Recharge

Working better.

I had a couple days this week where I was on Zoom calls back to back.  I never left the chair from 8:00 AM to 6:00PM.

I was exhausted.

I have always been a remote worker.  I like being remote. I don’t want to drive an hour to sit in a cubicle.  I’m a phone guy too.  I have always been on conference calls and I know how to use the technology with all it’s foibles.

But, this new version of work is weirdly taxing.  Why?

Well I noticed a couple things.

I’m working across multiple time zones so it tends to bleed out the edges with early calls and late calls.  I just don’t have enough energy to be my best self for 12 hours straight.  I start running out of gas in the afternoon.  I can show up, but I’m not sure how much value I’m adding.

It’s also not as predictable as it sounds.  It quite variable. I’ve noticed that most calls run over.  When the call runs over there is no time to go grab a fresh cup of tea or go to the bathroom.  And there is not tme to prepare for the next call.

I’ve also noticed a lot of calls getting canceled at the last minute.  You would think this would give you some extra time and energy in the balance, but it doesn’t.  Because it is last minute and unplanned you really can’t spin up a new project in that gap effectively.

With this variability and negative overlap there is no time for you to consolidate your notes or to digest meeting content.  Which is bad because you can’t fix it in your mind to act on it effectively.  The variability leads to task swapping, which eats more time and makes you inefficient.  It also leads to dual tasking, which also makes you less efficient.  If you can work on a presentation while listening to a call, you probably don’t have to be on that call to begin with.

Since my customers and stakeholders are across time zones I get a lot of meeting dropped into my lunch time.  Which I really don’t mind.  I’ve never been a parochial lunch eater.  I snarf down a salad at my desk and keep moving.  But, it’s just another loss of oxygen in the day which ends up dragging down you’re your energy.

And, where does all this lead?  It leads to exhaustion. Exhaustion leads to bad choices, whether those be professional choices, personal choices or nutritional choices.  Once you get into the cycle you carry the exhaustion into your weekends.  Now you’re not getting the recharging you need.

With those early calls your morning routine gets bunged up.

With those late afternoon calls your evening gets messed with.

But, ironically you don’t complain.  You don’t challenge the system because you are proud of your work ethic, right? It’s part of your self-image.

And this is where you become your own mill boss.  You are complicit in your own exhaustion.  You are that old guy from the 1800’s, smoking a cigar and saying, “Well, if you don’t want to do the work I can get a 100 others who’d love have the job!”

So what can you do?

First thing is to stop being your own mill boss and stop acting like a mill worker.  Figure out what work pattern you need to be effective and establish your own norms.  You don’t have to be militant but mark that focus time or that lunch hour in your calendar as ‘busy’ and enforce it.

Certainly, be aware of company culture and don’t be mouthy and militant but be your own advocate.  You don’t have to explain to anyone why you blocked 2 hours of focus time.  If they ask you simply, and unemotionally say; “That’s part of my productivity and effectiveness strategy.”

Let people know.  If they know they will be less likely to violate those norms.

Next thing you can do is step away from your desk once in a while.  Get up.  Get out. Go for a walk.  Take 5 – 10 minutes to walk around the yard of that house you made 30 years of mortgage payments on.  It’s ok.

One of my strategies is to make meetings 45 minutes instead of an hour.  Then even if they rn ove you have a gap to work with.

These days you also need to socialize.  Before the apocalypse socialization just happened.  Now you need to proactively get some human interaction.

As we’ve discussed before one of the best things you can do to combat exhaustion is to get a good night’s sleep.  Even if you had to work into the evening.  Don’t try to make up for it by extending the day.  Rack out.  Call it a day.  Tomorrow is another chance. Go to sleep.

And of course, as we have talked about also many times, have a good morning routine and protect it.  Don’t switch on the news or the social media.  Get some quiet time.  Take a 20-minute walk.  Do some reading and writing.  Even if you have that morning call take the 20 minutes to prepare your mind for the day.  Don’t use that time to ‘catch up’.  Use it to recharge.

Walks are great.  The best advice I got last week when I complained on social media that I was exhausted was to go for a walk.  More specifically, to take some of my calls as walking calls.  Get your headphones and go for that walk.

Have lunch. Even if you’re not a lunch person try to protect that time and get some calories in.  It helps prevent late day exhaustion. A nice fresh garden salad with some nuts in it will help your body and soul.

Focus on one thing at a time.  Really.  Stop doing two things at once. If it’s worth doing it’s worth focusing on.

Check yourself.  You may be the source of this exhaustion pathogen for your coworkers.  Are you sending emails on Sunday?  Are you responding to them after 9 pm?  That sends a message.  You are playing into your inner mill worker’s norms.  Don’t be a spreader.

Choose the deep work things that move the needle.  When all this reactive work and calls get stacked up we forget about the important stuff. The tuff that Covey called important but not urgent.  Find a way to block some focus time for those things that will make a difference. They can find anyone to be administratively productive.  You bring value with the deep work.

Of course there is administrative tasks that have to be done.  There is no sense procrastinating or whining about that stupid TPS report.  Just do it and move on.

I’ll leave you with one final tip about email.  Set up rules to automate the filing of emails.  This way when you open your email there won’t be 100 unread messages in your inbox.  There may still be 99 unread messages but they will be spread around in the different folders so you can triage and prioritize.

That helps with the emotional overwhelm.

That’s all I have for you today.  Welcome any other thoughts as we all try to be our best selves in the apocalypse.