Winding Down for the Year with Delphinium

See You Next Year!

Hello.

As you know, we had our Christmas party last week (15th December), and it was proven, without a doubt, that I’m completely rubbish when it comes to shoot-em-ups. They were never really my thing. Give me Mario Kart or Just Dance any day of the week!

Since then, unfortunately, it’s not been a particularly productive week, with me spending the last five days dealing with boiler breakdowns (yes, multiple boilers breaking down on multiple occasions) and no Wifi. 😫

On a positive note, the boilers are back working, and the Wifi engineer is coming out tomorrow morning. I also developed a hack that not even heating engineers suggested to stop you from developing frostbite, and I’ve added it to our #TopTip section below.

I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to the Christmas break, but I’ve got a long list to complete before I finish on Friday. Then, there’s an even longer to-do list to get everything sorted before the family descends on me.

I wish you a Merry Christmas and hopefully some well-deserved R&R, but before you do, don’t forget to check out our top picks below.👇🏻

The current demand for mental health services far outweighs the supply – costing a colossal £117.9 billion per year! While companies are doing more to support employee wellbeing, studies suggest there is insufficient focus on preventing mental health issues.

Check out our article discussing if we are in a mental health crisis in the UK.

Last week was extremely cold, with temperatures of -8 in some places, causing lots of condenser pipes to freeze. Water then backed up and shut thousands of builders down. Trying to get a heating engineer out was impossible!

You can do this yourself, and there’s lots of advice regarding pouring warm (not hot) water over the pipe or using a hairdryer. I even found an article that suggested putting a hot water bottle on it.

Now, these are sound suggestions if you have a short pipe coming directly from the boiler. However, I have to be awkward! The condenser pipe at one of my rental properties feeds into a waste pipe along with the washing machine and is three feet long.

A quick and easy tip for defrosting the pipe quickly is to soak an old towel or similar in warm water (not hot – you don’t want to crack the pipe) and wrap it around the entire length and circumference of the pipe.

Then, take yourself back inside, have a brew and check on it after 15-20 minutes. Repeat this process as necessary until the pipe defrosts. The difference? It means 10 minutes out in the cold instead of 60-90 minutes.

Remember…work smarter, not harder!

Getting Things Done (GTD) is the work-life management system by David Allen that helps you create a plan and help alleviate overwhelm. Although I’ve had the original book for a while, I’ve recently been working through the activities in the workbook version.

I’ve only gone through some of them so far, and I’ll continue over the festive period, but I’m already finding it very useful. The activities help you look at areas where you can improve and provide processes for doing so. However, they are also great for helping you see what you are already doing well – mini audit if you like.

If you missed out on previous editions of our Tuesday’s Top Picks, you can find a list of our back catalogue here.