How To Stay Motivated At Work During The Summer

Summer weather is both a gift and a curse. You love to see it when the weekend comes around, but you resent it when you’re stuck inside working all through the week. It can be amazingly demotivating trying to work when it’s sunny outside.

Your brain starts to wander, you feel jealous of everyone outside, and you get less work done. How can you stay motivated at work during the summer months?

5 Tips on How To Stay Motivated At Work During The Summer

Many of you face this problem at this time of year. The sun’s out, but you’re forced to plug away and spend hours indoors. Thankfully, there are ways to keep yourself focused and motivated even when the weather is at its most beautiful. Here are some ideas to try.

1. Work outside

This is a simple idea, though one that is often overlooked. If you work from home—which many people do right now—you can take your work outside. Go into your garden or out onto your balcony and set up an outdoor working space.

You want to be as comfortable as possible, ideally with a table and chair. If you lie down on a mat and try to work, you might feel like you’re sunbathing and lose your motivation! So, try to keep yourself sitting upright and at a table to maintain a professional aura. 

When working outside, spend most of your time in the shade wearing sunscreen. This protects you from the sun as you could be outside for many hours without rest. If you’re not convinced you need sunscreen, read a sunscreen FAQ to remind you why it’s so important.

If you can’t work outside, move your desk next to a window. Keep the window open so you can enjoy the fresh air and sunshine.

The beauty of working outside or next to a big open window is that it alleviates some of the summer FOMO. You may be working, but you can still enjoy the nice weather and the shining sun. It’s far easier to remain motivated when you don’t feel missing out.

2. Take breaks

If you can’t or don’t want to work outside, the next best thing is to take breaks outside. This is something people in all professions can do. You’re granted a couple of breaks per shift, whether in an office, a retail shop, or remotely. Spend these breaks outside enjoying the sun!

The beauty of this is twofold. Firstly, you can relax and soak up the sun on your break. You don’t have to worry about work, and you could even meet up with some friends for lunch outside.

This self-care keeps you motivated and improves your mood. Again, the idea is to not make yourself miss out on all the fun!

It might seem counterintuitive, but taking breaks helps with time management. It provides structure and a schedule that you have to follow.

Plus, what’s the easiest way to make time go faster? By keeping yourself busy! You enter peak productivity by feeling like the hours fly by quickly. 

If you struggle with time management and productivity, buy a Productivity Planner. This planner is designed to help you identify your goals, schedule your daily life, and stay motivated. Learn more about it here!

3. Set personal targets

If the promise of a lovely outdoor break isn’t enough to motivate you, try this:  set personal targets to accomplish in a specific period. Let’s say you’re writing a report—you can set the target of getting 1,000 words done by lunch. Then, as a reward, you take a more extended lunch break out in the sun. 

I find it works well for people who work from home or don’t have strict schedules. You could add targets when you’re working a shift, but the idea is that you only allow yourself a break when you reach the goal. With shift work, you’re given a break no matter what. It can still help you stay more motivated, but it isn’t essential. 

Make the goals realistic but not too easy. You want to give yourself the challenge to ensure that you keep working really hard. Also, don’t cheat and go out in the sun even if you haven’t reached your target! 

4. Stay off social media.

Quite frankly, this tip helps you stay motivated all year round! Social media is a massive distraction when you work. How many hours do you spend checking your phone to look at Twitter or Instagram?

Even five minutes an hour equates to a good 40 minutes of wasted time in a typical working day. That’s 200 minutes a week—and I’m being generous with this example!

Things are worse when it’s gorgeous outside, as everyone posts about their fun in the sun. Friends are sunbathing at the beach, and it’s an endless barrage of people having fun. As a result, your motivation tanks as you mindlessly scroll through social media wishing you were anywhere but at work. 

The only solution is to cut down your social media usage. Realistically, removing your phone from your working area is the only way to do this. Toss it behind you if you’re working from home, or hide it in the desk drawer in the office.

When you can’t see your phone, you’re less tempted to pick it up and scroll through social media. Thus, you don’t see everyone’s posts about the great weather, so you have nothing sapping your motivation.

5. Close the blinds/curtains.

Finally, this idea is entirely the opposite of everything you’ve seen. For some of you, the above tips will help you remain motivated when it’s sunny outside. You get to enjoy the sun while working or on a break and be free from social media posts.

However, this may not help some of you. Instead, you need to shut yourself away from the excellent weather completely. Stay off social media, but also close the blinds/curtains and work with a light on. 

The idea is that the weather can’t demotivate you if you can’t see it. Again, this won’t work for everyone, but it’s worth considering if you’re too distracted by the outdoors. You want to keep yourself in your little bubble where work is the sole focus. 

Realistically, it’s all about finding what works best for you. There are plenty of ideas to try, some of which work better in different work environments than others. Staying motivated when the weather is fantastic is hard, but you must plug music into the weekend! Hopefully, these ideas ensure you do this without letting your work suffer.