My Rest Up week learnings

This week, all employees at LinkedIn are coming off of a week of complete rest - a move that makes me love being part of this company even more. On day one it dawned on me how badly I needed the break. Since a year, work and life (or the lack of it) have felt very concentrated, intense, and forever urgent. With that kind of adrenaline pumping through us so often, we were bound to crash. As part of the Comms team, we have had a truckload of new learnings, pivoted strategies, and found creative ways to induce freshness in our work. And through all this, team work, great colleagues, and supportive managers have been the saviour in this very daunting period in our work lives.?

Last week as I spent some quiet, alone time in a small Himalayan village, I reflected a lot on my way of working and living my everyday life. For example, my trillion Post-Its have been a running joke in the Mumbai office since I started working at LinkedIn - small tasks and big tasks and many tasks all written on these little notes (right down to giving a Kudos to someone), striked off patiently over time and leaving behind a feeling of silly satisfaction. Until one day, I couldn’t keep up with my own lists. One time, Ruchee Anand came by to my desk and saw a post-it for an internal program I had to sign up for - she said, my dear, this deadline is over. Another time, as I was walking to the elevator with my notebook full of sticky notes, the book fell and I saw my post-its fly off... my then manager, Deepa Sapatnekar, looked at me in shock and horror because she knew how much I depended on these little notes!?

Since then, I am being more realistic about how finite my time and energy are, and here are some of reflections and learnings from this week:??

1. If my routine doesn’t allow for change, then it isn’t working: This is the cardinal rule in Comms; there will be crisis, issues, asks that you did not plan for that need your urgent attention and you have to give it. You need to drop everything and get on it. There are also days when you don’t feel your 100%, and you cannot produce the same level of productivity every day. I rarely allow myself such days, and that constant pushing, takes a toll over time. So leaving a small window open, planning a 6 hour day Vs a packed 8 hour day is a good idea.?
2. Perfectionism will surely kill me: This is a real problem. I have been told I need to let things go at 80%, 70%. But when commas, em dashes, wrong verb usage, style guides… in short every little detail bothers you, it’s really hard to tear away from it. But I am trying harder every day.?
3. Don’t sweat the small stuff: In Comms, there are a range of tasks you work on - coverage recaps, crisis management, quarterly planning, reflecting on the quarter gone by… but understanding what needs to be over-indexed Vs what tasks can be skipped entirely is a steep learning curve. Exerting the same amount of energy for all tasks equally will not help you or your team - and it’s time to stop!?
4. Doing the same job, but with more patience: When all the above 3 points are not activated, you are down to a version of yourself that isn’t the best support for your team/s. And it often bothers just you, because you are getting worked up. I am guilty of being short with my agency partners, or my subordinates when things get too intense (even if I don’t express it full throttle), and it’s really learning to reign it in.
5. Having enough time to read: At the start of 2021, my manager Linda asked me what I wanted to change, add, or plan for this quarter. And I told her, I want to make time to read - that’s my litmus test of how well I have spent my day. This means reading more of the information on the company, and the work of our colleagues from around the world, to non-LinkedIn news around the tech industry, to my night-time reading (books that I like). As life gets busier, we de-prioritise some of the most important parts of our jobs, flag them, save them to be read later, and you never really get around to it.?

How do you manage your day? What are your productivity hacks??