Finding Focus in Pandemic Worklife
It’s only four more business days until many members of our workforce can finally return to full-time hours. With our kids returning to school and families returning to something that looks and feels a bit more like normal life, we have an unprecedented opportunity to build our best work selves.
Last year, in an incident that will be forever called the Wizard Staff Debacle of 2020, I was dropped on my head from a height that did some damage. Over the past 18 months, I’ve had to re-learn how to work my best, caring for my brain as it went through a healing process. I learned some things about tapping into my best work without the stress and exhaustion of “the grind.”
As you seek to remember your most creative, productive self (or find it for the first time), here are my suggestions to nudge you forward:
Do one thing at a time. You’ve heard that multitasking doesn’t really work, right? But did you know that the boredom of mono-tasking can actually help you enter creativity and innate problem-solving skills? It can be unfamiliar, so start with a commitment to do one thing for 30-minutes at a time, continuing if you’ve tapped into a flow.
Take breaks. It wasn’t until I had a brain injury early in the pandemic that I learned how tired a brain can get. Like driving on the bottom of your gas tank, a sludgy tired brain may run, but it’s not usually a great idea to let it.
Embrace micro-dos. Once my brain got a bit squashed, I could no longer look at a to-do list that said “Write Strategic Plan” and feel confident. So I thought I’d failed at planning. With coaching, I learned to write it out in pieces and celebrate every item crossed off. “Write plan” became: open document, enter fields, etc. … Then it all came back to me. List your biteable chunks, then celebrate each morsel.
Write it down. As we adjust and pick up speed, you may find yourself losing track a bit. Stay ahead by choosing one place to add everything. That paper you said you’d forward? Do it. The virtual training you agreed to attend? Immediately input it. The Zoom link you promised to circulate? Add to the list. Even if you immediately do the action item, it helps you see where your time went. And if you get distracted you have something to come back to.
No switching. You’ll lose data whenever you switch calendars or to-do apps, so choose one and stick with it.
Learn. Allow your brain to swim in the sweet, sweet dopamine that comes from following curiosity into discovery. It’s refreshing and fulfilling and a natural cure for distraction when you give yourself time to drink in some knowledge, and it makes you better at what you do. A key piece of this: Don’t force it. Don’t learn about finance because you “should.” Allow time to follow your curiosity down a trail like a child learning. Explore the evolution of gingko trees, dive into design thinking, or pioneer a new vegan baking technique. Activate areas of your brain that only light up when your natural curiosity is piqued.
