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Get peer feedback - what specific areas could I do differently?
Record yourself - awkward, but can be helpful for gaining perspective
Imagine the conversation - envision different questions that might come up in a meeting, and write yourself some social scripts
Keep track of what went well - when did you succeed socially? What did you do? Celebrate this, you can learn from it!
Focus on key points - you don’t need to script every word. Focusing on an outline of what you want the person to understand frees you up to communicate it in a way that feels right to you.
Pay attention to environmental factors - does a quieter or busier space help with answering the phone? Do headphones help/hinder?
Take notes - knowing you won’t forget something important can help with feeling less stressed.
Use sensory grounding techniques - fidget toys or worry stones - to help regulate your emotions before a difficult meeting or call.
Ask to pause to think - “Can I think for a second?” “I find it hard to think on the spot. Can I pause this conversation and get back to you?”
Plan for difficult situations - Communicate openly with your colleagues or manager about what you need and come up with a plan to handle difficult situations, like a signal that means “I need extra time to think”.
Check your understanding - when responding to someone, say “can I check I’ve understood you fully?” and summarise your understanding of what they’ve said.
Tap out the syllables of what you want to say until there’s a pause in the conversation - movement can help with working memory.
Grounding - focus on physical sensations like your feet on the floor to stay feeling anchored and present.

If you want to speed up your reading, practise scanning a text to answer a specific question you have about it, rather than looking to understand every detail.
If you tend to skim-read, practise deliberately slowing yourself down by increasing the size of text on your screen, covering up most of the page, or printing the document and highlighting as you go.
Think about what senses distract you the most when proofreading, and modify your environment to adjust for this. Can you experiment with doing a proofreading task in a quieter space? Wearing headphones? What changes for you?
Use speech to text to read your own writing back to you (it's built into a lot of modern devices). You might find you are able to pick up errors listening back which you weren't able to spot before.
Experiment with adjusting screen settings like font size and typeface, dark mode and light mode, to see what feels easiest on your eyes. Try a different setup for a few hours or a whole day, then try a different one, and see how your work changes.
Try changing how your writing looks - handwrite instead of typing, use a different colour for font or paper, change the size of the page or the spatial layout to make it more interesting and increase focus.
Do you prefer to think about ideas one at a time, or do you prefer to look at the "big picture"? If a document you're working on has too many ideas at once on it and you need to progress through one by one, try covering up or sectioning off the part you're working on. If you'd rather think about the whole picture, take a pause to think about the purpose of, and perhaps read through, the whole document you're working on before you start writing anything.
Create a checklist of your most common errors (this might be something you need to do over a period of time). Do you have trouble with words that sound like each other? With punctuation? With adding syllables? With past/present tense? Giving yourself a list of things to look for gives you a more specific set of tasks to approach the problem.
Set expectations. If you need extra time to proofread, ask for it with plenty of time to spare - let the person know that you're looking to give them the best material possible.
Know when to delegate! If you have a colleague who's a particularly strong reader, find out if you can share the final stage of proofreading with them.
If typing or writing is difficult, think about how you could try out different kinds of physical support - proprioception (your sense of where you are in space) can change the experience of writing for some people. You could try sitting in a different type of chair, planting your feet on the floor, sitting cross legged or kneeling, or wearing clothes with some compression to slightly support your joints - see if this makes even a slight difference to the experience of typing or writing.

Use an app like ScreenZen (it's free!) to remind you to pause and breathe before opening a distracting app, giving you time to ask if this is really what you need right now.
If someone is explaining a process to you and you are struggling to maintain focus, ask if they can explain it to you while you do it yourself. Actively doing something can sometimes make it easier to focus than just listening to somebody describing it.
Pay attention to your senses. Is there a lot of stimulation in the environment which might be making it harder to focus? If so, see if you can move spaces, use headphones/earplugs, or just reduce visual clutter by moving it out of your way for now.
Try body doubling with a partner in the room or virtually - some people find this makes the urgency of time passing feel more vivid. Some workplaces have Slack channels (or similar) for body doubling - could this work in your workplace?
Remember the acronym INUG: Interest, Novelty, Urgency, Gamification. You can increase focus by using any one of these - connect the task to something you really care about, find a brand new and novel tool to complete it, leave it right up until the deadline (not recommended unless all else fails, urgency is stressful!) or create a competition or challenge whether against yourself or someone else.
Use a gamifying app for your tasks like Forest (in which you grow a tree while running a task timer), Finch (a virtual pet where completing your tasks gains you resources), Habitica (an RPG for your to do lists), or Focus Noodles (in which your phone becomes a bowl of ramen while your timer runs - pick it up, and steam escapes).
Take the absolute smallest next step. "Eating the frog" is fine when your focus is already good. If you're struggling, choose the easiest and most completable task to get you back in the zone and feeling the reward.
Try mixing up your tasks deliberately. If you're struggling to focus, "ping ponging" between 2-3 tasks can allow some people to work more intentionally on each than sticking to one.
If things keep popping into your head that you feel like you need to attend to immediately in case you forget them, start making a habit of writing them down. You can do this on paper or in an app like Simplenote which syncs between just about every device you can imagine.
Schedule some 10-minute movement sessions - just getting up and shaking out the excess energy can be helpful, as can taking a short walk around the space. Ask your colleagues to join you if you feel able to.
If you're already procrastinating, try procrastinating productively! Write down every possible obstacle you might encounter in the task you're trying to do, and then write down how you'll avoid falling into it. For example, if I know I tend to get distracted if I'm feeling hungry, I'll put a snack on my desk before I start.
Don't give yourself too much to focus on! Identify 1-3 main focuses for the day, then stick to them. Anything else is a bonus.

