EDITION 825
6 JULY 2020

As another week of working from home slips by, here are 10 things which caught my attention and may have escaped yours. This newsletter is sent to 50,000+ subscribers each Monday at 10am. Please share on social media and forward to your colleagues and friends so they can subscribe, learn and engage. I'd be very grateful if you did.

1. How to sleep better. If you have difficulty falling asleep, a regular bedtime routine will help you wind down and prepare for bed. Your routine depends on what works for you, but the most important thing is working out a routine and sticking to it. To being with, try these four suggestions. [READ MORE]

2. Do you want to return to the office. More than one in five (22%) people plan to willingly return to their workplace as soon as they are allowed to do so, according to new research by the ONS. On the other hand, the same percentage said they'd continue to work remotely until they feel more-safe being around others, while a further 16% said they'd return to their workplace, but only a few days a week. The main concerns people have about returning to their physical workplace are: being exposed to others who are not taking safety guidelines seriously (60%), having to work in close proximity with other co-workers or customers (44%), and commuting (32%). BBC

3. So, who else owns a Zoom Shirt? With video calls the new norm, workers are confessing to having a “Zoom Shirt” - a top that can be hastily pulled on just before the camera turns on to help maintain a corporate image. Even if, like the mullet, it’s actually business on top and party down bottom. Some have a one-off Zoom Shirt, while others say they rotate their Zoom Shirts. Retailers have jumped on the trend, along with its variants Zoom Scarf and Zoom Sweater, filling consumers’ inboxes with “video call-ready” tops. The New York Times

4. The key to handling work interruptions. For most of us, interruptions are simply a fact of work life. The challenge is, these interruptions come at a real cost. When we are forced to switch tasks abruptly, our attention still lingers on whatever we were doing before. And this attention residue can hurt our performance. What can we do to stay on point? Make a return plan. If you need to make a quick task switch, take a minute to plot your return to your original work. This can put your mind at ease about what you are setting aside, so you can focus on what's right in front of you. This technique is covered during the effectiveness lesson of 10/10, a government funded programme leading to the award of a certificate in leadership. [LEARN MORE]

5. Was Covid-19's closest relative discovered in a mine? The world’s “closest known relative” to the Covid-19 virus was found in 2013 by Chinese scientists in an abandoned mine. The virus found in its depths was part of a faecal sample that was frozen and sent to a Chinese laboratory for analysis and storage. Nearly seven years later it “erupted” as Covid-19. The Sunday Times

6. Brits sink 15m pints as pubs reopen on ‘Super Saturday’. Britons drank 15million pints as pubs reopened after 104 days yesterday. Although the day largely ran in an orderly fashion, large crowds gathered in several areas, including London's Soho district, and there were cases of disorder in Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire that forced bars to close early. Revellers in Leeds, West Yorkshire, were seen strewn on the floor, vomiting and struggling to stay awake. The Sunday Mirror

7. Jeff Bezos passes his own personal wealth milestone. Jeff Bezos has broken his own wealth record. The founder of Amazon commands a net worth that rose to $171.6 billion this week, more than the GDP of Hungary or Algeria. The valuation broke the previous mark that Bezos, 56, set in 2018, when his holdings were valued at $167.7 billion. There has been a spike in global demand for delivered items during the coronavirus pandemic. Daily Mail

8. Who fancies five days in the office?. With the pandemic shaking up how and where workers toil, it seems most of us aren’t in a rush to head back to the office — for a full five days a week, in any case. One recent study found that 47% of newly remote workers would prefer to continue working from home between one and four days each week, while 40% want to stay home every day and just 14% prefer the office. But when it comes to whether working from home lends itself to both productivity and creativity, experts remain divided. The Guardian

9. Number of renters in arrears doubles during the pandemic. The number of tenants in England who have fallen behind on rent has doubled during the coronavirus pandemic, a new study by Shelter has found. Polling for the housing charity estimated 226,785 are now in arrears despite having been up to date in March, out of a total of 442,403. It said urgent government help is needed before a ban on new evictions ends next month. BBC

10. The bottom line. Unemployment is set to reach 3.5m this year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a poll of business leaders by the Bank of England. The study found that financial officers were more pessimistic in June than they were a month ago. They predicted that 11% of the workforce will be out of a job before the end of this year. The Telegraph