Nowadays, it’s far too easy for life to become a relentless list of doing. Doing work, doing exercise, doing Zoom, doing the dishes and anything else that needs doing.

The natural yet barely noticed breaks of pre-COVID19 working lives have disappeared. We no longer spend time lost in aimless thought while waiting for our bus. We don’t break our days with food-hall lunches laughing with colleagues. And we don’t spend time at the gym checking out each other’s butts or sitting through mind-numbing meetings with our minds in neutral.

Instead, COVID-19 has provided us with the perfect opportunity to become card-carrying workaholics running from one project to another like the White Rabbit in Alice and Wonderland – “I’m late, I’m late for an important date”!

So, here’s the real job we need to do: Take more time off during the day – a lot more. Time during which you can reward yourself by doing something you like. You know, like phone calls with friends, listening to music, reading a mag, cooking up something nice or just picking the lint out of your belly button.

Anything other than just working relentlessly throughout your working day. Because, ‘normally’ your working day is made up of much, much more than just work.