Week 2
Editor’s note: In week 45 of the pandemic, I decided to put the weekly emails I had been writing onto this website. This is an edited version of the first one I sent, in the second week of the California shelter-in-place.
These are strange times - the world turned upside down (I hope you have Hamilton in your head now). Communication is reassuring to me, and I appreciate that UCSF has been setting a great example being transparent and sharing good evidence. I have some wonderful friends who have been amazing sources of mutual support (via texting, whatsapp, & facetime). I hope you have similar people in your life - if not, I'm here for you. I'll be sharing some aspects of my life in efforts to "normalize" this completely abnormal season of life
To paint a picture of how my life has changed, I've started writing this in my new "office" - a square yard of space between my bed and the wall in our loft in our small houseboat that I have to set up and put away at the bookends of each work session - while Theo (~3.5 yo now) naps downstairs. For the last 2 weeks I've only left the house to exercise or entertain Theo. My spouse is slowly adjusting to Theo and I invading his home office (aka the living room) where he's been working for the last nearly 5 years. Last week we were all full of emotions and trying to figure out how on earth to function in this new situation. This week has gotten a little easier and it feels like we're settling into a rhythm. This may or may not bear any resemblance to the changes happening in your life. I've found comfort in people sharing all the changes they themselves are experiencing, which is why I'm sharing these personal details.
As some of you know, I've had a lot of personal tragedy in the last 1.5 years (as of today, 5 people close to me have died), and I'm realizing I've learned a lot about how I can continue to function through dramatic change and big emotions. I wanted to share some of the lessons in case they are helpful to you:
Nothing is more important than staying healthy right now. Sleep, exercise, hydrating, eating well (ok, there's a lot of bread happening "in support of the local bakery" that opened a popup shop down the street, but it's really good bread) are all crucial for the whole family. Yep, exercise eats into "work time" - that doesn't matter right now. These are the building blocks of resilience. I (try to) track activities that support resilience in a daily calendar (i.e. exercise, meditate, journal, cry, talk to friends, etc) but I'm only managing to journal and thus track those things roughly once a week right now.
Dramatically lowering expectations. Life should not continue on as normal - there are lots of changes ahead. In fact, sometimes trying to do "normal things" can feel too hard - I just heard Theo (who is awake now) say he didn't want to join the live instagram music class of his teacher because it made him sad about not being in school. I'm renegotiating work deadlines (e.g. I told a senior author I'm postponing analysis on a project to July at the soonest). I'm expecting to be unproductive and inefficient when I can work. I'm not trying to "keep up" with whatever people around me might seem like they're doing (like pivot research to be relevant to covid before I have a good idea or bandwidth/time). I'm trying to be transparent about what I can't do rather than sacrifice to "make things work". I'm trying to I'm appreciating what I did do (I commented on one paper I'm senior authoring this week, reviewed a paper for a journal, and joined 1000 zoom meetings, sometimes with Theo).
Treating every day as an experiment to figure out a routine/schedule and what is/isn't working. At the end of this week it seems like we've hit a a good stride in our household. I have an hourly schedule for the week - the plan is the same every day (with deviations on who is working when based on previously scheduled meetings) but then I document what actually happened. I try not to dwell on "supposed tos" (or epic tantrums) and instead focus on things that are actually leading to good outcomes right now. I've discovered that everyone in the house needs to exercise daily (Theo twice daily) even if this means doing SuperMan HIIT together; that playing calming music throughout lunch and dinner promotes Theo sleeping; that my spouse and I need big shifts for work time - he works 9-3 (with breaks for family lunch), I work 1-6. Note that this isn't an 8 hour work day. I thought I was going to work evenings or a 6-day work week to compensate, but thus far that leads to insufficient sleep and insufficient down time.
I'm trying to make time to feel feelings. It's hard with a kid at home all the time, but I saw a great reminder on twitter/instagram about allowing yourself to grieve the loss of normalcy, of all the plans you had that are now derailed (and of course, worry or anticipatory grief from anyone in your life who is sick or endangered). When in the acute phase of grieving my dad, I think that I thought that if I let myself feel the feelings I would never STOP feeling them. In fact, giving myself time and space to let the feelings bubble to the surface (for me, this takes a long solo hike not listening to podcasts, a current luxury) and then to feel them as hard as I can in that moment actually seems to make them pass through faster. I feel more balanced on the other side. To be honest, I have not really been able to do this the last two weeks. Maybe this weekend or next week. I'll know the feelings are piling up when I feel more tired/need lots more sleep than usual.
I've reorganized my to-do list by cognitive load: On the left, things that take small amount of bandwidth/brainpower, and broken down into small amounts of time (for example, read a paper I need to give edits on); on the right, things that take more time and brainpower (actually EDIT said paper). It might be that I only get 1 or 2 things done per-work shift if I can prevent myself from multi-tasking or reading the news. Writing this email might be the only thing I get done this shift. I'm also trying to be honest about what I can and can't do and recruiting colleagues to help with things I can't do. I also choose the things that feel important to me, personally, in that moment, not just what I'm "supposed" to do.
When I have time/energy/bandwidth, I try to appreciate beauty, be in the moment, recognize privilege. I use instagram as a way to document and share beauty (feel free to follow me: @krista.harrison - it's a private account and I will approve you). Theo's been fascinated watching two neighbors work on converting a bicycle trailer for carrying kids into a platform to carry lots of food. Though challenging to keep Theo 6 feet away, it's been fun to chat more with my neighbors as we all teach Theo about power tools and safety and construction (FYI: I love building things and power tools). We feel pretty fortunate to still have our jobs, so I've been trying to make purchases to support small woman-owned businesses or our neighborhood restaurants or our neighbor's new company that delivers dinners to homebound or immunocompromised older adults 3 days a weeks.
I'm practicing grace, forgiveness, and understanding. Three year-olds are exasperating. When raised voices inevitably occur, we try to give lots of hugs and say "I apologize. Let me try that again. I have big feelings. I would like to communicate them more clearly." Everyone is dealing with a ton of change, mostly in ways we aren't aware of, and perhaps not doing what we think they should (the clinician-researchers I know are trying to cram in all the research they can in preparation for being commandeered for COVID clinical service). The world is changing daily, and we are all scrambling to keep up within our own circumstances.
Back to item #5: One of the ways to make progress on work/academic things is to make small (or very small) goals each week. So my invitation to you is to set small goals on one project (e.g. especially if there is something we are collaborating on together) every Monday, and then report in on how it went - and how you're feeling - every Friday in an email to me. I'll try to send these out every week, late in the week, as a potential prompt/reminder. Here are some examples of potential weekly goals:
Read 1 interview summary or transcript
Read coauthor comments on a paper
Think about how an issue that we're planning to write about is playing out in your clinical care - write down 1-3 sentences of reflection somewhere you can find it later
Spend 30 minutes reading and coding/sorting data
Outline the methods section of a paper
Download and skim abstracts of 3 new articles relevant to a paper or clinical care
Send coauthors an email with an update
Examples of responses on Fridays could be:
Lots of emotions but hanging in. Did not meet my goal of X. Going to try again next week.
Hurting. Please call me now/when you can talk/before 5pm
Hit a groove and surpassed my goal: I wrote methods, discussion, and intro of [paper that has nothing to do with our collaboration].
Thinking of you and hoping you and your loved ones stay healthy and safe.
-Krista