Week 58
View from the houseboats
I am angry and I am tired. There was accountability and immediately another murder of a child.
I surpassed my bandwidth this week – too much energy output, not enough recovery time. I had 26 meetings last week, 20 this week, 30 scheduled for next week. Four to 5 meetings a day doesn’t feel unusual for me in the pandemic, at least since we got childcare, but there’s been more emotional heaviness and navigation in recent meetings.
When I get overwhelmed and angry, I get aggressive and impatient – all hard edges, no soft edges. I don’t want to be nice and supportive. I want to be pity and cutting and clear. I want people to do their jobs the way I would do their jobs. It takes a lot of extra effort to add any degree of softness back in.
I’m trying to help a team through a moment of urgency and prep for starting an intervention & evaluation in 2 weeks (and navigate many communication failures). Trying and failing to navigate technical problems that would enable to me to be more helpful to that team. Two journal reviews were due: I should have asked for extensions yet powered through because both are new journals to me. I prepped for a meeting next week and spent a lot of brainpower on framing and managing up. Revised 2 of 3 different first-authored papers in order to get them back to coauthors – hope to get to the third Friday.
All of this indicates I need more restoration time, fewer meetings, fewer deadlines. Why am I sharing this? Because I think a lot of writing about resilience, self-care, and productivity happens when people feel pretty good. Other people telling me about how their week is structured, or what they are doing to prioritize balance, helps me re-think my own. If I don’t keep pushing hard (which I can because I don’t a grant deadline) and back off, recovery should be quick.
I’ll end by quoting Vice President Kamala Harris, as shared by the Dean of my grad school: “America has a long history of systemic racism. Black Americans and Black men in particular have been treated throughout the course of our history as less than human. Black men are fathers and brothers and sons and uncles and grandfathers and friends and neighbors. Their lives must be valued in our education system, in our health care system, in our housing system, in our economic system, in our criminal justice system, in our nation. Full stop….Here’s the truth about racial injustice: It is not just a Black America problem or a people-of-color problem. It is a problem for every American. It is keeping us from fulfilling the promise of liberty and justice for all. And it is holding our nation back from realizing our full potential. We are all a part of George Floyd’s legacy. And our job now is to honor it and to honor him.”
Gratitude & appreciation
Sam again encouraged me to take time to not work during my scheduled exercise time, and to go outside where phones couldn’t distract me.
In a moment of overwhelm, I had presence of mind to acknowledge and apologize for not remaining calm.
We got a citronella spray bark collar for our (reactive, rescue) Australian shepherd, and it seems to actually be helping!
An unexpectedly amusing work conversation where we picked Roller Derby names (I’d like to be known as Lady MacDeath, please)
Theo’s gotten multiple chances to do some art with my mom this week
I got the prettiest heritage roses at TJs this week, and they smell like the ones my Grandmother grew outside her greenhouse
Things to read or watch
I haven’t read all these, many are my to-do list or tabs in my browser:
Related to anti-racism:
In the context of thinking about how to deal with microaggressions during research recruitment and data collection (and arguing to make this a standard part of training in data collection), someone sent me this helpful MedEd guide to identifying and addressing microaggressions on the spot. I’ve seen much of this before, but helpful to have the reminder. It seems more relevant to data collection than recruitment, but I’m still thinking about it.
Many people are talking about how great the UCSF series on Race and Racism is – I’m still working on making time to review. Similarly, for UCSF people, this conversation with Dr. Brandon Scott on policing, health, and the Black community was recommended.
An academic article on color-blind racism in pandemic times.
Related to mental health and wellbeing
My friends and I had a discussion about this NYT article about “languishing”, and about the simultaneous the need to recognize and continue to destigmatize mental health issues like depression. Getting help, using meds, is not weak!
I learned about another phenomena of postpartum life: weaning depression. Adding this to my list of things like pelvic floor rehabilitation that seems like things my OB/GYN should have discussed with me before/during/after giving birth. It feels like too much important information just gets passed down from person to person as it enters their sphere of experience.
Related to work and productivity
The importance of breaks between virtual meetings to reset, because otherwise your brain becomes unhappy. Looks like I should start using that 5-10 minute break to meditate instead of check email.
Dr. Kemi Doll’s new podcast “Your Unapologetic Career”. I started with episode 3, “The Foundations of Productivity”, in which she summarizes all the books/advice out there as saying: 1) Organize yourself, 2) Set aside time to do tasks, 3) Actually do the tasks in the allotted time.
Ezra Klein’s podcast with Cal Newport on the systems that contribute to multitasking and lack of productivity at work – like email, Slack, etc.
I hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy.
Krista