28: Time-Management, Focus, and Motivation in an Era of Online Work

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Hi, everyone. Today's episode is on time management and staying focused in an era of online work. Why am I talking about this? Because over the last eight or nine weeks that I've been working with my students in the quarter system, a key issue that keeps coming up for all of them over and over again, is the issue of a lack of focus, a lack of motivation, and struggling with their time management now that the pandemic hit, and they've had to transition to online schooling online work. So I wanted to talk about this issue and offer some tips. I've got 14 tips that I've pulled in terms of things that are useful to me or has been useful to my students thus far, and I think it will be useful for you. Even if you're in the semester system, and the academic year is over, you may have summer session classes. You may continue to be doing online work in the fall, and I think this is just still very, very relevant. It's going to be relevant for a while, of how to remain focused, how to remain motivated, and stay on top of our time management when we're doing everything online and from home, and that external accountability of seeing people and having to go out to specific places to do our work is no longer there.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So what's going on? The issue is, now that we're working remotely, there's this conflation between what was once our home space, our space of comfort, our space, our sanctuary, our safe space, all of a sudden, that has become our workspace. Some folks, some of us, we don't have offices. We may not even have a desk to work on. I know that's my reality. A lot of folks, are in shared spaces, so they share rooms. And so it's really hard to distinguish between when you're working and when you're lounging, when you're working in when you're resting. It makes it really hard on students. Additionally, a lot of classes are asynchronous, which means that you're not going to a live class with other students. You're listening to pre recorded lectures, which decreases that accountability when you know that no one's holding you accountable. No one's taking attendance. Are you really going to want to go and listen to that lecture if you can do something else? You can watch Netflix, go take a walk, have a long lunch, or do anything but listen to that lecture.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So that's what's going on right now. It's really hard to focus when this is all so new and when you're not in an ideal work setting. So what can you do? There are a few things that you can do. I think I want to talk about first, just getting back to the basics. When it comes to time management and productivity, you want to make sure you're using a calendar or a planner. Some folks believe it or not, don't and just- I actually know a couple of students who everything is in their head. They don't write down when they have classes. They don't write down when they have things due. Somehow- I don't know how they do it, but they say that everything's in their head and they remember. They know when things are due and they get it done. I don't advocate for that too. Even if you have a really excellent memory, I just don't think it's wise to try to keep everything in your head. I do recommend using a calendar. And then some folks use calendars, but they don't use them to the best- in the most efficient way. They may just use a calendar to include their class times and their mandatory meetings, and that's it. I recommend, and this is where the type A side of me comes out, I recommend writing out what you need to do every hour and what you plan to do every hour during your work time. I also recommend setting work hours, so when are you on and off? When are you actually working and when are you resting? You want to include the classes, you want to include your meetings, you want to include your deadlines, but also you want to include the time that you're studying, the time that you're doing homework, the time that you generally need to get work done.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

It can include personal things, too. If you need to work on, I don't know, medical paperwork, or you need to-what could come up? Pay bills. You need to take a break and go take a walk. You want to include work time, study time, break time, time to eat. As much as you can plan out your day, do that. So that's the thing. Even some of my students who are really good with time management pre- pandemic, are struggling with their time management now. Why? What's going on? The thing is that their old ways are not working. So now, they're doing everything I'm telling them to do. They're using the calendar. They're using their planner. They're filling it out every hour. Then at the end of the day, or at the end of the week, they go back to their planner realize they did nothing in the way that they said that they would do it. Everything was thrown off. They didn't even rely on their calendar. They just kind of winged it and did things at the last minute because of the pressure of deadlines, or they missed deadlines and asked for extensions, or missed deadlines, didn't notify their professors and are now worried about their grades. That's what's going on. So the answer is not- oh, just go back to using a calendar planner. Easy as that. No, I know, that's not the one thing that's going to help you out.