How I survived WFH in a pandemic-stricken world

These past 3 months have been wildly confusing, stressful and unprecedented. I like to think that I came out pretty strong from this pandemic, with little to no direct contact with the outside world physically. During this time, we would have read many accounts of how organizations evolved, and engage their employees in this new normal. I've used Zoom for the past 3 years, and have never seen the level of surge in its usage, much less explosion of its brand until today. To say that Covid-19 accelerated digitalization is an understatement. It did many things that the world struggled to do, and it also did it in record time.

The next few years will be uncomfortably different. This crisis has awoken the world in perpetuity, for now.

Working from the safety of our home, I felt the lines blurred between my professional and personal life. The first month was alright. In fact, I was enjoying taking meetings in shorts and t-shirts. I felt the constraints of the office walls fall away, and I was able to go into "creative" mode fairly easily. This meant achieving more, yet spending less time on my MacBook. "So this is what work-life balance really feel like", I thought.

2nd month. This was when things got really creepy. I suddenly felt a sense of void. It was a little bit like a burnout, but it wasn't a burnout. I still enjoyed my work, I just didn't know when to stop.

Thankfully, I was able to turn my awareness into investigating this strange phenomenon, and find my bearings. Working from home with reduced human interaction has revealed cracks and open conversations we otherwise wouldn't talk about openly. People are struggling with mental health, and they are surely struggling to make sense of this new reality. I hope by jotting down my thoughts, unabashedly, can also help you, who is reading my musings make sense of our world. Thoughts without actions are just dreams. I am going to share concepts, and examples of how you can action on them, to fit whatever situation you may be in, and maybe help prevent you from getting into a rut.

MINDSET

Concept 1: Awareness

Awareness is a powerful gift that we have as sentient beings. There are 2 ways we learn as humans. 1st hand personal experience, and 2nd hand someone else's experience. Sometimes, to further drive this idea across, one may choose to incorporate both 1st & 2nd hand experiences. Case in point, if I see you fall, bleed and cry, I know that isn't something pleasant. And I make a mental note not to follow in your footsteps to prevent myself from falling. But I may still not be able to comprehend what falling means, other than it resulting in tears and blood. The only way I can make sense of this concept and empathize with it is to allow myself to fall for once. That's when I know that pain, accompanies the blood. This is when I allow context to take its place in this equation. Awareness is the key to unlocking all of this.

The first two months of circuit-breaker had me in 2 mental modes.

1. Going with the flow
2. Adapt

This is a new norm. Never heard of the world going into full lockdown. There really isn't any historical information for us to look at. We are in the present moment of making history. Going with the flow, and taking an inward view of how I felt, why I felt a certain way, and what made me feel that way is the process of data collection. With more data, we can optimize how we respond, then we adapt. One thing to note, in order to do this well, you must do a few things.

Stop all self-judgement, silence all external noises, breathe.

So in situations like this, before we break down and scream in agony because of the lack of human interaction, have that internal conversation with yourself to begin with. The goal behind all of these, is to find an opportunity to reconcile with yourself, without allowing the outside world, the media, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook to even play a part in it and tell you what you lack, or what you need. You don't need anything. You need Reconciliation.

Once you are able to do that, then you can find what it is that will speak to those innate needs you have. Take baby steps and explore. Let there be NO SHAME in taking small steps. Let there be NO SHAME in having these self conversations. And let there be NO SHAME for you to be selfish, in attending to your own needs. Our world need this the most right now. We need to expand this self-awareness and thus practice empathy more than ever.

Concept 2: Less is More

This should be pretty easy to explain. The person who owns no luxury materials, has no debt, and lives a minimalist life will feel much easier to cope with the stress of Covid-19 than one who has big mortgages to pay for, owns a sports car, and lives a spendthrift life.

As we think of adopting a minimalist lifestyle, what's most important that will hit home run, is to have a minimalist mindset. Covid-19 has ruined businesses, and put a stop to all the advancement we have seen over the years. Candidly, I think this is the world telling us to stop in our tracks for a moment, and assess ourselves before we continue the mad rush to acquire more "useful" (Pun intended) things, to impress people we don't like.

To some people, it's more of needs over wants. For the majority, it's wants over needs.

Less is more. Knowing where to put your 200% attention to, will yield more results than spending your 200% effort on 20 other things at the same time. You will also end up with more time for yourself at the end of the day. And this time, can be used to intelligently acquire new knowledge that have the potential to unlock something else in the future for you.

When you understand the above mental concepts. You can now plan on incorporating actionable steps every day to see results.

ACTIONS

Action 1: Find your rhythm

We all have different rhythm. Some call this a state of FLOW. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the architect of the notion of flow.

"Flow is the mental state in which a person is engaged in an activity where they are fully immersed with a feeling of energized focus, involvement, and success in the process of the activity".

