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From Hibernation
Mar. 27th, 2020 09:31 am
After two weeks of sheltering in place, I think I'm beginning to shift gears at last to focus on a productive routine. Small things like moving my computer chair from the office to the dining room (where we've set up a temporary home office) makes sitting down a lot easier for long periods of time, and the new routine is finally starting to catch. I wake up a bit later, but if I'm consistent I have a good bit of time to ease into the day before I log on at 7:30 AM.
It's been difficult to stay productive after I log off at 4 PM, though. Mostly what I want to do is just shut down, settle in to watch TV, play games, smoke pot. There was a Twitter thread that really resonated with me -- basically, we're all trying to navigate through a shared trauma, and neither the flight or fight response is really working out for us. We can't escape this pandemic, and there's not a whole lot we can do to fight it; the national response is out of our control, even though it's so inadequate. So the only option left is to 'freeze', or play dead. Since we're all sheltering in place, bombarded with news that exacerbates our anxiety, and uncertain how any of this stuff plays out, freezing up feels like the best play.
It puts the difficulty I've had thinking about how to get things done in the afternoons and evenings into perspective. Now that I have a useful framework for that response, I can begin to work with it. Using the CBT I've learned for working with anxiety should help, but again -- that's a process that will take a little while to pin down. In the meantime, I can at least try to make progress on a few things here and there, building better habits while we're stuck at home.
This weekend, I think, I'll be spending a fair bit of time thinking about the month ahead and how I can build practices that help me to progress on various projects. I'll set up my Bullet Journal for Q2 2020, break down the goals I'd like to hit by June, and see what I can do to build a weekly project plan to get things done. I know that I'll be working from home for at least a month, which means that I'll have extra time and space to work on the things that are most important to me. Now that I've gotten the hibernation phase of this whole deal out of my system, I think it's time to start setting small goals that I can hit week over week, and build on those successes slowly but surely.
By the way, holy shit, I am saving a TON of money by just not...eating out. It's really sobering, realizing how much I've been spending on restaurants -- especially beer and cocktails. I'm also sitting on a fair bit of money left over from the bonus we've received; I've had it squirreled away for a new mattress, but it might be some time before we're able to get that. In the meantime, it might be worth looking into buying a new computer chair and a few new bits of clothes.
The day job is...getting stressful. This week I've been dealing with a few tricky tickets, and trying to get responses from subject matter experts elsewhere is a bit like pulling teeth. I'm not sure if it's my demeanor or if my coworkers come off as super-jerks online, but it's been frustrating. If I'm not being bounced around from coworker to coworker for an answer, then I'm basically getting a shrug from people who don't see my question as very important. I'm not sure how to handle it, especially since I'm doing my best to be mindful of the situation of others. Some of us aren't used to working from home, and who knows what kind of stressors folks are dealing with. It's more important than ever that we treat each other as kindly and gently as possible.
That being said, it does set me off when it feels like I'm not being treated with the same amount of consideration. It's not that I take it personally; it's that being mistreated offends that very sense of justice for me. Everyone should be treated with compassion and respect, so when it feels like others are being jerks for no reason it doubly offends. At least I have a lot of time to work on that impulse, right?
There are a lot of initiatives popping up to keep up morale online. A friend of mine is reading daily positive short stories; another group of friends is running an online "convention" featuring art, music, and writing streams as well as an online "Artist's Alley" where people can promote their wares. It's *really* cool. That's another reason I'd really like to get my act together -- I want to contribute to those initiatives, I want to be one of the people trying to make the best of a bad situation. But in order to do that, I need to actually be able to sustain consistent effort.
It's been difficult to stay productive after I log off at 4 PM, though. Mostly what I want to do is just shut down, settle in to watch TV, play games, smoke pot. There was a Twitter thread that really resonated with me -- basically, we're all trying to navigate through a shared trauma, and neither the flight or fight response is really working out for us. We can't escape this pandemic, and there's not a whole lot we can do to fight it; the national response is out of our control, even though it's so inadequate. So the only option left is to 'freeze', or play dead. Since we're all sheltering in place, bombarded with news that exacerbates our anxiety, and uncertain how any of this stuff plays out, freezing up feels like the best play.
It puts the difficulty I've had thinking about how to get things done in the afternoons and evenings into perspective. Now that I have a useful framework for that response, I can begin to work with it. Using the CBT I've learned for working with anxiety should help, but again -- that's a process that will take a little while to pin down. In the meantime, I can at least try to make progress on a few things here and there, building better habits while we're stuck at home.
This weekend, I think, I'll be spending a fair bit of time thinking about the month ahead and how I can build practices that help me to progress on various projects. I'll set up my Bullet Journal for Q2 2020, break down the goals I'd like to hit by June, and see what I can do to build a weekly project plan to get things done. I know that I'll be working from home for at least a month, which means that I'll have extra time and space to work on the things that are most important to me. Now that I've gotten the hibernation phase of this whole deal out of my system, I think it's time to start setting small goals that I can hit week over week, and build on those successes slowly but surely.
By the way, holy shit, I am saving a TON of money by just not...eating out. It's really sobering, realizing how much I've been spending on restaurants -- especially beer and cocktails. I'm also sitting on a fair bit of money left over from the bonus we've received; I've had it squirreled away for a new mattress, but it might be some time before we're able to get that. In the meantime, it might be worth looking into buying a new computer chair and a few new bits of clothes.
The day job is...getting stressful. This week I've been dealing with a few tricky tickets, and trying to get responses from subject matter experts elsewhere is a bit like pulling teeth. I'm not sure if it's my demeanor or if my coworkers come off as super-jerks online, but it's been frustrating. If I'm not being bounced around from coworker to coworker for an answer, then I'm basically getting a shrug from people who don't see my question as very important. I'm not sure how to handle it, especially since I'm doing my best to be mindful of the situation of others. Some of us aren't used to working from home, and who knows what kind of stressors folks are dealing with. It's more important than ever that we treat each other as kindly and gently as possible.
That being said, it does set me off when it feels like I'm not being treated with the same amount of consideration. It's not that I take it personally; it's that being mistreated offends that very sense of justice for me. Everyone should be treated with compassion and respect, so when it feels like others are being jerks for no reason it doubly offends. At least I have a lot of time to work on that impulse, right?
There are a lot of initiatives popping up to keep up morale online. A friend of mine is reading daily positive short stories; another group of friends is running an online "convention" featuring art, music, and writing streams as well as an online "Artist's Alley" where people can promote their wares. It's *really* cool. That's another reason I'd really like to get my act together -- I want to contribute to those initiatives, I want to be one of the people trying to make the best of a bad situation. But in order to do that, I need to actually be able to sustain consistent effort.