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I think there's an extra step that I recommend that you take that maybe you have never tried out before, that I actually do regularly. It's something that I call Reverse Planning. I don't know if this is an actual term that exists out there. Maybe it's a term that I coined, who knows. But Reverse Planning is the process of- let's say, on a Sunday night or on a Monday morning, you are scheduling out everything every hour for that week. Then at the end of the week, you go back and you look at your calendar, your planner, and you say oh my goodness. I hardly did anything the way that I said that I would do it. I actually recommend going at the end of the day, at the end of your workday, whatever time you clock out- let's say it's 5pm or 8pm, or whatever. Before you finish your day, go back to your calendar- it could be a Google calendar, online calendar planner. I recommend using a pencil or erasable pen, because you're going to be making changes. Reverse Planning is at the end of the day looking at it and making changes and actually writing out what you did do, and how you did use up your time. So that means okay, you said you're going to have a meeting 10 to 11, and you did have that meeting 10 to 11. But then 11 to noon, you said you were going to start working on homework for your history class, and 11 to noon, you were so drained from that meeting, that you ended up having an early lunch. Then your early lunch turned into an extended lunch, and all of a sudden you missed that time to do your homework. So then you write out lunch- instead of lunch for half an hour or one hour, lunch was two hours. Maybe after in the afternoon, you were supposed to do something else and you didn't and instead you worked on something different and it took you longer than you thought. Okay, write out that other thing that you did, and how long it took you. And maybe in the evening, you told yourself oh I'm going to- I need to do XY and Z. But you were so exhausted, so unmotivated, or just feeling down just struggling with a lack of focus that you didn't do any of it. What did you do instead? Were you on Netflix? Were you just kind of hanging out? Were you checking in with a friend? Whatever it is that you did, write it down in the hour slots that it took.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

It may seem like a lot of work at first, but after a while, it's gonna get really easy to just quickly kind of change or update your calendar to include what you actually did do. Why even do this? So one thing is, it forces you to own up to what you're actually doing. That is hard to do. It sometimes induces feelings of shame, because you feel guilty for not doing everything you said you were going to do. You feel guilty for taking a longer break, you feel guilty for feeling unmotivated and doing less than usual. But keep in mind, doing less than usual is completely normal given our circumstances. We cannot compare ourselves to our pre-pandemic productive ways. What I want to do is- I want to help you develop a routine and develop a plan so that you do just enough to get by, just enough so that you continue to do well. But it's still not going to be to the same level or same extent that you were doing before. So I want you to survive this these times, to manage, but I don't think you should be trying to do your best right now because that's really hard.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Reverse Planning will help you identify habits. It can help you identify what works and what doesn't work. For instance, maybe you realize based on your habits, based on Reverse Planning- at the end of the week, you've reverse planned every day of that week and you realize, wow. I noticed that I used to think that I was a morning person, but now I'm struggling to get up in the mornings. The best time for me to work is after 11. So from 11 to six, those are my best hours. Then in the future now you know. When you're doing your planning, those are your work hours. Or oh, the day that I had a really good day was the day that I made sure that I took breaks. I took two half hour breaks, or that was the day that I use timers. Then you realize, okay, timers worked, so let me do that again. Or maybe you realize, wow. Mondays I really struggle with getting work done. I think I'm just struggling to get back into the routine after having a weekend of not really doing much. So then Mondays, maybe I should plan to do less on Mondays, and try to do more on Tuesdays because Tuesdays I tend to do better on Tuesdays. Or maybe you'll notice, oh wow. I noticed that Wednesday instead of working on my bed, Iworked on the kitchen table. Or Wednesday, I made my bed and set up my bed as a desk. Making my bed, setting up my bed for workspace, not actually lying down on my bed, but bringing a chair next to my bed, that really helped me feel like I was in the in the mood or in the mode of working. I also took a shower and got ready that day, and that really helped me get in the zone of working. So I should probably do that again. Basically you'll identify the things that work and don't work. Then you replicate the setting that works- whether it's the hour or the time of day or the space or whatever it was. Was it a day that you had a study group? Whatever works for you, try to replicate that. That's Reverse Planning. And that's tip number two of fourteen.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

