This week has mainly been working and starting NaNoWriMo. I saw some beautiful moon views and sunrises on my morning walks.
We only had one group of trick or treaters for Halloween, not surprising as there aren’t many houses on the block and two streets over is a much denser, easier to walk neighborhood where everyone goes. I did get a couple Halloween pics from my kids though. Kieran and Kourtney had fun carving pumpkins, and Emmy’s floor at the hospital was decorated with a Barbie theme.
On Thursday after work I drove to Kieran’s as I’m spending a few days looking after the animals while he and Kourtney go camping up the coast. It was nice to work remotely on Friday with Bentley and the kitties for company, though I never saw Fireball the kitten. She is a literal fraidy cat and hid out in the bed all day.
I’ve decided to do NaNoWriMo even though I’m not technically working on a novel, I am writing a nonfiction book. For those who don’t know NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, which is in November. The goal is to write 50,000 words by the end of the month, that works out to just over 1,666 words a day. It is not meant to be any kind of polished product at all, just working to consistently get words down on paper. It will be interesting to see if being back at full-time work now is going to make it easier or harder to do this writing. My first thought is that it’s going to be harder because I’ll have less hours of the day available, but I’m finding that when I have completely unstructured time I don’t get as much done. But I think that’s a good thing! I have always been such an efficiency expert and lived by my to-do lists. It’s been really good for me to live a different kind of life where I’m not constantly trying to complete tasks and derive my sense of worth from that. It’s something I’m always working on, I have no illusions that I’m going to become a totally different kind of person. I realize that participating in NaNoWriMo means I will be adding more doing into my life, but it feels like the right kind of pursuit for me at this point in my life and I think it will help me pay attention to the thoughts and feelings that are coming up during this experiment of going back to full time work (at least temporarily).
What have I been experiencing this first full week back at full-time work (warning there is repetition and random angst!):
I do like knowing I don’t have ultimate long-term responsibility. That I am coming in as an expert and being able to use the skills and experience I have to help. Not that I have all the answers but I I feel like ‘Wow, I really do have a way to contribute and make things better and I am deciding how much time I am going to spend on things.’ I think getting paid for the work that I’m doing per hour is really good. It makes me cognizant of the how I’m spending my time and I’m less likely to overwork.
I can feel the impact on my body of sitting so much at a desk and being inside all day. The stress of taking on something new and feeling overwhelmed by everything I have to learn, and being worried I’m going to forget things or do them incorrectly
I do feel an occasional ‘Oh gosh, what’s all the stuff I don’t know and I don’t know what’s going to happen next.’ I think it’s easier as there’s no expectation that I know all the players or the history, and I don’t have any preconceived notions of how things are done here. I have my own experience of what has worked or what I’ve done in the past and that gives me flexibility and openness to new ways of doing things.
One night I woke up in the middle of the night feeling stressed. I haven’t had this for quite a while. I feel like I am already behind at work and I’ve got to get things figured out for some pretty important stuff when I don’t have a lot of information about it and I haven’t had time to get to know things well enough yet. Some of these issues are ones where I feel like I should be the one to figure them out. I hate this feeling of feeling stressed and not being able to sleep, have my heart racing, tension in my body and not being able to easily let it go.
I am hoping I’ll be able to let go of work when I am outside of the office.
My work life has always been so logical and linear, and that’s not what I want to keep doing. I want to be more whimsical and wild and adventurous and open instead of lockstep getting work done, achievement orientation. I want to be focused first on the the higher level of the work ‘Where are we going?’ to keep the vision in focus before getting down to all the nitty-gritty details as well as trusting more that those details will fall into place instead of spending so much time worrying about what if’s. More dreaming, learning and creating excitement to generate energy that will propel me and others forward instead of getting bogged down by the day-to-day details.
Working in a different environment with new people has given me a better view on the way that I automatically respond to things.
If I don’t let myself get lost in the details and things that I have to do that are further off, I am less stressed and more confident in my ability to get the job done. When I start thinking of all the different things that need to be done for individual events or the organization in general I get overwhelmed, because I don’t know enough yet about routines and expectations here. But just taking it a day at a time, learning the next thing and practicing it and then moving onto the next helps me gain confidence.
I am learning to use new programs that I haven’t before, and seeing shortcuts I hadn’t realized were possible. Makes me think that it would be really helpful for people who run small organizations to spend a week with a colleague, seeing the sort of things that they do and what they could bring back to their own organization.