Lockdown lethargy: takeaways to boost your energy
Sheesh. The news is DARK.
Biggest Ever Recession.
No holidays.
More Brexit negotiations.
Chaos about if and when schools will reopen… The letter our school sent yesterday offering two hours per day for two-thirds of my kids…
Got to be honest, there have been a few dark nights of the soul around here, despite the sunbeams.
But then I saw something that made me think I should get a grip. As we went into lockdown, writing agency Quietroom wrote a short manifesto for how they would handle it. Co-founder Mark talks about how it’s inspired them to use boundaries to improve their creativity. For example, turning a simple workshop into a week-long virtual festival. (Before he heads off to their ‘Teams’ Pilates lesson)
It made me wonder what we have all learnt from these times and what we will take into life after lockdown. Because although it has been a strange and stressful and demanding experience in so many ways, it has also given people time to think. Dr. Laura Haigh, Clinical Psychologist, CBT Therapist & EMDR Therapist, puts it like this:
“In addition to the obvious stressors for many—including difficult domestic or financial situations, decreased or drastically increased workloads, and needing to tolerate the daily uncertainty and catastrophic news—the lockdown has pushed many of us into a re-evaluation of previous working patterns and our pace of life.
But what has fallen by the wayside during our long working weeks? The need to carve out a bit more time to enjoy life.
As the Cognitive Behavioural model (CBT) emphasises, keeping a realistic schedule with enough activity to give us a sense of pleasure and achievement is key to a balanced mood and productivity. Something easily forgotten when we work long hours and juggle our many daily commitments, often relegating intangible personal needs like enjoyment to the bottom of the pile.”
David Willians, who runs BeingDads.com, also thinks this a great moment for both parents to think about what they want from their lives and to reflect on what wasn’t working before. He points out that dads often feel such pressure to be breadwinners that they then feel guilty for not doing more at home.
This falls in line with the survey of working parents from a few weeks ago. My favourites range from ‘not shopping for twaddle’ to ‘listening to rampant birdsong’. But the big themes were around food (preparing and eating it together), more fluidity around time, and lowering expectations.
Two thoughts energise me amidst the bad news:
[1]
The opportunity to write our own manifestos for Life after Lockdown.
In this house, we have discovered how much our children get from free play when abandoned, as our lounge has become an impenetrable warren of cardboard dolls houses where Miss Penelope and Paris France live socially complex lives. Similarly, we realise how much of the world around us we miss.
Just yesterday school was foregone in favour of watching and protecting fledgling blue tits in our garden until they eventually fluttered just high enough to dodge the twitching cats. Today the family is circling the garden, chirping delightedly.
[2]
Our organisational equivalents.
It’s too easy to get subsumed in the logistics of social distancing, handwashing and Perspex when the real questions are about what we want the future to look like.
To take just one example, years of talking work/life balance *yawn* typically results in disappointing attempts to offer flexible work, with it frequently being seen as the ‘B-list’ option in terms of career progression. Now though, everyone is rethinking office space, team structures, and work patterns.
If we really thought big about the future, what could we design?
Wishing you a beautiful weekend of big thoughts and little birds.
- Christine x
