How to survive the modern corporate lifestyle

It can sometimes be tricky to take ownership of your workspace, especially in a traditional office environment - which might explain why secret drawer clubs have become so popular.

For those not in the know (possibly because the first rule of secret drawer club is ‘don’t talk about secret drawer club’), a secret drawer club is a designated drawer where you and some trusted colleagues can leave custom figurines, trinkets, and decorative pieces to create your own little whimsical space.

When you or a colleague is having a down day, you can take a moment to open said drawer and appreciate the wholesome scenes set up, while also leaving behind feel-good messages, sweets, and gifts for your other colleagues in the know.

Have you just come out of a really important meeting that you spent all day preparing for? Absolutely nailed a sudden but important task dropped on you first thing in the morning? Give yourself a treat, you deserve it.

Learning when to reward yourself might sound like basic psychology, but there’s nothing quite like a bar of your favourite chocolate after a hard day’s work.

Just remember that these treats should a reward for particularly good work and not every little piece of work should be an excuse to indulge.

There’s nothing like learning a niche and unusual skill, especially if you want to create a talking point with new people.

So, if you’ve got five minutes between meetings, you can use that time to practice a simple skill that interests you.

Drawing, meditation, solving a Rubik's cube in under a minute, your options are as endless as they are entertaining and beneficial to your well-being and growth.

Again, as with our last point, we’re not suggesting you work through your lunch break.

But that’s not to say you can’t eat at your desk before or after your designated lunchtime.

That way, you can use this free hour for something fun and exciting.

You could use your lunch break to squeeze in a run, do a personal hobby, or just sit back and unwind with a book in a nearby park, whatever helps you to get the most out of your day.

Speaking of stress, few things are more stress-inducing than having to gather obscure data points and email chains in a hurry, which is why you should document and track everything, so you have it on hand when you need it.

Obviously, this will require a bit of organisation to prevent your storage from becoming a mess, but the next time your manager or a client emails asking for last year's sales stats, you’ll be very glad you have them in easy reach.

We all love being praised for our good work, so it’s just as important to make sure that those around you get equal praise for their achievements.

The next time you notice a colleague has really put effort into their work or delivered top-notch results, give them a shout-out and the praise they deserve.

As many experienced office workers will attest, one of the best ways to conquer work stress is to make liberal use of all your company’s available benefits.

Whether that’s free coffees every week or the ability to work from abroad, you need to know what your benefits are, note them down, and then plan out exactly how to use them so you can make the most out of them.

If your office allows you to, then you should absolutely decorate your workspace for the different times of the year.

Spring, summer, autumn, winter, and every holiday in between, decorating can help lighten the atmosphere, make you feel more at home and get you in the mood for such occasions.

And, if you can’t directly decorate your office, then you can still decorate your secret drawer to match whatever calendar event is happening or on the horizon.