Compartmentalization and Routine

As most of us have changed our work habits, we are struggling again to re-find the work/life balance that we had.  At first blush, working from home – as many are now – seems like a great way to improve work/life boundaries.  Many people have found that it has had exactly the opposite effect.  You are now living in your place of employment, and may be sharing that place of employment with the rest of your family.  What we have seen over these past several weeks is that people who typically work fifty to sixty hours a week are actually working more, not just to respond to the crisis but, rather, spreading the work throughout the day and throughout the week.  Many executives are reporting working over the weekend, even after the crisis of moving their businesses to more remote operations and the filing of bank paperwork.

“Recreate old routines, and find new habits.”

The brain loves patterns, habits, routines, and rituals.  The changes we have experienced over the past few weeks have disrupted all of these.  For maximizing effectiveness as a leader, we encourage you to re-find the ones that you can, and create new ones as needed.  For example, if you typically kiss your spouse in the morning on your way to work, find a way to make this a part of your morning.  If 10:30 a.m. was your traditional coffee break, find a way to do this.  If at 2:00 each afternoon you went down the hall to fill up your water bottle, find a way to recreate this and call the people that you might have talked to on the way down there.  This disruption of routine has changed how we are all working, how we are all eating, and how we are all sleeping.  In fact, while it may be an option for some to sleep the extra half hour they typically commuted, it appears that this is causing people to stay up later, not be as well rested, and not be the effective leader they need to be the next morning.  To the extent you can, recreate the old routines you had, and find new ones that you can use for these next weeks in order to give your brain the satisfaction it wants around rituals, routines, and patterns.  A few links below offer more ideas.

CMA continues to wish everyone happiness and safety during this difficult time.