Work-life balance – What are my options?

Set fixed times in your calender to meet with friends, business contacts and interest groups. Make appointments with your colleagues, friends or family during your breaks to have conversations away from work and have a coffee or even a joint lunch "together".

This will actually help you to maintain social contacts or even make new ones. Just use the current situation to get to know a different kind of interaction and try out new things! Use the communication tools also to have fun – share messages, pictures, video, stories or send GIFs (animated pictures) and emojis.

Make sure that your working and living day is varied. Times spent on the monitor or (mobile)phone screen, on the telephone, in personal contact with relatives or playing with children should alternate with glances out of the window or on paper or into a book or magazine.

How about a board game or puzzle? Bring hobbies back to life. Perhaps you like to do handicrafts, cooking, baking or making music? Even the flowerbed could be replanted - then the view out of the window is all the more worthwhile.

You should also include 30-40% of the planned time for tasks as a buffer in your schedule. This applies to both analog and digital work.

Maybe you are now thinking "that is a lot"! Maybe so. Trust in the experts and just give it a try. Don't take on too much for one day. Stay realistic. Be prepared for contingencies - longer loading times for one or the other website or the fact that your colleague may call back later than you had hoped (after all, it is currently not possible to simply go over to the neighbouring office).

If you then complete the tasks you have undertaken, you can go home all the more relaxed. After all, you have really earned it.

Sleep is a recovery phase, which is one of the most important parts of life for us humans. It is not for nothing that we spend more than a quarter of our life time Only if you have enough and are healthy you will be balanced and efficient - and above all happy.

Yet sleep is much more than just physical and mental recovery. If sleep is not restful, the ability to concentrate even for the simplest activities is lost and the ability to react is massively reduced. Ultimately, even diseases such as cardiovascular problems, high blood pressure or depressive episodes are threatening.

The following tips could help you to find a healthy sleep: Your bedroom should be tidy, darkened and well ventilated. It is also helpful not to have any electrical appliances (PC, TV, etc.) in the room and to keep it generally quiet.

Move around throughout the day and avoid exertion just before going to bed. Get as much daylight as possible (it acts as a clock and mood enhancer). Do not drink alcohol for the last three hours before going to bed and avoid nicotine. Take care of your digestive tract by not eating opulently at bedtime.

Design your evening in a relaxed manner (written "discarding" of thoughts or worries, rather read than watch TV) and find a sleep ritual for yourself. For example, go out into the fresh air or have a cup of tea. Avoid looking at the alarm clock at night. If you can't fall asleep at night, get up, walk a few steps or have a tea. Go back to bed when the so-called sleep pressure returns. All in all: create your own bed as a cosy comfort zone.

You are valuable! Take care of yourself and consciously plan "Me Time" in your everyday life. These can be smaller or larger time slots - it is important that at least one appointment with yourself takes place per day. You actively use this time for yourself. Drinking a coffee in peace? Read a good book again? Snacking on delicious chocolate? Taking a long bath? Doing a relaxation exercise? Many things are possible. Make up a list of pleasant activities and plan certain moments of well-being a day or even a few days in advance - that way, you can be sure that you'll be looking forward to them.