Month: September 2020

How to Work in Self-Care When You’re Overwhelmed

All this parent wanted to do was lay down for a minute alone. Image of smiling man laying on a bed, with small child whispering in his ear. Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

In January 2013, I started an MBA. I was working full-time, and had two children under the age of two. One of those children was still nursing. I had no free time for two years. Whether it was a school assignment, a work deadline, or a child who needed to eat, there was always something or someone who wanted my attention.

For many people, this pandemic is a lot like that. Work and family commitments keep them sprinting from sunrise to sunset in a desperate bid to keep everything from crashing down. Maybe this is your situation. Maybe it describes the situation of a friend or colleague.

Today, we’re going to talk about how to catch a break when you haven’t been alone or uninterrupted since early March. Veteran remote workers understand that they are their own first line of defence when it comes to taking breaks. This is even more true during the current pandemic, when many have lost access to their personal safety net.

We’ll talk a little about how to think about taking breaks when crafting your own. After, I’ll end by offering some resources if you don’t have the energy to craft your own plan. I am not affiliated with any of these offerings, and do not receive compensation for mentioning them.

When There’s Too Much to Do, You Might As Well Take Time Off

There is only so much one person can do. We all acknowledge that fact in general, but we act as if we aren’t allowed to stop trying to complete our impossible to-do lists until we drop from exhaustion. We feel bad. Or think that there’s a life hack out there for fitting 30 hours of work into a 12 hour day.

There isn’t. When you have too much to do, the best you can do is choose which balls you drop. That may mean missing a non-critical work deadline. Or not signing your kid into zoom class. Deliberately choosing to drop a ball doesn’t mean the dropped commitment isn’t important. It’s just less critical at that moment than something else you care about. And if you’re thoughtful about what you miss, you stand a better chance of preserving the things that are important to you over the long haul.

Let’s call this strategic neglect. Generally I call it ‘choosing who I’m going to piss off,’ but strategic neglect sounds so much nicer.

Practicing this strategy can feel scary. But if you eye the items on your task list through the lens of your values, you’ll start to see places where you can build in a little breathing room in your day. That breathing room may look like fifteen minutes a couple days a week, but even five minutes of break time is better than zero minutes. You take what you can get.

Break Time Doesn’t Always Have to Be Productive Time

Once you start dropping things strategically, you’ll notice pockets of time in your day. And you’ll be tempted to shove something else on your to-do list into that slot. You may have visions of starting a side business or writing a book. But if you’ve been doing too much for too long, then you may need to spend some time doing nothing at all. You might sit on your couch and pretend to read a book. Or stand in the hallway in-between your kid’s zoom meetings taking slow breaths while wearing headphones.

I can’t tell you how long you’ll need to stay in this stage. You’re waiting for that internal voice inside of you that says “you should be doing x, y, or z,” to start saying “I’m bored. I want to do something.” That’s the signal that you’ve recovered enough to make your break time a little more active.

Prep For Your Break

When you only have five or ten minutes of free time, you need to have a grab-bag of activities ready to go. Spend some time prepping for your future activities. Put all of your workout clothes in one place. Wind your yarn. Order a sketch pad from Amazon. Choose a bread recipe–and make sure you have the ingredients.

Have a couple of possible activities ready to go. I love to read, but sometimes, if I crack open a book after work, my entire family takes that as the cue to interrupt me 42 times a minute. I’m less frustrated if I switch to knitting or playing my guitar at those times.

Think in Terms of Bite-Sized Breaks

Lao Tzu once said “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” It also turns out that exercise, or learning a new hobby, or developing positive coping skills can also be done over the course of a few consistent minutes spread across the week. This is basically how I’m learning guitar. I have a 30 minute lesson with my teacher over FaceTime, and I fit in a few minutes of practice most(ish) days of the week.

Get creative with your definition of down time. Do you have to sit in your car while waiting for your pet to leave the vet? That’s break time. Are you stuck in a zoom meeting? Get your knitting and call it down time. Do you wake up early because you’re stressed out? Grab a mindfulness app, and learn new ways to destress.

If You’re Looking For Ideas for Your Breaks, Try These

Sometimes you’re ready for a break, but too overwhelmed and stressed out to figure out what to do, so you do nothing. Maybe one of these ideas will work for you. I use an app called Movr for bite-sized fitness. You can build a 15 or 30 minute workout, or you can pick one of the 5 minute pre-planned workouts. If you want someone to plan your meals for you, I’ve used The Fresh 20 in the past. Be aware that you have to pay for it. And if you want to work on coping with stress, I’ve found Mood Mission to be helpful.

Whatever self-care you choose, don’t give up on it just because your to-do list is out of control. Those little breaks may not change your circumstances, but they can give you enough of a boost to carry on. We’re in this pandemic for the long haul. Spend some time recharging your mental and physical batteries. You’ll be a better person for it.

It’s Fall, Y’all–Ring in Autumn with this Checklist

Photo by energepic.com from Pexels Alt Text: Black woman’s hands holding pen and writing a checklist.

So technically Fall doesn’t begin until Sept 22. But if it’s September and you or someone you live with is back in school, psychologically, it’s Fall. The changing of the season is a good time to take stock of yourself and your remote work. But don’t worry–this isn’t going to be one of those checklists that assumes you have any free time or bandwidth. It’s an opportunity to reflect in whatever moments you have.

How Much Bandwidth Do You Have?

Hint: If you laughed when you read that sentence, then the answer is ‘none,’ and you are nearly done with this step. You know what you have going on in your life right now. Some of you are trying to work while virtually schooling/homeschooling your children. If that’s your situation, I have a badge for you:

If you’ve had to manage your kid’s schooling, you have unlocked this achievement. ALT Text: Image says ‘Homeschool hero, you survived! You are amazing! Crying is okay!’

