Looking After Yourself When the Working Week Runs Long

Most advice about running a trade business is about the work: quoting, scheduling, chasing invoices. Very little is about the person doing it. When the working week runs to fifty or sixty hours, the business depends on you staying fit enough to keep turning up.

Start with sleep and food

Nothing you can buy replaces these two. A fixed time to stop looking at the phone in the evening does more for the next day than any gadget. Food is the same. A proper lunch packed the night before beats whatever the nearest petrol station has left at two o'clock.

Build recovery into the diary

Treat rest like a job. Put one clear half day in the diary each week and defend it the way you would defend a customer booking. Stretch your back, shoulders and knees for five minutes when you get in. It is dull and it works better done daily than done occasionally.

Where supplements fit

Some tradespeople add a supplement to their routine. Food comes first, and a supplement is an extra, never a fix. If you do buy one, read exactly what the maker says is in it. As an example of a clear listing, Cherrily sells Montmorency tart cherry extract capsules and states plainly that they are sugar-free, a 10:1 concentrate, and taken as one capsule a day. That is the level of detail to expect from any product.

If you take medication or have a health condition, ask a pharmacist or your GP before starting anything new.

Keep it simple

Pick one habit this month. Sleep, lunch or the half day off. Add the next one when the first has stuck.