1. Listen to a podcast (30 mins) 

For some strange reason podcasts are back in a big way, so take advantage by listening to some of the great minds of our time while eating your lunch.

You don’t have to go with the podcasts that magazines always recommend, pick something that’s inspiring and relevant to you.

I have two favourites:

Mattieologie by Mattie James: Blogger and influencer Mattie spills the tea on blogging, branding and business. This podcast is awesome because she gets straight to the point in short episodes, and has accompanying work notes on her website.

My Taught You Podcast by Myleik Teele: Founder of Curlbox Myleik answers business and relationship questions from her listeners and shares her story. She never sugar coats her answers and her views on dating as a career woman are refreshingly frank.

 

2. Write a list of goals (40 mins) 

And I mean a real list; one with achievable goals, deadlines and the steps you will take to get there. I use Trello for this.

BAD: Become a millionaire

GOOD: Set up 7 streams of income to reach my first million. Stream 1: Modelling agency. Step 1: Write business plan. Step 2. Find 10 new faces to sign…

 

 

3. Plan your week properly (30 mins) 

You can’t expect each day to be it’s most productive if you’re going in unprepared. If you know you want to publish a blog post on Friday, schedule time to think of ideas, write the piece, source or take images, copy edit it, put it into your content management system and promote it once it’s published.

I plan my week and outfits on a Sunday so that I know that everything from dinner with friends to writing my blog posts will get done. I use Google Calendar because I have access to it on my phone and I can add push notifications to alert me 30 minutes before an event starts.

 

4. Catch up with an industry contact (15 mins) 

LinkedIn is really good at letting you know when someone moves to another company or starts up something new.

Use 15 minutes of your lunch break to see what that person you met last year at a conference is up to. Take a look at their Twitter feed and find their latest project, read it and let them know you checked out their work. You never know whose radar it could be beneficial to be on.

 

5. Support five people whose jobs you want (40 mins) 

Twitter is perfect for this. Make a private list of people who are currently doing your dream job, or working somewhere you’d love to work. Then on your lunch break you can scroll down that list and take a look at what they’re working on.

A retweet is good but clicking on the link and sharing it in a fresh tweet is better, make sure you tag them in it too. If you have an extra ten minutes, leave them a comment on the blog post, rate and review their podcast on iTunes or pick up a ticket to their latest event.

 

 

6. Reach inbox zero (10 – 40 mins) 

I know looking at email at lunchtime is not the most relaxing prospect, but I guarantee you’ll find something buried in your inbox that you’ve been meaning to reply to.

Clear out that inbox and be expectant for new opportunities by 5pm.

 

7. Read an inspirational article (10 mins) 

This is one of the best ways to keep motivated for an afternoon of work. Some great places for career-related and inspirational  articles are:

The Muse: career guidance and advice from experts in different industries, their newsletter is awesome too.

Kingdom Area: articles from a number of different Christian authors managed by motivational speaker and development coach Earl Blackman. Posts and podcasts are about topics from leadership to discovering your purpose.

Career Girl Daily: a website for career-minded women with articles about money management, beauty and business as well as inspirational success stories.

Alex Wolff: Alex is a Digital Anthropologist and Innovation Researcher (that basically means she studies how an idea goes from weird to normal) and she shares her thoughts on economics and business in a really accessible way on her blog.

 

What do you do on your lunch break? Let me know in the comments.

 

You can now sign up to my email list to receive my free workbook on how to market your content effectively on and offline: http://eepurl.com/b2rdHP 

“The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.” – Proverbs 13:4