 Hey there everybody and welcome to a brand new year 2022. I hope you had a nice time over the holidays. You've come back feeling refreshed, reinvigorated. But if you haven't, then this year's theme and this video in particular will hopefully give you a few ideas because Gareth Thomas has picked a theme for January and it's renewal and growth. So this little video is my ideas on how you could perhaps start this year off a little bit fresher and aim for a little bit of renewal. So here we go. My first tip thing, is it a tip or is it a challenge? I think it's more of a challenge, okay? Because most of you will probably respond instinctively with, oh I just can't do that, okay? But I believe you can. And that is to cut 10% from your product backlog, okay? So find some way of filtering that backlog. My suggestion is date created, it's often a good one. And then just archive. So don't delete, archive 10% of it. Now to reduce your concerns here a little bit, you can always go back to it if you absolutely have to. But my suspicion is that the chances are you won't have to. And just that smaller backlog, that smaller list of things that you feel you have to get through. We just increase that sense of energy, give you a sense of renewal. So give it a go. I know you'll say you can't, but try. My second tip is to improve the user experience of your product in just some small way. So ask someone to try and use your product or your service. Maybe you could try it yourself, but often having someone who doesn't know the product or the service use it gives you even better insight. And see just what bugs them about the user journey or just something that just doesn't quite work intuitively and improve it. Even if it's a small thing, it'll make the product feel better. It'll make you feel better. It'll make your users feel better. Start the year off in a good way. My third tip, and again, this might feel like a bit of a challenge, but I don't think it should. I think you'll enjoy it. Is just learn something new about the other members of your team. Okay, perhaps it's a skill that they've got that most people don't know about. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. Find something out about each member of your team. And you might have to start by sharing something about yourself, vulnerability, lead, go first. My fourth tip or challenge is to build some learning into your week. All right, now my suggestion here is to set aside one hour every week in a sort of regular cadence. Okay, so it could be, you know, eight o'clock on a Wednesday morning or something before things start kicking off. And just watch something. A YouTube video, something. Practice something. Practice some listening. Practice some self-reflection, some meditation, anything that will increase your sense of growth or learning and just get into that habit. One hour a week, you can do it. My fifth tip is to increase the delineation. Easy for me to say, right? To increase the delineation between work and home. Now that used to be really quite clear and obvious because you'd leave the office, you'd get the tube, the train, the car, the bike, walk home, you'd get into your house and you could just shut off from work. Then we got the laptops and the work phones and so on. And then it was a lot harder to switch off and have to literally put those devices somewhere else. And now most of us are working from home again, working from our houses. And so it's a lot harder, but it's important to get that sense of renewal, to get that sense of ease, to get that sense of balance. So my challenge here is to tell your flatmates, tell your spouse, tell your kids, tell somebody that they can find you or punish you in some way if they see you on your work devices between, let's just say, half past five and half past seven, find a window that works for you, find a punishment that works for you, but give someone else the power and also tell them that this is what you want to do and how they're gonna help you. Okay, and my final tip, my final challenge to increase your sense of renewal this January is to run a short gratitude exercise. Now all this is, is basically taking a little bit of time to write down or verbalize a couple of things that you're grateful for. Now I'm going to add a little bit of specificity to this. So I want you to come up with three things that you're grateful for about work. Could be that you have some work. It could be that you've had some great work recently. It could be that you've got some great professional connections in your network, whatever it is. Things that you are absolutely grateful for from the world of work. Then I want you to come up with three things that you're grateful for in your home life. So family, friends, the roof over your head, Netflix, whatever. And then three things that you're grateful for from the world in general. Now that might be harder, but you can find some if you really try. Now, this is a good thing to get into a habit of, but for now just the once and see what it does for you. So there you go. There are my tips or challenges for how to increase your sense of renewal this January. Let me know how you get on with them and if you've come up with any other ones that I could try. Thank you to all of you and we'll be back soon.