The next thing is maybe you're using a calendar, and you're Reverse Planning, and you still feel so overwhelmed, like there's not enough hours in the day to get everything that you need to get done. What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? I'll tell you what I do. When I feel overwhelmed, I make a list of everything that I think that I have to do that's on my mind, that's stressing me out. Then after I make that list, I prioritize that list based on the things that I know have to get done sooner or more urgent tasks, and the things that can wait. Based on what's more urgent, those are the things that I'll try to get done within the next day or two. The things that can wait, I'll put them for later in the week, because then if I fall behind or anything, I know I have more time to get to it. So making a list and prioritizing is always very helpful. Some folks use post its. That makes me very anxious because I feel like you could lose them so easily. Other folks use apps, project management sites. I use a website- a to do website called Kanban Flow. Some folks use Trello. There are a number of websites, apps that you can try out that are free to add things to your to do lists. Then from your to do list, you could also sync it with your calendar if you really wanted to go all out. But it doesn't matter. It could really be pen and paper. Write down the list, prioritize it and then based on our list, update your calendar. So that's number three.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Next is I recommend setting minimum and maximum goals. I learned about minimum and maximum goals-I don't even know how, but I know it was during my dissertation writing process. I was doing a lot of solitary, isolated work, working on my dissertation by myself at home. I noticed that everything just felt so what's the word? Not mundane, but it was like all my days just seem to blur. They all seemed the sam. Every day, I still had to write the dissertation and it was really easy for me to feel unmotivated. So I thought to myself, setting minimum and maximum goals per day for daily work helped me out. The minimum goal was, what's the absolute minimum goal of working that I could get away with today, if I'm having a really rough day. If I'm feeling depressed, if I'm feeling down, if I'm feeling sick, if it's just a day I'm really struggling. What's the minimum thing that I can do and still feel proud of myself and accomplish and like, at least I did something? Then a maximum goal is, what's the most that I think I could accomplish in a day if I'm having a great day? I'm in a good mood, I've got good energy, I'm feeling great. I'm feeling in the mood and productive and just in the zone, what's the most that I could realistically get done in a day? So I'd write down my minimum and my maximum, and my minimum some days, it was literally just set a timer for five minutes, open up my dissertation Word doc, and write out a couple of sentences of the next paragraph that I was working on. Five minutes, and that was it. If I did five minutes, I did something. The hardest part for me, in many cases, was getting started, opening up that word doc. Or for my students, it could be opening up Blackboard, or the website we use called GauchoSpace, or opening up their email inbox and just facing the thing that they're dreading to get done. It just feels like this huge looming dreadful thing, and sometimes just facing it, even if it's for five minutes, will help you get started. That's why I set the minimum. A lot of times, once I got through the minimum, I could do a little bit more. And some days really, I set a minimum, and I couldn't do more than that. So because it was my minimum goal, I was like, you know what? I did it. I know it's not a lot. I know it's not much, but it's better than doing nothing. So I recommend setting minimum and setting maximum goals.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

All right, number five. See if it's possible for you to set up an online study group or writing group, an accountability group, some sort of peer support system. Why? Because I think that it helps to be in community with others to have a space where you can share your progress with other people who are in a similar situation as you, who are also struggling. You can use that space as a space to set goals, a space to check in and vent with each other, but then set goals for the next week. You can even use it as a space to study with them. If it's a two hour meeting, maybe the first half hour y'all check in, and then the next hour, you all work, and the last half hour you check out. I know I have an accountability group for some projects that I'm working on and during that accountability group, we do that. We check in in the beginning, see how we're doing, how we did with regard to our goals from the last week. Then we set a timer, a Pomodoro timer, which means we work for 25 minutes, and then we take five minutes off as a break to see how we're doing. We could work again for another 25 minutes, if we have the time. If not, then we check out by letting each other know what our goals are for the following week. I highly recommend some sort of peer support system, peer group, accountability group, study group, writing group, whatever it is that you need. And trying to- once you set it up, prioritizing it, because it's really easy if it's just a study group to cancel on them. You're like, well, it's not actually like a class where I'm getting credit for it, so I don't really have to do it. I don't really feel like it today. It's really easy to let it go and not take it seriously. So if you do join one or if you do set one up, try to take it seriously.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Okay, and then maybe you're not interested in groups. Maybe you don't have anybody that you feel comfortable reaching out to. How else do you hold yourself accountable? Another thing you could try out -number six- is setting up some sort of reward system. A reward system could be something as basic as getting yourself stickers and giving yourself a sticker for every task that you accomplish that day. Or it can mean okay, taking extra breaks, and the more you get done, the more breaks you get. Or maybe your reward system is, if you know I get through this certain number of assignments, I get to watch this movie I really want to watch. Or I get to take- instead of taking a walk in my neighborhood, I'm going to drive myself to the beach, or this really beautiful park. Whatever it is that's close to you, and take a longer walk and really enjoy my scenery. Whatever it is that you can do as a reward system. I don't recommend a reward system that involves spending a lot of money, because I don't think now's the time for people to