10 ways to be kind yourself at work

Instead of taking on more work and overloading yourself, why not take less work than you think you have capacity for, complete that work and then take on more work as needed. (Instead of pushing work on your plate, pull the work as and when you have capacity)

This could be people and it could also be tasks or meetings. There's managers or supervisors who want a report on everything even though there's no value. There's tasks that are likely done because 'it's always been done'. And there's meetings where there's no agenda, no focus, and just a way of talking about work instead of doing work.

Rest is not something you do after a long day of work. It's the foundation for good work.

I'm not talking about sleep or naps (which are covered under Prioritize rest), I'm talking about the activities that give you energy - golf, walking, spending time with family, etc.

James says that the key to success is to overpromise and overdeliver, none of those underpromise overdeliver stuff. And I'm not saying hard work isn't needed. But recognize that this is a marathon.

It's easy to reach for foods that are convenient and fast to save you time so that you can get back to work, but slowing down and cooking foods from scratch can be a great way to recharge and reset.

The journey up a mountain starts with a single step. The task to complete all the things on your plate is to complete one thing at a time.

Sometimes, you're faced with undesirable tasks or work. Maybe it's transferring data from one document to another. If you focus on how awful the task is, you're going to be miserable. If you focus instead on what you can learn, you'll come away with a healthier view of the work.

Whether it's exercise, eating healthy, going for a walk, put it in your calendar and then schedule around those activities. If you wait until you have all of your work scheduled in, you're not going to have the time to exercise.

You might feel like you're being a hard worker by answering those emails on weekends and evenings. But you're also going to feel like you never really had a good break away from work if you do so.