home for the holidays (??): work and balance during breaks
December is usually time for wrapping up: gifts, lab work, grading, chapters. There is something seductive about starting on January 1st with a fresh slate, and many of us try and cram a bunch of work into the end of the year to make that deadline happen. But it can be complicated as the end of the year can also mean travel to see family or friends, holiday celebrations, or true exhaustion after a busy, stressful, challenging year. And this year, some of us are traveling home for much longer periods of time, or trying to find a way to make the same room that you’ve been in for months feel restful. Here are my best tips for setting up work during break so that you can both move forward on the work front and enjoy the light that the end of the year can contain.
Set boundaries.
Communicate what you need, as clearly as you can. When I go home to Michigan, it can be so easy to fill up every minute with family and friend time, but if I need to get work done, this can be a huge obstacle. Letting all impacted parties know as soon as possible that you'll need to do some amount of work while traveling can help set that pattern up in advance. I like to use language like this:
"I'm so excited to be [coming home // going to stay with you // at the all day family event] but as you may know, I have a big deadline coming up. I'm planning on working for an hour or two every morning, but after that, I'll be all yours."
“I am really sorry to not be coming home this year, but it would really make it feel more festive if we could Zoom/call on these days, and that way, I’m guaranteed to take a break.”
“I know that you are on vacation/PTO this week, but if I could have from 9 to noon to work on my chapter in my office, I promise to be available the rest of the day to be with you.”
“Yes, Advisor, I know that we have a big grant deadline coming up, but I’ll be away from the lab from December 20-January 3, and only checking my email intermittently. What’s most important for me to finish before then?”
Compromise. Is it easier to skip one whole day of festivities and get everything wrapped up, or scattering work during down hours throughout the break? I like to make the bargain that if I've got space to work for an hour or two every day, I can make the rest of the time present and focused, with no phones or computers. It is also helpful to remind people that by skipping a low level event, you can guarantee that you'll be there for a high value one - the work is immovable but the timing can be flexible.
Develop a signal for "Do not Disturb." Will you be in a location where it is easy to be distracted? Have to work in a communal space, and not your quiet office? Develop a way for people around you to quickly and quietly know you're in a focused zone without them having to ask you if you're working. Putting a sign on your bedroom that announces that if the door is shut, you aren't to be disturbed, or wearing headphones can be a great way to signal that you're in the zone.
Keep your word. If you say that you’ll be done at noon, and then you push it to 3 pm because you’re in the zone once, that’s one thing. But if you consistently do it, then people can easily get upset. Or, if you say you’re going to work from 9 until noon, and you actually hang out in the living room and watch The Crown, people assume that you weren’t serious anyway and they’re more likely to not respect your work time.
Set up work conditions quickly and easily.
Use your work rituals. My brain associates certain visual and taste cues with working, so when I'm traveling, I make sure to bring the elements of my work ritual with me. Even if I'm in my childhood bedroom, my brain slips more easily into work because I've got these rituals.
Find a work zone. Especially now - we can’t just sneak off to a coffee shop or the library in town. But maybe one of your relatives is set up to work from home now - can you borrow their space when they aren’t using it? Sometimes you have to go to a new location to totally escape the "hey, let's wrap gifts and watch Netflix" trap. Be creative - maybe the laundry room is just quiet enough for you to work with the dryer as a standing desk, or maybe setting up shop in your car (windows down if it’s hot, or with an extra blanket if it’s chilly) can help you get some distance.
Avoid time traps. If you only have a few hours, avoid the time consuming tasks and move right into the high value work. Avoiding Twitter, and especially email, can be incredibly effective here. Set up a vacation auto-responder to give yourself some space to respond to emails in a delayed way, put your social media on pause - use these shortened work hours for the most pressing, highest impact tasks to really feel like you accomplished something when you snuck away.
Make it feel like Not Work when you are not working. When you’re done - put the computer away. Clean up your desk when you shut it down for break. Make a “work basket” with your laptop, your notes, and your charger and pack it all up when you’re done for the day. Maybe to celebrate the start of break you put up some twinkly lights in your regular work space just so it feels different. Maybe there’s a new candle that you burn during breaks only! Having it look and feel different when you aren’t working can make it a little easier for brains to relax and not just “check that one email really quick” and fall into a rabbit hole for hours.
Be mindful, be compassionate.
Take a few centering breaths. Have a sticky encounter when you're rushing off to finish this essay before the deadline? Feeling guilty about missing some of the festivities? Resenting every life choice that led you to be at your childhood library grading student papers while everyone else makes merry? We've all been there. Take a few deep breaths, and get re-centered. Rather than letting all that bubble up and be a low (or high) key distraction during your work sessions, write it out in a Google Doc or in your journal to pick up (or not) after.