spend money. Well, first of all, a lot of us, a lot of my students are low income students. A lot of us are struggling with our finances because of the pandemic. But even if you're not struggling financially, now is not the time to spend money. Try to avoid financial rewards if you can. Every once in a while, getting yourself a coffee, or pastry, or even a bigger reward like treating yourself to something on your birthday. Those things make sense. That's okay. But in terms of regularly, every day, I'm going to treat myself to something where it involves spending money. I don't recommend it. So develop some sort of reward system that's not going to break your bank, but that's going to keep you motivated. All right. Well, actually, I should say my reward system is getting to go out and take walks. I think that's my main thing, in terms of my own reward system. Then every once in a while, every couple of months, I may treat myself to something. Maybe some earrings or a shirt, but I don't do it often. It's just after I hit some major milestones, like maybe at the end of a quarter, or maybe once a year or twice a year, I'll get myself something and try not to feel guilty about it. Okay, reward systems.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Next is developing a routine. I think I've been talking about this all along, but I want to make sure I emphasize that right now, the reason why so many students are struggling is because their routine has been completely thrown off. If your routine before was going to campus, going to your classes, after that, hanging out with your friends, and then going to like student org meetings. And all of a sudden, all of that is stripped away from you and all you can do is stay home, or maybe go outside to run errands or go outside on some sort of nature walk. That routine is so different from what you had before. So I think it's critical to figure out what your new normal is, what your new routine is, what your time to start work is, what your time to end work is. What are you doing regularly for self care? What are you doing to to take care of your physical health, take care of your mental health? What are those things that are going to help you feel like you have a routine? For some people it means getting up, showering, or getting ready, changing out of your PJs. You don't want to be in your pjs all day because then how are you supposed-I can imagine it's harder to get into work mode. At least it is for me, if I stay in my PJs all day. Identify a workspace that's different from your lounge space. Maybe a place that's different from your couch or your bed. The more that you can distinguish between when your work time and workspace is and your time of lounging, rest, comfort is, the better off you'll be. Otherwise, you're just going to feel like you have to work all the time. You're always going to be in work work, work, study, study study mode, and anytime you take off, you're going to feel guilty. That's the one thing I'm trying to decrease in my students, because I've dealt with that for so long. I still to some extent deal with it, but I'm much better off now. It's just that feeling of guilt, of always feeling in the back of your head, if you're taking a break, if you're watching a show, if you're talking to a friend of- I should be getting work done. I should be writing. I should be doing this, I should be doing that. That should should should is a really negative loop that never ends. You gotta break that cycle by developing a very clear cut routine. When you start, when you stop- no matter what. Even if you don't get everything that you need to get done, you stop at a certain hour and you're allowed to take a break. You're allowed to not look at your emails after that. You're allowed to enjoy yourself. You don't have to be always working and always productive to matter, you know. So develop a routine to minimize the guilt, to increase your ability to harmonize between your work and your personal life, and to make sure you take care of yourself.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And in line with this conversation about taking care of yourself is my tip number eight, which is prioritize sleep. Oh, my goodness. The other thing I found that's really common among my students- and maybe it's just my students, but I have a feeling it's happening across the board, is that a lot of folks are going to bed so late. They're going to bed at two, three, four in the morning, and then waking up at noon, 1, 2pm. That's not necessarily a bad thing. If you're a night owl, go ahead and keep that routine. So long as it is a routine, because some folks are just playing it by ear. Some days, they go to bed at midnight. Some days at 4am. Then the next day they wake up, and they don't really know when to start working. They're kind of just waiting it out. That I don't recommend. But if you figure out a routine. You're like, okay, every day- I'm a night owl- I will go to bed at 2am. I'm going to wake up at 10am. I'm going to start working and start doing work at 11, or whatever it is, whatever time you want to start. That's okay, so long as there's a routine. But the thing is, if you don't have a routine, it's really easy to lose sleep. It's really easy to wait till the last minute, procrastinate, wait until that rush of the fear of missing a deadline, having that kick in. A lot of folks say oh, I work really good under pressure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure that's actually true. I think you get your work done under pressure, that doesn't mean you are doing your best work under pressure. Then a lot of folks are still doing all nighters, and eventually, that's going to come back and kick you in the butt. It's going to come back and haunt you. You're not going to be in your 20s forever. Not all my students are in their 20s. I have non track students too and parenting students, but generally speaking, my students who are in their early 20s don't take care of themselves, don't prioritize sleep. Not only does that hurt you and your physical health, but it also affects your ability to remain productive in a stable way. Your sleep directly affects your health, directly affects your focus, directly affects your ability to work efficiently the next day. I know that when I don't sleep very well, the next day, I'm so tired that I'm not at my best. So prioritize sleep as much as you can. Try to get whatever number of hours works for you. For some folks, it's six and for some folks, it's eight or nine hours. Figure out what that number is for you and try to get that that in no matter what.