Personally, my flow moment is usually between 10pm - 1am. To some people, this may sound horrid, like I'm some workaholic or that I have zero concept of time management. But unknown to them, this is what yielded the most results for me. Fueling this is the mental concept of awareness and the ability to not self-judge myself, and silence the noises. The mental concepts discussed above is fundamental to how successful we can be from here on. Your WHY will always fuel your HOW and WHAT.

So, find your own rhythm and trust yourself. For me, I specifically allocate my toughest work or projects within my flow moment, and I organize my time such that I spread out my work sporadically throughout the day, other than the time I go to bed. And what about burnout you may ask? The great thing is when you are in flow, you hardly feel any sense of burnout. At least for me, it heightens my passion in my work. I don't believe in work life balance. I trust there is work life integration.

Everyone of us is different. But we each have our moments of FLOW. You just need to be aware and recognize when that is, and organize your day accordingly to get the most out of it.

Action 2: Do and forget

We all have difficult jobs to do. We all fight our battles everyday. We all have grocery shopping to do, kids to care for, and meetings to attend. It can get overwhelming, and before we take any action, we burn ourselves out mentally by simply thinking about it. Procrastination sets in, and work gets piled up. The concept of burnout being a self-made illusion in our head now becomes a reality. This is what I call a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Working from home over the past 3 months, I have been there, but snapped myself out of it, and created an action driven plan to get my butt moving.

It pays to be scrupulous in how you hold yourself accountable to this. I don't really have a note book, so the first step for me is to commit myself by blocking out time on my calendar. Whether I end up doing it or not, is besides the point. I make it a point to have a reason to have check and balance for myself.

The next step is for me to stop over thinking, and just get down to doing. The emotion may not be pleasant, but taking the mental concepts we discussed above into play, shutting out the noises helps. Then it's just down to doing it, or not. I don't attach emotion to it. It helps get things done. Very unbiased.

So, this Do and Forget concept has yielded great results for me. And when you do, remember putting in 200% attention to it during FLOW. When you put 200% attention to it during FLOW, what are the odds of it returning negative results? You guessed it, pretty low, unless you don't know what you are doing.

This is such an important concept to grasp here. Essentially, what you have now created is a positive feedback loop unknowingly. Positive begets positive. Will this have an effect on your mental well being? You bet!

The glue behind this feedback loop is CONGRUENCE. Your intent and action are in the right place, and that yields the right results.

So when I always say that things will take care of itself, I just do, this is what I meant.

Action 3: Exercise and eat well

This is ultra important. The endorphins released through exercising helps keep me sane. And the micronutrients my body receives when I eat well, creates yet another positive feedback loop within my system to help drive me towards productivity.

This pandemic is teaching us again, on how to focus on spending time with and have a relationship with ourselves. Whether you realized it or not, this gap over the last 3 months has given us the opportunity to grow. Growth comes with pain. Our body is such a complexed machine. It grows stronger with stress, and it recovers with quality fuel. Our mental rubber band stretches with tension as well, but it recovers from its ability to inquire and absorb knowledge, in short, learning.

Action 4: Don't beat yourself up too much

Surround yourself with good people who have the right intent and purpose. Be scrupulous in how you maintain your circle of friends. Cut out toxic people, friends and sometimes family. You have the moral responsibility to keep your mental health in check, and you have the same moral responsibility to conduct yourself properly amongst your loved ones.

I am a firm believer in this, although it may sound drastic. I am a strong believer in all things congruence, having the correct intent in all our dealings, and being brave enough to stand up for our beliefs. We all have that 1 choice we can make. And that is to walk away. Walking away don't necessarily mean literally walking away, and cutting ties. Me not investing in a heated debate or an argument is a form of mentally walking away. At certain point in life, you will realize a disconnect somewhere. And you have the choice to be the wiser person, to accept, hold space and move on.

Mental health is real. And it starts with you taking good care of yourself, and planning your time well so you drive the kind of results you want.

Putting everything into perspective

1. Make good with acknowledging the problem, and acceptance of a new normal.
2. Build a plan around "delivery" and "results" on your work. It's not how much time you spend on it, but how much you accomplish.
3. Find your own productive rhythm and make the most out of it.
4. Do and Forget.
5. Take time to rest and recuperate.
6. Don't have any more expectations than what is sufficiently needed.
7. Your judgement of yourself is your weakest link. Have no judgement. When you fail, you fail. You either fail or you succeed. The equation is binary. So stop over complicating things.
8. Practice, rinse, and repeat.

It is ok to feel "anything". Because that's what is real, now. Nobody should have the right to tell you that it isn't ok to feel pain, or sad. Your ability to shut this noise will determine how far you can go.

The future is the world of Mindset.

Signing off,

Alvin

"change is the only constant"

Alvin is a Talent Advisor in Singapore working in the world of Technology and so happens to like talking to himself.

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