Use the "point of performance" principle - keep everything in the place where it needs to be used rather than categorising it by type of object. When you're done using it, it doesn't need to be taken somewhere else to put it away.
If you tend to lose things, use transparent storage or open storage containers so that you can easily see what's inside. If you can't do this for any reason, consider labelling your storage instead.
Organise things which tend to get lost intuitively - make the very first place you looked for an item when you were trying to find it its permanent home
Create a "launch pad" - there may be things you need to take with you every time you leave one space to move to another. Create a container for these things - your keys, your water bottle - and make sure that's where you store them when you arrive in the space, so that they're all there for you to pick up when you need to go.
Block out time for "closing duties" at the end of your working day. What will the you who sits down at their desk tomorrow really wish was set up and ready for them? Create time to do that at the end of the day, as a kindness to future you.
Have one folder - virtual and/or physical - for urgent tasks which need to be attended to in the next 24 hours. Set reminders or ask a friend or colleague to prompt you to check this folder every day to make sure nothing is missed.
Make sure there's always a bin within reach of where you tend to work or sit. Anything that isn't needed any more can be easily thrown away rather than stacked up waiting to be dealt with.
Ask your colleagues for recommendations of tools that help them stay organised. See if you can find out why a tool works for them - we are all different, and what they find challenging may not be the same as what you find challenging. Get as granular as you can to give yourself a sense of what might be worth trying.
Keep a small bowl or tray everywhere you spend time regularly - your desk, your bedside table, and so on - to hold random objects which don't have an obvious home - and set aside a couple of minutes a day to check one of these containers and see if there's a permanent home you can sort the objects into.
Build rewards into the process of difficult tasks rather than saving them for afterwards - listen to music you love, get some delicious snacks, or alternate paragraphs with a micro-break to do something genuinely fun.

Build in rewards for during a task rather than after - saving listening to a podcast you really love for while you're doing a hard-to-start task, rather than telling yourself you can't have it until afterwards, can sometimes make the task easier to begin.
If you struggle to stop tasks when in flow, try setting alarms to remind you of when to stop instead of when to start - or timeblock tasks you know are likely to absorb you before another event so that you feel more pressure to stop.
Ask for prompts from a trusted person if you know there's a task you're likely to have difficulty moving on to. You can just say, "I tend to get absorbed in tasks like X, can you check in with me at 3pm to make sure I'm ready to get started on task Y?" Having another person holding you accountable can sometimes make the transition easier.
Build in (and block out time for) transition time for tasks. Even if you don't have to leave your physical location, for some of us getting into the headspace for a task is more of a journey than for others.
Before you start a task, imagine yourself completing it in as much detail as possible, step by step. Imagine the movements you will make and how your body will feel. Getting yourself into the headspace for a task before physically moving your body to do it can sometimes make starting easier.
Try narrating the process of starting and stopping out loud (the psychologist Vygotsky noticed a link between narrating actions and executive functioning in 1934). What steps do you have to take? What are you doing right now? How are you feeling? Speak it out loud, to yourself or to a willing friend or colleague.
You may have heard of the "eat the frog" strategy for productivity, in which you do the hardest thing first. If starting is hard, the "eat the cake" strategy - doing the easiest or nicest thing first, to get you into flow - can be more effective.
Group similar tasks together so that the transition between them feels smaller. If you rely on someone else to assign you tasks at work, ask if they can help you by grouping them by similarity.
Watch out for "danger fun" - activities that you know tend to be difficult for you to stop. If they aren't essential, sometimes it's safer not to start them at all!
Build rewards into the process of difficult tasks rather than saving them for afterwards - listen to music you love, get some delicious snacks, or alternate paragraphs with a micro-break to do something genuinely fun.