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Next tip is to alert others of your work hours so that they don't distract you. This one goes out to all of the folks out there who are working from home and have gone back and moved in with their parents. Maybe you're no longer in the dorms and you're with your parents, and maybe you're sharing a room. I understand that feeling of sometimes your parents don't understand the concept of you having to get work done and they put a lot of responsibilities on you. So I recommend telling them what your work hours are, so that they don't distract you during those work hours. That doesn't have to just be your parents. It could be your siblings. It could be your partner. It could be your kids, whatever your family setting scenario is. But definitely just letting people know- okay mom, I'm going to be working from 11 to 7. I'm not going to be able to really do lunch with you most days, because I really have to focus. If you could just- if there's anything that you need, if we can just talk about it during dinner. Whatever it is that works for you. Or it could be telling your partner or your child like, hey. I know in my family, it's my husband and my son. I tell them, hey, I've got meetings from this time to this time. Please don't interrupt me during those hours. I'll come back and check in with you all when I'm done with my last meeting. It's worked out fairly well up to this point. So definitely communicate with everybody else who's in your kind of vicinity, in your area, workspace. That way, you minimize the number of distractions that you have.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Number ten is reaching out for help. So I haven't really talked about how some of my students are not only struggling with their focus and their motivation, but they're actually struggling with their mental health too. If you're already susceptible to dealing with depression or anxiety, having to stay home, having your circumstances changed, perhaps a family member got sick, perhaps family members are losing jobs. Those are very real, very scary, very triggering incidents, and so it could really affect your mental health, which is why I have this. The next thing is reaching out for help from your professors, friends, family, any resources that are available to you. If you're really struggling, I strongly encourage you, especially if you're a student, you have access to student health care and insurance. Teach out to your professors, let them know that you're struggling. See if there's any way that they can provide accommodations or extensions on things, if you know that you're not going to be able to get things done on time. Reaching out to resources, whether it's securing a therapist or going to see a doctor, a psychiatrist, whatever it is that you need to make sure that you're feeling better. Please don't hesitate to reach out for help. A lot of us are out there, and we want to help you out. We want to make sure you're okay. We can't do that unless you tell us. I know it's hard. I was that student who struggled to reach out for help. I was always really ashamed, very shy. And I didn't feel comfortable telling others about my personal issues. I thought that they would judge me for it. But I wish that somebody had kind of reached out to me and told me, it's okay to ask for help. It's okay to take advantage of the resources that are available to you.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Okay, we're getting closer to the end. I'm getting to number 11, out of 14. Number 11 is focus on what you can control. Focus on what you can do now, and focus on what you do know. This is where, again, a lot of us are struggling because there's this loss of control. We don't know how long this pandemic is going to last. We don't know how long we're gonna be doing online work. We don't know when we're gonna get back to normal or if there will ever be a normal. If it's just going to be a new normal now. That is really hard to accept. So what should you do? You should focus on what you can control and what you do know. For instance, even I get really anxious about the fact that I don't know what's going to happen in the fall. Our university hasn't been very clear about whether or not we're going to be doing online instruction, if we're all going to have to return back to campus and everything's going to go back to how it was before, but with social distancing practices in place. I don't know. When my students, when they ask me, I am very honest with them and I say honest, I just, we don't know. We're working with a number of different scenarios and options, but we don't know. What we do know is, and that's where again, focus on what you do know. We do know that we're going to be online through the end of summer sessions, which for me, gets us through mid August. So I know that I can do my planning. I know what to expect. I know what to do from here on until mid August. And I just have to wait until we get to that point and then find out about fall and accept that. Focus on what you can control, what you do know and then make your plans accordingly.