Rethinking how we work: It is time to make some tweaks

Happy new year! I’m setting the intention that it is a year full of opportunities for all of us.

I am, though, heading into the 2021 working year feeling behind. What about you? I don’t think I’ve ever said that before, and I have definitely not said that out loud before. But I feel rather empowered in saying it out loud to you all. I ended work with a to do list, one that I knew I wouldn’t finish before the end of year break. I can however, thank my past self in that I listed everything I was working on and where it was left so future self wouldn’t waste too much time figuring out what it was I had done (trying to be a good colleague to myself).

So, a couple of things pop up here for me as I went through this process and ponder moving forward into the working year:

I acknowledge how I work has changed (hello COVID lockdowns, working from home orders, and closed workplaces).
My energy levels are feeling different...I’m exhausted in a very different way, with a foggy brain (difficulty focusing, slow thinking, hazy feelings, forgetfulness, etc.) featuring far more than it ever has before.
The expectations I have on myself have to shift.
I need to change what it is I am working on and how I attend to my time. Past habits and rituals are not working for as effectively (or in some cases at all).
I’m thinking lots about how the way I need to work now has shifted, but have I done this?
And I am wondering: was what I left on my to do list at the end of 2020 required, and do I need to rethink, stop or just forget?

Lots of big issues here. Any sound familiar to you? These ideas will probably feature throughout the Wellbeing Whisperer’s blog posts this year, so I won’t try to unpack all of them in this post. Some of them I need to ponder more myself. I do, however, want to focus on one thing that is helping me bring myself back into the present as I process all these aspects...it is time to make some tweaks to how I work. I want to explore these through three ways in 2021 (and I might be setting myself up for a mini experiment here with the promise to report back later in the year). Here are the tweaks I’m thinking about:

Piggyback

Mono-tasking

Slowing down

Piggyback

As things change and so does our to-do list. What was on it at the end of the year may not be relevant now. Or what we think might be important and made it to the to-do list in the past, may not be relevant now in light that our work priorities have changed or how we do things has changed.

As we think about renegotiating what is important, we also need to be aware that beating yourself up over what has or hasn’t been achieved is not at all helpful (would you be saying to a friend those harsh words you say to yourself? Most likely no!). So one way to approach this is to think about the context in partnership with what needs to be done. As I’m renegotiating with myself my 2021 KPIs and what my weeks will look like when I return back to work, I am also aware of the changing context of higher education (in fact, this is the first year in my career that I do not know what my work load will look like next year due to a restructure, changing workload models, and lots of political moving parts at the institution I work at). As I do this I’m thinking about the role of piggybacking. That is, utilizing existing work or an existing project as a basis or support to other work I am working on (or will be working on).

I’m asking the question: What do I do that can piggyback onto one another? I’m thinking about how to work smart here, not harder. Where are there commonalities in content or approach or people I work with that can align in a way that has my energy and cognitive power plus time working smartly together.

So for example, at the moment I am working on a few research projects that centre around self-care and wellbeing. I am located in a department of education and work with future teachers and teachers in various settings, plus the general public. Some of the projects I am working on are in relation to higher education and others are in relation to working with teachers located in schools, and then I have a set of projects focused on future teachers (those training to be teachers). If I think smartly about what is occurring with my work in this area I am thinking about how we understand self-care in education across all sectors (early years, primary, secondary and higher education). I am thinking about self-care for all edurostrs within and across these sectors. My research in this area is progressing well, and when I begin to think about my teaching there is scope to integrate this work into content I am teaching (for example scaffolding self-care for future teachers). I can also bring this knowledge into fruition in my leadership of a teaching team who would benefit from some of the practical strategies that could be integrated within the curriculum and also in talking about their own self-care as we navigate challenging times in higher education. So as I negotiate my focus for 2021 I can align one major focus in my work and thus piggyback across areas of academic expectations.

As I am thinking about what piggybacking will look like, I’m also seeing the needs to look at what perhaps needs to be dropped, paused, or stopped. Here are some key questions I am asking myself, and they might help you as well:

What is energising me?
What do I do that can piggyback across projects or roles I have?
What do I need to say no to?
What do I need to pause?
What do I need to stop doing? What hasn’t been serving me so well?
What is something new I have heard about, read, or seen in action that I would like to try that helps me to renegotiate my work?
How am I utilizing the best part of the day for me? Thinking about when I am most energised and I am most creative.
What can I renegotiate in my schedule to block this time out so it works for me?
What do I need to be careful of as I piggyback to make sure I don’t overuse this renegotiating approach.

Mono-tasking

‘Mono-tasking’ is our underutilized super power in academia. We are so intrigued with and inticied with ‘multitasking’ as a way to be productive. It is modeled to us, we see it all the time, and well our job often asks us to do it as we navigate our KPIs across so many diverse different areas of research, learning and teaching, leadership, and engagement.

So first up, multi-taking is not piggybacking. These are two different things. Multitasking is the performance of more than one task at the same time. The classic I think of here and that I see all the time (face-to-face pre covid times and most definitely now during covid times via video conferencing) is the “sit in a meeting and check email”. Some of our colleagues have some stealth like moves when they do this, and others are more overt. There is usually at least one obvious colleague who is not present with the meeting agenda and you can only but wonder what is happening in their world that this kind of behaviour is okay to do! Piggybacking is where we link to or take advantage of an existing system or body of work (just as I described with my approach to work in self-care).

