The Work Better Workbook
A free, four-week guide that empowers you to make work, work better so you can work smarter, rest harder, and feel better.
This May, in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, we’re unpacking what you’ve told us is the one of the greatest sources of anxiety in your life — work stress.
Here’s what we know: Work isn’t working. For anyone.
We're more burnt out and anxious at work than ever before. Work stress is crushing innovation, productivity, and creativity. It’s bleeding into our personal lives, making us sick and unhappy. And no one wins. Not our employers. Not our employees. Not our loved ones. Certainly not our health.
Here’s what we also know: There’s a way work can work better. For everyone.
It’s about making mental health the epicenter for change. It’s about empowering ourselves to address the stress we can control, not the factors we can’t.
It’s about optimizing our work day with micro-moments of calm that boost our creativity and productivity whilst keeping our mental health in check.
It’s about taking action to shape our relationship with work in a way that works for each of us.
In all of these ways, we begin to shape and adjust our relationship with work. Work becomes less stressful and more satisfying. It becomes an area of our life where we feel empowered to make work, work for each of us and whatever stage of our mental health journey we’re on.
We recommend you download and open the workbook in your favorite PDF viewer in order to get the best interactive experience! Of course, you can also print and write by hand if that’s more your style.
Improve your relationship with work in four weeks
Why is work so important? Because it’s your significant other.
On average, we spend ⅓ of our lives at work. Which means that we spend more time with our work than with any other relationship in our lives.
Let that sink in.
Your most significant relationship isn’t the one you have with your sibling or your best friend, or even the partner you choose to do life with. It’s not the on-off romance you have with your bae, or the intense connection you experience with your favorite bingeable show.
Unfortunately, this work “relationship” isn’t the picture of health for most of us. In fact, work is the top catalyst negatively impacting Calm users’ mental health according to Calm Business research. So it’s no surprise that managing stress and anxiety is the biggest issue facing employees at work.
How to work with this workbook
Just like any relationship, there are a lot of factors at work that you can’t change, that you don’t have influence over. Deadlines will always need to be met. Tough coworkers will always pull your attention. Your inbox may never hit 0.
But there are things you can control and there are meaningful changes you can make to positively impact your experience at work.
In this workbook, we’ll cover four topics, week by week, to help you reexamine and rebuild your relationship with work.
All good relationships need a solid foundation, and these are the building blocks you’ll need to make work, work for you. Here’s what we’ll cover:
Week 1: Boundaries Bootcamp
Week 2: Working on Rest
Week 3: Work Smarter, Not Harder
Week 4: Beating Burnout
Best of all, it won’t feel like work! Let’s get to work.
Mental health is hard. Getting support doesn't have to be. The Calm app puts the tools to feel better in your back pocket, with personalized content to manage stress and anxiety, get better sleep, and feel more present in your life. Calm your mind. Change the world.
