How many times have you found yourself in a video conference call the last period?

When the going gets tough, be nice to each other. That’s what the saying should have been like. During this corona crisis, you might get disappointed, demotivated, stressed, emotional or frustrated. You can try to be tough and resilient. Whether you are successful in coping with the crisis or that you aren’t, there is one thing we can all do for each other to things easier and that is: being nice. By the way it’s not only good to be nice during this corona crisis, there are several reasons to be nice in whatever circumstances, because....

There is so much we can’t do now and so much we missed due to corona measures. Think about major events like the Batavierenrace or the Dutch Olympic Games for Students that was to be held in Enschede this spring. How about your sport training, your drinks at the study or student association? Maybe you started your bachelor or master assignment at an inspiring organisation and workplaces were locked down?

Procrastinating is the activity –not the right word to use in this case probably – of avoiding to do something. There is so much to find about it, that the question comes to mind: when answers of how to stop procrastinating are everywhere, why are people still doing it? Well, there might be a lot of reasons but procrastinating looking for solutions is probably one of them.

How can you become the best you can be. You might think you need to put in a lot of effort to do so. Well, you are probably right. It takes effort, endurance and perseverance to be the best you can be. But you can only have periods of high performance and focus if you know how to relax. So that is why we want to answer the question of how to have effective breaks.

There is people bringing Christmas trees in to their houses during this corona crisis. Because it reminds them of the cosiness that is related to the period around Christmas. A nice example of how we human beings are capable of doing the strangest things to entertain and fool ourselves.But hey, you have to make something of it somehow, right?

When you have goals to achieve like taking an exam, finishing a report or handing in a research paper you probably know what to do. You will think about ‘creating overview of the task’, ‘planning the necessary activities’ and maybe ‘get out of bed early tomorrow to start studying’. This is not the problem. The problems start when it’s time to bring your plan into action.

Maybe you recognize that you sometimes you have this voice in your head. With a sensible tone it says to you in the morning: ‘you should get out of bed now, shouldn’t you?’ This good-guy-voice reminds you of some things that need to be done, how important those things are and it might even tell you what to think about yourself if you stay in bed. This sensible voice helps you out of bed, but sometimes it’s just not strong enough.

Corona is what we talk about. Of course it is. But have you noticed how much of our conversations are repetitions of things we already know, speculations of what new measurements will be like or how much damage the economy can handle? These are all important things of course, but you can get tired of them sometimes, because they are pretty much about the downside of this all, they are pretty vague and you can’t control them. So when you are looking for something new to talk about …

Sometimes, you just don’t feel like doing what you should do. There is this voice in your head that tells you that you should put some effort in, that you should try harder and that you cannot run away from your duty. But there is also this other voice that says it can be done later, it’s okay to take a break and you just can’t be productive all the time.

Since we cannot move around that much anymore, we work, sleep, eat, study, eat, hang out and maybe even sport at home. Because everything is so close by you might experience that your daily activities and your use of time become less structured. Everything tends to become blurry.

There is people writing at social media about the upside of this lockdown. You might have experienced some ups as well. But let’s be honest, it’s a lot of fuss as well. Not only the practical issues like how to keep distance from people in the supermarket but also the insecurity about when this will all be over, what the world will look like at that time and also if you will be infected by the virus or not.

So, here we are. In a totally new situation, with a lot of new challenges. How to study at home? How to become productive with temptations like Netflix, Facebook or your bed so close? How to stay in contact with your friends, study mates and relatives? In the upcoming posts we try to help you with these questions and support you to make the best of it. This time on personal leadership and the best question in life.

Be honest now: how are you doing? High scores for your performance in this situation? Having trouble to stay productive and manage your time wisely? Need to push harder

We are looking for new ways to get together now. For example drinking a beer with your friends using Discord, having Skype dinners with family, watching a movie together using Netflix Party. Technology can help us a lot now. But why not get back to the old channel: writing a letter?

How are you doing at the moment? Are you completely fine with the situation you are in? Happy with how everything is going? Chances are high you can think of something that is not okay now, something that could be improved. The fact that you can’t meet with the people you like or love for example, or the fact that you get distracted so much, while you should be studying or delivering for a group assignment? Maybe there is other things to be unhappy with. And maybe, you sometimes feel like complaining about this. Sighing because things haven’t changed yet, or worse.

Chill out? Watch a movie? Binge watch a Netflix-serie? What do you do when you are not working or studying. There is a lot you can think of and you probably have your short-list of favourite free time activities. But not everything is possible now, and you might get bored with the things you do already. So, we are talking about the moment you really get bored and nothing gets you moving. What could you do then?

To make things easy, Carol Dweck found out that your mind has only two possible mindsets available. The first one is a fixed mindset, the other one is the growth mindset. Guess what is the best mindset in times of change and challenges? Right, the growth mindset. But unfortunately, that’s not always the one your mind chooses. So, how do you recognize the two mindsets?

When your situation changes quickly, you might experience insecurity, anxiety or fear. What will happen now, will I be save, do I have to get moving to prepare for the worst? All these thoughts might be running through your head. And you might wonder, when is it ever going to be quiet up there?

So, here we are. In a totally new situation, with a lot of new challenges. How to study at home? How to become productive with temptations like Netflix, Facebook or your bed so close? How to stay in contact with your friends, study mates and relatives? In the upcoming posts we try to help you with these questions and support you to make the best of it. This time on designing a new routine that makes you really excited.

It might be the case that you do not have that much to do as you were used to, but that brings some possibilities with it. You can invest your time in those things you were always planning to do but never had the time for. To inspire you we made a small list of possible things you could do during the corona situation:

• Revision of statutes
• Translation of documents
• Enthuse your members about committees
• Set up digital events for your members
• Set up a plan for the recruitment of your board
• Extend or write your transition document for your successors to increase continuity of your organization
• Set up formats for all kinds of documents: meeting pieces, policy plan, annual report and financial report
• Organize online meetings with similar boards to exchange ways of working
• Improve your website