Be compassionate with others. Many of us come from backgrounds that don't totally understand all the work that goes into a graduate degree, and it can be so vulnerable to explain that you're behind on a deadline. To others, it might look like a sequence of typing activities done into various windows, but that work is important enough for you to take time away from other things to finish it. Being compassionate with others that might not understand how important the work really is can help you not feel quite as attacked when those well-meaning but probing questions and comments start to roll in.
Be compassionate with yourself. Missing out on long-awaited (and expensive!) travel home can be a huge trigger for me. I start to feel guilty about not finishing things earlier, about having to take time "away" from people who care about me, about not having an idyllic holiday season, or even about not resting enough. Having to work during breaks doesn't necessarily mean that one priority is higher than another - it just means that you have a full, complex life with values and roles that sometimes overlap. We all wish we could take picture perfect breaks, and be there for every minute of every holiday, but finding a way to fit work into the whole picture of our lives, and finding the support you might not have known was there otherwise, can be a gift all its own.
My break this year won’t look anything like what it has in the past, but I’m determined to, at the very least, make it feel different from the rest of 2020. May your break (AND YES YOU DO NEED TO TAKE ONE, as much as you can manage) be restful, safe for you and safe for your communities, and a reminder of the fact that work and rest are two different things, even if they happen all in the same spaces.
things that are helping me right now
in case you need to hear it:
i’ve been working from home for almost four years now and these have been some of the hardest weeks of my WFH career. of course they are. if this were just about “how to set up and efficiently and effectively work from home” then we would all just get dual monitors and set up our standing desks and make zoom backgrounds and that would be it.
but, i am finding a few things that are really helpful for me right now - not in the “here are 10 work from home tips” that your university PR team sends out kind of way, but in the “i’m a human and i’m in the world and i’m bouncing between trauma-response numbness, sheer panic, and bone-deep exhaustion” kind of way. hopefully there are a few useful things for you to experiment with!
keeping a really big bottle of water on my desk - i’m tired, everyone is tired, but i fell into a caffeine crash cycle early on and i’m still recovering. a big bottle of water on my desk makes it a little easier to balance that coffee with something a little easier on the adrenals.
jotting down a few ideas for lunch when i plan my day - feeding myself is not the most straightforward task in the best of times, but with my hunger response dulled because of stress (or on total overdrive), it’s been bananas. making a plan for a few things i could eat for lunch helps take some of the stress out of that decision and makes it less likely that i will just eat chips.
starting my day with a brain dump - morning pages have been a staple, on and off, of my morning routine for years, but they’re back in a big way right now. i get up, and i just type (sorry longhand fans, i am far more likely to do it if i can type!) and i just type until my brain feels a little emptier. it prevents me from spewing a bunch of that anxiety all over the other people in my life, and gives me a place to be not okay if i need it.
ending my day on purpose - i’m using this routine here to shut down my day on purpose and it’s a lifesaver. i am 100% more likely to put off getting started in the morning if my workspace is a mess, and this also allows me a litle bit of decompression time before i transition into the non work parts of my life.
ritualizing transitions - when all of your life is happening in the same space, it can be really hard for your body and mind to know where and when it is in time and space. so i’ve been trying to really make it clear when i’m switching from one mode to another. i use the same start up routine, i use the same shut down routine, and i try hard to take my lunch break away from my desk. i even change from my “work clothes” (yoga pants and a sweatshirt, maybe overalls if i’m feeling fancy, i’m not a monster) to my “comfy cozers” after dinner to make it really clear that i’m doing something different now. showering can also help mark transitions. you can also experiment with open and closing blinds, using playlists or types of music, or if you have a little space, working in different areas throughout the day.
checking in about social connection - i’m an introvert, so at first i thought that being home would be a dream come true. but then my calendar started filling up with tons of meetings, social zoom calls, text messages, family check ins, and i went for ten days without any real quiet recharge time. now i’m trying to be more conscious about how and when i schedule social time, such as it is, and making sure that i get enough sleep, and alone time, to charge up.
easing up on monthly and quarterly planning - i LOVE planning but right now, a week out is the farthest i can really go. too much is changing, and i was spending way too much time making two and three month plans only to have all the conditions change. i’m working on all the same milestones and goals, but i’ve let go of some of the due dates. instead, i’m using more of a progress report model; at the end of every day, and at the end of the week, i check in with all my open projects, review what i’ve done, and make plans for the next day or week. what’s important is the progress, not the deadline.
“what feels possible” as a grounding question - sometimes, i sit down at my desk and i can’t handle the idea of working. just can’t for one second stomach the idea of it. so the question i come back to, again and again is “what feels possible?” and then i really listen to myself for the answer. if it doesn’t feel possible to do what i set out to, then i try and get curious about what else feels like it’s within my grasp. sometimes it’s cleaning bathrooms, or making a meal planning list, or cleaning out my downloads folder. sometimes, it’s something on the list, just not the first thing. but instead of asking “why don’t you feel like doing this”, “what feels possible” makes me feel seen and validated AND opens up the possibility that there is something i feel like i can do, even if that thing is stardew valley.