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Date: 4/15/2020
In late 2017, G. Michael Dobbs and I hired Jordan Houston as an assistant editor and reporter. She worked for us up until February 2019 – she was a fantastic writer and friend, however her fiance got a job out of state, so the two moved across the country.
When Jordan worked for us, we would go on a near daily coffee run. An expensive habit – but it quickly became necessary.
We called our coffee run our “vacation.”
At the time, Jordan had read an article that explained that every day, you should find something that feels like a vacation from the ordinary. A small break from your day that felt like a vacation from whatever was happening in your world.
These coffee runs only lasted about 15 to 20 minutes – but it was a small “vacation” from the toils of layout, a frustrating interview, writing an article that never seemed to end, or watching a painfully long town meeting.
With everything going on in our world right now, I’ve found finding my vacation a bit more difficult. We’re rounding out week four of working from home over at Reminder Publishing, and while I enjoy wearing loungewear every day and not having to do my hair and makeup every morning, I do find that it’s much easier to get burnt out when you’re working from home.
As I’m sure many of you who work from home know, when you work from home, you feel as though you always have to be “on,” perhaps for the off–chance that your boss sends you an 8 p.m. email, or if someone reaches out in the early hours of the morning. You want to show that despite the circumstances, you’re making an effort to be as available as possible.
This is noble, and to an extent necessary, but it’s hard to not let your job overtake your life when you’re working all hours of the day.
Last week was a doozy for me personally – my work week began on Monday at 7 a.m., and by Wednesday mid-day I had already worked 31 hours. By the end of the day I was at 40. I was working from early in the morning until late at night – not because I was trying to be a dedicated employee – but because with the way the work week is structured and changed due to our work-from-home lives, I didn’t have much of a choice but to get the job done.
Bear with me here – I’m not complaining – I love my job. It was simply a tough few days.
Last week, I found it incredibly hard to find my vacation. My 15 to 20 minutes of the day where I take a step back, relax and let my eyes refocus to something other than my computer screen.
I’m guessing a lot of our readers who are also adjusting to working from home are having a hard time finding their vacations as well. I’m sure some are struggling to juggle work life and the responsibilities of home life, especially for readers who have children.
I can’t justify going on my traditional coffee shop vacation right now – for one, because that would be a completely frivolous and non-essential purchase in a time where we need to stay home as much as possible, and two, because I’m at home and I don’t have a coffee shop right down the street as we do at the office.
I forced myself to find a new vacation. A vacation that I can have at home that gives me a small break during the day when I find myself becoming overwhelmed.
If I only have a short window between writing and layout, or writing and a meeting, I’ll travel away from my desk for 15 minutes to my home’s coffee shop (aka our Keurig) and brew myself a fresh coffee.
Side note – I offer you a silly pro tip: even though you’re working from home and could use a regular coffee cup, if you’re like me, you get distracted and busy and all of a sudden it’s been a half hour since you brewed your coffee and now it’s cold. Brew your coffee in a to-go mug, lid included. Even though you aren’t going anywhere, your coffee will stay warm for double, dare I say triple the time, and you’ll spend much less time reheating your brew.
If I have a longer window of time, perhaps an hour that I feel I can break and relax before moving on to the next task, I’ll exercise.
Coming from someone who absolutely hated physical activity up until about two years ago, I still laugh at myself when I talk about working out. The key for me with exercise is, I found what works for me.
I wanted to get into doing a bit of cardio, so I started the couch to 5K app. This app is amazing for beginners who don’t have any sort of cardio interests or ability to run. The app begins with a 5 minute warm up, which is walking at your own pace. Then, it will go back and forth between running and walking intervals for about 20 minutes until the ending five minute cool down walk. The running pace is your own pace – whatever you’re comfortable with – and there’s no shame in moving to a speed walking pace during that one minute running interval if you need to. Each week the runner is supposed to use the app only three days (I usually run on alternating days) and as the runner progresses from week to week the app increases in difficulty – shorter walking intervals, longer running intervals, until you’re running a full 5K.
Another exercise app that I enjoy is called Tone It Up. The app is run by its two founders, Karena Dawn and Katrina Scott. The women both transformed their interests in exercise into their own fitness empire, full with other female coaches who have joined their team. The app features hundreds of different types of workouts, and the workouts are for all experience levels.
Anyway – working out has become an essential activity for mental clarity for me. It’s a longer vacation than grabbing a quick coffee away from my desk, but it’s worth it.
Perhaps your vacation looks like taking a 20 minute break to read a book. Maybe you enjoy cooking, so you prefer to take a slightly longer vacation during your work day to bake a batch of goodies. Or maybe you just spend your “vacation time” taking a nap. Anything that you can do to stop for a moment and re-center is necessary during a time like this.
You’re not an efficient employee, parent, friend, coworker when you’re burnt out. You can’t give yourself to others when you’re running on empty.
I encourage all of our readers to work on finding their vacations.