Hello happiness seekers. Welcome back to the Happiness Challenge. This is September Back to Work series. I'm Klaudia Mitura, your work psychologist and science of happiness specialist. Today we are diving into a topic that we all experiencing at work. That is mental headspace. Or more specifically how to find headspace in a chaotic workday and refocus on what's truly in important. Join me so let's face this workplace overwhelm and that mental clutter is incredibly common, especially when we are back from a break because we dealing with gazillion of emails in our inbox. Or when work suddenly really speeds up and in September everyone is back from holidays and it's more like run, run, run. And our minds end up juggling to do lists, emails, meetings and million tiny worries. This moment, this feeling that we have of overwhelmed when we look at everything we need to do and we think I don't know where to start. I seriously don't know what to do. There is so much to do that is definitely a very clear sign that we are overwhelmed. And without a mental space, without a headspace at work, it's very hard to think clearly, to be creative or even enjoy what we are doing. And studies previously published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that having some kind of process of making to do lists, of trying to clarify what is important, it's actually as impactful as completing the tasks themselves because it reduces our anxiety and our intrusive thoughts that Are we missing something? Oh, I haven't done something, I have I forgotten something? So actually even in the busiest moments the there are some simple strategies that we can do to help us to have a little breathing room for our mind. So let's have a look at some of those strategies that you could try straight away at your desk to get that extra headspace. So first of all, it's really stopping and pausing and reflecting what's actually important. So let's start with a quick guided reflection. If you can just close your eyes for a moment or simply soften your gaze, take a slow deep breath or even physiological sigh which is two short breaths in through the nose. So pause and breathe out slowly through your mouth. Do it couple of times. And now ask yourself, if I was able to complete only one thing today, only one thing, what would be truly important for me to focus on? Ask yourself also what is that one thing that if I made the progress on would make the rest of my day feel lighter? I've done this bit that's so good. That's so much better. I Feel lighter. So really what we're trying to do is pausing and asking this question can help us cut through the noise and bring instant clarity because we instinctively know what's most important. But there's just so much stimuli, there's just so much information, so many requests. Everything feels urgent that we forgetting what is that most important thing. So taking a deep breath, pausing and asking those questions very simply takes few minutes can give us that clarity straight away. The next thing that we can do is try to clear the clutter a little bit with brain dump journaling. This is also really interesting strategy. So you can simply grab a piece of paper or open a blank document, have a timer for 2, 3 minutes and write down everything and I mean absolutely, absolutely everything that is really going round and round in your mind. Task worries, reminders, random thoughts. You don't need to organize this. You're not trying to censor it just yet. You're just letting it out. Everything, all of those things. Remember about this. Have I done this? What about this? Oh yeah. What oh yeah. This person said this is the just everything. Do it for a few minutes and once you've done it, so scan your list. What can you let go for now? Just for now. This can wait. Yes, in ideal world it would be done, but for now let's just let it go. What is genuinely urgent? Like genuinely urgent and I mean things are going to collapse without this. And then what can you schedule for later or delegate? And again, writing, basically looking at our list and being very militant with ourselves about this. What can be let go for now? What is actually genuinely urgent and what can be scheduled for lateral delegate gives us this, this relief that it's trying to clear the clutter and really see, okay, what is the most important. And that simple habit can help us to really declutter our mind and really see what actually needs your attention. If you want to top this up, those two techniques of pausing and thinking about the most important aspects and this idea of brain dump journaling, you can top it up with digital declutter. So closing any tabs, apps, notifications you don't need for your current task. Digital clutter equals mental clutter. It actually has an impact on our brain. The fact we have hundreds browsers open. It does really makes us feel more stressed. If we can see all of the notifications from our inbox, all of the notification or teams. Give yourself moment and a headspace when you switch all of that off, have the microposes I spoke about micro poses in the other episodes because really they are really important to refuel our mind. So Every hour take 30 seconds to stand out, stretch, look out the window again. Those micro poses help us our brain to reset and refocus. And the final one top it up with choose something to let go every day we need to get rid of the excess. And remember when we getting rid of the excess we are creating more headspace. It can be a physical object, it could be a belief, a relationship, an email, a task we agreed to but realized we cannot do anymore. Choose something to let go every day and reflect. How does this make you feel? Are you seeing the benefits of that saying no? So I hope that this is useful and I hope that you will be trying some of those headspace habits. And I think the biggest thing is to remember that even the smallest pause can really make a difference in how we feel and perform at work. So it's really worth investing in and really the developing as a regular habit. Okay and if you are enjoying all of these science based happiness hacks, don't forget my book, the Alphabet of Happiness is launching on the 30th of September. It's getting published. You can celebrate with me by joining my free webinar about the science of Happiness at work on 29th of September at 6pm UK time. And you can also join me in person to celebrate my book launch on 31st of October at 6.30pm at the Science Museum in London. Head to my website thehappinesschallenge.co.uk to find more information or join my substack newsletter. Just search for the Happiness Challenge on Substack. Again, I would love to see you. I would love to know more about how the podcast is making difference to you. And you know what, let's make a space for what matters most together. Let's find more headspace this week. I wish you a wonderful week ahead of you. Bye.