The only thing left for you to do is let go of the idea that you should be able to manage your kid’s schooling (whether online or homeschooling) while killing it at work, without breaking a sweat. You aren’t a bad caregiver. You are, in fact, amazing. Full stop. No exceptions. Rock on with your bad self.

If you find yourself with more bandwidth in September, I encourage you to take some time to think about what you need more of in your life. This doesn’t have to be profound. It may be that you really just need a nap. Or, in my case, I need to work on a health issue that got pushed aside at the beginning of the pandemic. The important thing is to make sure your aspirations don’t exceed your bandwidth.

Perhaps you have enough bandwidth to help other people. That leads into the next question to ask yourself.

How Are Your Friends and Colleagues Doing?

Whether or not you have extra bandwidth, it’s good to check in with your friends and colleagues. You might not be able to do anything with the information, but at least they’ll know you care. If nothing else, you can send each other memes and other gallows humour to help you through the current craziness. A text or email that says ‘I was thinking about you. Hope things are less crazy’ can make people feel seen. This is super important when we’re all living our lives remotely.

And if you do have extra bandwidth, you might try to help. Recently, an childless acquaintance reached out to a group of us with an offer of help. She suggested something specific-that she could look stuff up on our behalf. It was a very specific and thoughtful form of support. You can also show support by being calm. Anxious, overwhelmed people can be short-tempered and rash. The biggest gift you can give someone in that moment is your forgiveness.

Do You Have Your Supply of Happy-Makers?

Covid hasn’t gone away. There will be days when our uncertain situation will weigh heavily on you. You’ll need a small cache of simple things that make you happy. For me, those things are yarn, chocolate, and books. Whenever I feel anxious I crochet hexagons. They’re simple enough that I have the pattern memorized, but interesting enough that I get a little break from whatever’s bugging me. As a bonus, I will have a hand-made blanket at some point.

As you see, this isn’t a complicated checklist. But if you take a small amount of time to check-in with yourself, your friends and family, and your supply of happy-makers, you’ll enter fall on the right foot.

Stuff I’ve Published

This week’s published writing is all comedy. Some of you might suspect that I use comedy writing to cope with the Pandemic. You would be correct. On Thursday my humorous nonfiction piece Dye-ing for Alone Time, a Henna-Made Tale went live on Sallymag. I wrote this piece in April with no idea where to place it. My writing often has humorous elements, but it was the first intentionally funny piece I’ve written for publication. This was the story that pushed me to take satire classes with The Second City.

On Tuesday I published volume 2 of Good Girl, Aggie! This is my advice column written by Aggie Green, the mascot of the comedy magazine Greener Pastures. I had no idea if other folks would like Aggie. Imagine my delight when I had messages from people I don’t know, thanking me for giving them something to laugh at. I don’t know if there will be a third Aggie column. We’ll see.

Also on Tuesday, I published Emergency Meeting of Bigger, Better Gender Reveal Parties: New Products to Top the California Fire! On Monday, around 10am, I saw the news about the gender reveal party that sparked yet another fire in my home state of California. Evidently my subconscious had a lot of opinions about people who set off incendiary devices in the middle of a drought, and I wrote this piece in a couple of hours.

Goings On in the Douglas Household

The kids started school. I’d like to say that I did a ton of stuff during the 2.5 hours that they were gone (the first day was a health and safety orientation) but I don’t believe in lying to you. I sent emails to people who were waiting on me for things. I stared at my screen and thought of nothing at all. The fact is, I’m so accustomed to being interrupted that I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to focus. I expect I’ll get that back again if Covid case counts stay low enough in Vancouver that the kids stay in school. If I had to make a prediction, I predict that the kids come home to online school in November. So after a few days of recovery, I’m going to use the child-free time to write as much as I can.

That’s it from my neck of the woods. I’ll see you next time.

Turning of the Season

Photo by Daniel Jurin from Pexels

We’re in the home stretch of summer. The last few mornings of August were chilly here in Vancouver, and I’ve been trying to push off Fall through sheer force of personality. I think it worked because the first few days of September have been spectacular. Anyway that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

A Podcast, and an Article on Influence

Today’s post is going to be a short roundup of some of the things I’ve done in the past week or so. First off, I had a great time talking to the folks at Olympia Benefits about getting stuff done at your remote job. I really liked talking to Morgan, the host, because we spent some time talking about team dynamics. When most of your communications happen over text, it’s very easy to view your colleagues in a more negative light. We talked about some ways to get around that. You can also check out Olympia’s YouTube account if you would rather listen to the episode there.

I also wrote an article about building influence so you can be a force for positive change at work. To put it bluntly, if you want to make a difference inside your company, you have to be someone others listen to. In this article I talk about how to asses where you are as an influencer, and how to increase your influence.

The Kids Go Back to School Next Week

And now you know how the kids feel about school. This said ‘First day of school’ until they modified it.

I’ve spent as much time as I can giving the kids a good end of summer. We ate popsicles and potato salad (not at the same time). We went to the beach. I read Charlotte’s Web to my son, and was there to see his face when the spider dies. My daughter read the book on her own two years ago, and I remember how puzzled she was that I would let her read something so sad. But when my son had trouble sleeping a week or so ago, she was the one that suggested the story.

It’s a bittersweet tale, and the message of joy and loss and the changing of the seasons felt apropos this week, as many of my colleagues were laid off. I’m trying to lean into the good memories I have with them. There are a lot to choose from.

We’ve been fortunate here in Vancouver. Our COVID numbers are low and the kids can go to school in person. I assume that at some point our numbers will go up, and the kids will go back to learning from home. So if you are looking for me, I’ll be the one writing at a picnic bench outside, savouring the warmth and the light.