Explore whether there might be options for being more physically comfortable in your workspace. That could mean anything from ergonomic furniture to using a box as a foot rest, adjusting your chair height, or using an extra cushion. Try changing one thing to see if it improves your experience.
Think about the clothes you are most comfortable in. Take a little time to come up with three outfits which are appropriate to your job but still comfortable. You might prefer natural fabrics, loose clothing, or clothes with a stretch to them. Take your own comfort seriously and see if it has an impact.
Remind yourself of your sensory preferences - note them down somewhere and take a moment to be fully aware of them. Consider whether any small adjustments could be made to your job to better fit these sensory preferences, and whether you might be able to ask for them.
Agree with your colleagues on a signal or sign to indicated periods of time when you need to not be disturbed (like setting a status on Teams or a physical sign at your desk). If this feels impossible, it might be time to have a frank conversation with your manager or colleagues to find out if there are any periods of the day in which you can work quietly without being disturbed. If not, you may need to find other strategies, but you might be surprised that flexibility exists where you weren't aware of it.
Use headphones or earplugs to reduce noise. Or consider using a sound masking app like Rainymood to block out unpleasant noise with the sound of rain. If all of these are impossible, figure out if you can move to sit in a corner, so that sound can only come from 90 degrees rather than all around you.
Adjust lighting and temperature to your sensory needs where possible. If you work in a shared office, this might look like a personally controlled lamp at your desk, or wearing tinted glasses or coloured lenses. If temperature is an issue, a handwarmer or personal fan can be helpful for some people.
Start a conversation about your sensory needs with your manager to see if any adjustments can be made. Frame this positively - attending to your needs can and will increase your concentration and productivity.
Experiment with fidget toys - these can sometimes be really helpful for sensory regulation. There is a huge range available, and many are very inexpensive - you might need to experiment to find some that really work for you.
Come up with some brief non-verbal signals to indicate that you need a sensory break to step out and reset. Agree these with some trusted colleagues in advance.

Consider the role of your senses. When we are reacting emotionally, it can feel like what's going on in our minds is the only thing that matters. But our nervous systems can be overloaded from multiple directions at once. Taking yourself to a quiet place with dim lighting (or a busy place where you can people watch if that makes you feel calmer) can help reduce overall stress so that you can process your emotions more effectively.
Ask for feedback from people you trust directly if you are anxious or worried. Being able to say "I'm not sure if I've done this right, I'd welcome your opinion on where I could improve it" creates psychological safety, which improves both wellbeing and performance.
Keep a record of things you've done well and are satisfied with. Negative emotions tend to be stickier, whereas many of us barely register the positives long enough to form a memory about them. Start collecting evidence of when things go well and set aside time to really sit with the feeling. Start building emotional resilience based on evidence of the things you can do well.
Frame feelings of anxiety as a possible warning signal, but not necessarily in the way that seems most obvious. Worrying what other people think of your work could be a sign you have low self-esteem about the quality of your work. It could also mean you're not receiving sufficient feedback from others, or that your work has been criticised in a way that leaves you unsure what to actually do about it. Spend time reflecting on what the actual underlying causes might be - you could list out both the external (other people) and internal (in your own mind) possibiities, then decide how to respond.
Use a sensory anchor to calm you when feeling emotionally overwhelmed and carry it around with you. This could be something cool and smooth like a pebble, or a soft piece of fabric. Make a habit of using it in times of stress.
Write down everything in your head that is bothering you. This can be helpful in getting a more objective view of a situation, and can also be useful if you need to prepare feedback to communicate about a difficult situation later. Review what you've written the next day to make sure it still rings true.
Think of 3 nearby spaces where you can go if you need to "tap out" in moments of high emotion. Note these down somewhere you can remind yourself of them easily in moments of crisis - a card in your wallet might do.
Choose one or two people you feel safe with. Tell them that you sometimes experience strong emotions and ask if you can signal to them if you need time out of a situation so they can help you leave and calm down. Knowing they are there might make it less likely you will need to do this!
Practise open conversation and debriefing difficult interactions. First, remind yourself of 3 times you have been helpful to your colleagues, and 3 times they are helpful to you, to distance you a step or two from the difficult situation. Then say or message "that meeting didn't go very well and I feel worried. Can we talk about it?" Creating an environment in which open interaction is normalised makes the workplace better for everyone.

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