1. Tidy up. It doesn't matter what you tidy up, but you'd be amazed at what you can do to the state of your room in 5 minutes. You can probably use that time to hang up all your clothes (always the most noticeable source of mess) and empty your bin. Also, you can put things in straight lines on your shelves and convince yourself that you'll never ever ever move anything out of line, which usually lasts about a day.
2. Polish your shoes/boots.
You don't want to make them really shiny because that looks stupid and people will ask you 'why did you polish your shoes?' all day. Just wipe the mud off and rub a bit of polish over them so that you feel a bit happier when you next put them on.
3. Check the weather forecast for the next week. The temperatures these last few weeks have consistently hovered around the 0 degrees Celsius mark. Checking the forecast for this week shows that it's going to average at about 5-6 Celsius, with temperatures rising to a positively tropical 8 on Friday. That's enough to cheer anyone up a bit right? You might also want to check the wind speed if you hate wind as much as I do.
4. Write a 'to do' list.
You can have a daily to do list, a weekly to do list, a monthly to do list. I suppose you could even make an hourly to do list of you had a lot of stuff to get done very quickly, but then I suppose you'd be better off using the time required to make the list to do one of your jobs. Once you've got a list of things you need to do, you don't have to spend time trying to remember what jobs you need to do, and you won't forget important tasks. You should always write 'write list' at the top of your to do list, and then cross it off when you've written your list. It makes you feel as if you're getting stuff done.
5. Download some music that differs from what you normally listen to, and put it on your ipod. I'm not going to recommend anything because everyone hates people who recommend music to them. It's good for your mood to feel like you're broadening your tastes on the way to work.
6. Drink loads of water.
Drinking a glass of water is essentially a boring job that you should be doing 8 times a day. If you have 5 minutes, drink a litre of water. That's half of your quota fulfilled right there, and you'll probably feel better for it after you've pissed yourself.
6. Do something creative. Take out your notebook and write some words that appeal to you. Start drawing a big picture formed of lots of individual tiny pictures. Using the creative side of your brain once in a while is good for your mental state, especially if you work a monotonous job.
7. Do everything that's normally part of your morning 'before work' routine. I don't mean eat breakfast or put your suit on. If there's anything that you can do in advance, do it now. Spend an extra 5 minutes in bed, or have a slightly more relaxed morning. Have all of the stuff that you carry with you in your bag/pockets. Decide what you're going to wear. Find out if it's going to rain, get an umbrella ready. You get the idea.
8. Thoroughly vacuum your room.
Attach all those nozzles that you never use, and vacuum stuff that has never been vacuumed before. Use the brushy one to do your tv and your computer screen. Use the long pointy one to do the edges of your carpet. Relax and breath in air that isn't full of dust.
9. Eat an apple.
Put 7 of them in the fridge at the start of the week. Eat one when you're not doing anything else. Makes you feel slightly less dirty.
10. Do some speed ironing. Open the board up, and get through a few t-shirts, then hang them up. If you're one of those people who never irons anything, you're missing out. No, the creases don't fall out as you wear it. I can still see them. You look like a mess. It takes about 2 minutes to iron a t-shirt, you've got no excuse for not doing it. If you don't know how to do it because your mum's always done it for you, feel ashamed, then watch a 'how to' video on youtube or something.
