What should be easy, and what is, by nature hard? This Philosopher-in-Residence has been pondering this of late. Has the nature of the covid lockdowns engendered a new breed of keyboard warrior, and changed the way people interact with each other? I’m sure you good members of Plankind have heard friends, family members or colleagues exclaim “it shouldn’t be this hard!” and this is a completely understandable reaction borne out of frustration.

As we all grow a little gloomier as the mornings and evenings become darker, this fortnight I’ve endeavoured to produce a handy MMAP-flavoured guide to what should be easy, and what is more likely to be hard, to help anyone in need of a helpful external perspective to sense-check their reactions against.

If you find the guide useful, we’d love to know and please share amongst your networks.

What should be easy as 1, 2, 3?

1. Setting aside time for you – whether that’s solo self-care or socialising. Make sure gloom is outside, not inside, literally and metaphorically and actively diarise your own time in this regard.
2. Deciding the next step forward – we’ve written before in the Finding Happy blog series about doing just one thing if you’re feeling stacked or overwhelmed. It does work, and you just have to do one thing to prove it!
3. Being happy – as wellbeing specialists MMAP has a ton of free and paid-for resources to support this base aim. It really helps to write down the biggest barrier to being happy, if you’re not feeling you consider this easy right now. That’s your first part to acknowledging the problem and marking it as smaller than you, not bigger than you. Get in touch if you need help developing that plan.

What is difficult, difficult, lemon difficult? (Hat-tip quote to Malcom Tucker from The Thick Of It circa 2010)

Making an omelette without cracking eggs (we’re on a literal and metaphorical theme this fortnight!)

In short, challenging situations will arise, you’ve got through them before and you’ll get through them again.

1. Knowing whether to put your summer pajamas away or your get your winter ones back out. Really.
2. Transition. Change isn’t easy for anyone and this isn’t a plug for MMAP’s (excellent!) Make Me An ELearner Change Management course, honest. Practise acceptance, it may not be instant or easy, but change is a growth and development opportunity, and time a great healer.

Next time, I’ll be musing On Autumn, as we continue the series On Seasons. You don’t need to change the clocks, but why not set yourself a reminder to browse the blog on 5^th October?

Please get in touch with any particular aspects of this subject you’d like me to write about.

In the meantime,

Happy Planning

PS If you want some other free tips for your business life, check out the Working Well blog – out fortnightly on Wednesdays, courtesy of Make Me A Plan’s Productivity Expert, Pen Le Kelly.