on with it. I think the original “shitty first draft” quote is from Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird.

• Get accountable. Sometimes accountability is obvious (your boss) but sometimes you’re only accountable to yourself, so it helps to tell a friend your goals and have them check in regularly - you can do the same for them.

• Stay hydrated, move your body, eat your veg and get some sleep. It’s waaaaaaay harder to focus when you’re tired, lethargic, thirsty or not well nourished. And so easy to neglect these things when we’re busy.

• Focus takes practice. It’s a skill after all. There are attention training games on YouTube, but I love this challenge on the New York Times to spend ten minutes with one painting.

Have I missed anything? What’s worked for you? Let me know in the comments.

See you in September!

Dive into the Well Well Well archive…

A neuroscientist’s guide to stop sabotaging your healthy habits

Is there a ‘breast cancer diet’?

How to manage your energy

The only nutrition advice you’ll ever need

This will help you break up with booze

A simple way to feel calm, confident + in control