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Alright, number 12. Again, this is going back to struggling with your mental health or struggling feeling more down than usual, feeling more unmotivated than usual. What if you just want to vent, you just want to dwell, you just want to be in your feelings about something, what do you do? Do you push through and try to get your work done like you said you would in your calendar, or is your day completely over and you just give up, and you decided to just take a day off, because you need a mental health day? Either one would be perfectly fine, but I actually recommend neither. I recommend that you do vent, that you do dwell, that you do be in your feelings and allow yourself that space, but to set a timer or a limit on it. So maybe if you're like, you know what? I am having a breakdown right now. I'm really upset over whatever's going on, and I know I'm not going to be able to get the work done I said I would get done this hour. But I'm just gonna give myself an hour. I'm gonna cry. I'm gonna let it all out. I'm going to journal. I'm going to call a friend, whatever it is that works. And when that hour is up, or when that hour and a half or two hours, however long you need, when that time is up, I'm just gonna have to move on and go on to the next thing. So I do recommend if you can, try to set a timer or a limit on it. That way- you know, it's really easy to dwell and then let that take over and then let it take over for a while. Especially for those of us that have suffered from depression, it's really triggering to have a bad day. It's really easy to then have another bad day and then another and then out of nowhere, you realize, how did I get this far and let it get this bad without getting help. So if you notice that you're struggling, you're struggling to set a timer or a limit on it, go back to my tip number 10 and reach out for help.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Okay, number 13 is give yourself something to look forward to each day, and/or start a gratitude practice. I know it's really hard to find joy nowadays, when so much is going on in the world. Then some of us feel guilty feeling joy, feel guilty having a good time while we're at home. And I don't think you should feel guilty. I think you should try to find things that make you happy, even in your struggles, even in whatever difficult circumstances you have, you can always find something to look forward to. Whether it's one on one time with your child, with your sibling, with your friends. It could be social distanced time It could be one on one time over zoom or Skype or whatever. What is it that you're going to look forward to every single day? In terms of the gratitude practice- this is completely optional, obviously- but I actually, I don't do it as much now. My gratitude practice is more just finding a time each day and reminding yourself of at least three things that I'm grateful for. That's what I do now. But what I did in grad school was I had a gratitude Google Doc that I shared with a friend. Then every day, the two of us would go into the Google Doc and write out three things that we were grateful for each day. I'd write out my three things. I'd write the date and the three things that I was grateful for. Then she'd write it out, and then the next day, I'd get to see what her three things were for the day before. It was really nice. It was interesting to see the things that she was grateful for, that made me realize, oh, I should be grateful for that too. Over time, doing that every single day, it actually shifted my perspective. I tend to be a very pessimistic person. I used to call myself a realist. I'm just a realist, but I tend to see things in the worst case scenario, or catastrophize things. I think that has to do with childhood trauma, I understand that. But now because of my gratitude practice, instead of thinking of all the things I don't have, instead of dwelling on anything that happens to be difficult in my life now, I found a way to find joy and to appreciate the things that I do have. And I feel like I have more abundance in my life because I'm more conscious of what I do have. If it's a roof on top of my head,or if it's my health or being alive, whatever it is that just reminds you like, oh my gosh. I should be grateful for whatever it is that I have right now. At least I'm in school and I've got something to do every day. At least I'm getting a paycheck, or at least my family is okay and everybody's healthy, or at least - you know,whatever it is that you have going on, that you can be grateful for. You can always find something to be grateful for. So that's number 13. Find things to look forward to or, or find things to be grateful for.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

All right. Last tip is reminding you that it's okay to lower your bar, to be compassionate with yourself and to do what is enough. Right now is not the time to try to be your best self. Right now's not the time to thrive. Right now is not the time to do everything in the perfect way. Right now's the time to take care of yourself, to do whatever is enough to get by, whatever is enough to get you to achieve your goals, but no more than that. It's okay to lower your bar. It's okay to do less. But just figure out what is it that I can do that's enough, and then be okay with that. And I know, not every day is going to be easy. Some days are going to be harder than others. But I hope that some of these tips are useful to you. I hope you can implement them. Let me know if you tried something and if it worked out for you or not. I'd also- if you have any additional tips or things that are working for you, I'd love to hear them. I'll happily share them, either in my next episode or over Instagram on social media. I actually really like hearing from my listeners, so if you have anything, shoot me an email. Send me a DM on Instagram. I'm always happy to hear from you. Have a good rest of the week everyone.