As we enter week four of working from home, and as we hear increasing reports that we have more weeks ahead us, we wanted to share insights from Tisha Schuller at Adamantine Energy
Tisha writes a great newsletter “Both of these things are true” (you can subscribe here) and recently presented at a Young Women in Energy Virtual Happy Hour, which many of our YPAC Execs attended.
Here’s some of what we learned (extracts from Tisha’s April 9 newsletter). We love the focus on taking a moment to catch our breath. It feels really relevant to our work right now and the situation that we’re in.
Both of these things are true:
- Today’s challenges take all of our energy, wit, and capacity.
- Preparing for the brighter days ahead, we must take a moment to catch our breath and care for ourselves.
Seize One day at a time:
- Be your best you. Everything is hard right now. Here are some quick, implementable suggestions to make sure you are ready to look forward again next week.
- Create some structure (and boundaries) for yourself.Identify some realistic work hours, useful limitations on bunny slippers and comfort food, and, most importantly identify some dedicated down time.
- Set timers to accomplish tasks. It’s both hard to concentrate and difficult to discern what is important. Make a short list of things to accomplish and set timers as you knock out each one. Then go put back on your bunny slippers.
- Set some personal goals for this time. And then let them go for this week.
- Go easy. Sometimes you’re not going to be your best you. I’m taking tomorrow off even though it’s weird to take a vacation from your isolation in your same location.
- Protect your entrepreneurial spirit. I’ve started limiting myself to two news blocks: one 1/2 hour in the morning and one 1/2 hour in the evening. I need to be grounded in reality, but not consumed by it. The rest of the day, I can imagine what the recovery will look like and how I will shape it.
- Over-communicate with your bosses and teams. If they can’t see you, they have no idea what you are doing. Let them know and ask how they are doing.
- Give the benefit of the doubt. From your kids to your boss, just assume everyone is giving the most they can right now.
- Protecting you is an investment in the future. To keep one eye on the future, we have to have the mental, emotional, and physical capacity to meet the challenges of today with some bandwidth to spare. The only person who can ensure you are ready next week is you.