Mono-tasking has us be ruthless with what we focus on at a specific time so that we are fully present and our attention is in this very moment. I’m thinking of Graham Allcott’s work here and the practical and ace tips he shares in relation to how we use our time. As I plan to mono-task more in 2021, you might like these as well:

Keep your desk super clean with no piles of paper or books for other projects, just the items that you need for the task you are completing right now. I’m going to also say that close all those tabs on your browsers that are not relevant and distract you (and yep, I know you have lots open...I had 15 open when I was writing this blog post and only 3 were relevant!)
Have only the programs or platforms you are working with at the time open.
Embrace a low-information diet. Be selective about what you are reading, watching and listening to to avoid any distractions while you are working on a specific project to support all your cognitive power to feed into the specific task.
Clean out your email (get it to inbox zero if you practice this strategy or honour calm inbox where you check your email at a delicate time once in the morning and once in the afternoon) and then close it down. No email is required while you focus on the task at hand.
Resist the temptation to engage with all the instant messengers that pop up with your socials and the platforms our workplaces have us using now that we are working from home. In fact, turn them off! At the start of 2020 my main form of communication for work was email, at the beginning of 2021, I have a number of additional platforms that my workplace now contacts me on: Microsoft Teams, Zoom, What’s App, Facebook Messenger, Signal, Twitter, Instagram, Text, and Email. If I had the notifications of all these platforms live I would never get any work done. Mono-tasking requires these to be closed down and turned off for a designated period of time so you can focus just on the one task.
Know when to go off the grid so you can just focus. Don’t let people down when you are doing this, going off the grid doesn't mean it is ok to ignore your responsibilities. So you may need to plan for this as you look for big chunks of time in your diary where you can focus on that one project.

Slowing down

Slowing down, what does that really mean?

I’m intrigued by the words and actions that we are hearing at the moment. Slow movement. Slow living. Hustle. Values-based intentions. One word for a year. New year resolutions. Change. Exhaustion. Overworked. No time. These words have been floating around for a few years, and they always appear at the top of social media posts at the beginning of a new year.

There is no doubt that there is a general feel of exhaustion for many of us at the moment. I feel this. But I do wonder which of these will work for us? And what is it that we can do if we are to embrace or confront any of these terms or ways of being?

We don’t have to work as hard as we think to achieve what we need to. One of the most significant things we need to conquer is busyness work. That is, activities we do that send us down the road of multi-tasking or action that lacks focus on specific goals, where there is a lack of being present, misalignment to our intentions, we engage in time wasting activities that are not really important, or we surround ourselves with activities (or people) that feed procrastination. With any of these we are left with an overall sense of non-achievement. We often feel more exhausted and this is usually accompanied at the time or soon after with worry, what if thinking, and an overwhelming sensation of how can I get everything done.

I’m exploring the intentional slow down. It does mean that I’m getting rid of elements associated to the hustle (drive, ambition, vision, passion, a go-get and do-it approach, a love of innovation) but what it does mean is that I’m connecting intentionally with my values, mindful goals, and a more mindful way of living. I’m also thinking holistically about my personal and professional life. I’m renegotiating and I’m positioning the mono-tasking way of doing things up front. I am also honouring rest and rejuvenation as part of this slowing down.

So, here are some things I’m doing to help me to explore this, and you may find them helpful as well.

Food - being careful that I make better decisions with food choices. Sugar doesn't support me to sleep in the evening, so I’m reducing this at the moment.
Rest - I’m listening to my body when it needs to rest and utilizing this to support me to shift that foggy brain honouring that my energy levels will benefit greatly from this and I’m making sure I am not using the part of me that is worn out. I’m resting in order to renew and reinvigorate.
Meditation - connection to breath helps me feel grounded. I begin the day with a body scan and during the day I make sure I’m connecting to breathe, even if it is a 30 second micro-moment of deep gut breathing.
Soothing touch - I have a couple of different pebbles sitting on my desk. Some I have collected on beach walks or hikes in the mountains, others have been gifts. I use these pebbles as soothing touch moments, where I can place one in my hand or pocket and just rub it, feeling the smoothness. I find it as a tactile way to slow down and bring my attention back to the present.
Green energy - I start the day with a walk outside, I get outside for a 15 minutes walk around the block in the middle of the day between meetings, and I have a plant on my desk now. I also look forward to weekend trips into nature as well, savouring the opportunity to get outside for longer periods of time.
Notebook - I love to write in greylead pencil and this year I am embracing a paper diary with space as a notebook to slow down and engage with my thoughts. This is also my conscious decision to break the screen time that has now engrossed our lives.
Stretching - child’s pose, cat and cow pose, stand and fold, and eagle pose are my go to yoga moves to help me stop my shoulders kissing my ears from so much time at the computer. And they are also wonderful stretches to slow down and become more present.

I know these practices are core self-care strategies for me, and I’m setting the intention to explore more as the year progresses and I find ways to slow down and be present.

So, as I set the intention for all of us to have a year of opportunities, I am inviting you to think about what that might mean for you. It will probably look different than pre our covid times, but opportunities nonetheless exist for us. And I think we will all agree that how we approach our work, are empowered by our work, and how we work with our energy levels in association to our work provides a pretty cool opportunity to tweak, enhance, and stop doing those things that don’t serve us so well. I know I am going to embrace this, and I hope you are open to embracing the courage and vulnerability that will not only help us individually, but also us collectively.