Weeknotes S1 Ep… oh who the hell knows anymore!

Lockdown lows (and a few highs) and what I’m trying to be thankful for.

I have no clue what day it is let alone what week it is so strictly not an episode! I just know that it’s been a while since I checked in with any #weeknotes. I don’t feel like my usual format will work at the moment so instead I thought I would gather together some thoughts that have crossed my mind in the past 6 weeks WFH so I have some sort of “record” of the experience…. good and bad!

The daily “juggle”

I say juggle, it feels much more like plate spinning. “Juggle” implies a level of control, and that is far from reality. Instead, I feel like I’m spinning a series of plates, trying to keep as many of them spinning at once as possible. Jumping from the “work” plates to the “family” plates and back again. In a constant state of movement, trying to stop them from crashing to the floor and smashing.

Routine, Routine, REPEAT!

I’ve always known that WFH full time is not for me. Don’t get my wrong I start off with the BEST intentions. In week 1 I would get up and get dressed, performing all the usual “routine” I would normally throughout the day. But as time’s gone on, gradually standards have certainly slipped. I can now be found sitting around in Christmas PJs and a selection of snacks, now clean underwear, and brushing my teeth as the benchmark of the daily “morning” routine.

This certainly doesn’t help when trying to remember what day of the week it is. Instead, I’ve tried to include a “theme” for some of the days. Mainly so there is a bit of structure but also to cheer me up.

So far we have

“Treat Tuesday” — self-explanatory, lots of treats throughout the day…. usually chocolate. If I don’t roll out of lockdown looking like a whale it will be a miracle.

“Wellness Wednesday” — Essentially I spend lunch piling on a facemask, treatments and doing my nails. A pamper can perk me up like no other it seems.

“Frozen Friday” — No, not a day of ice cream and frozen margarita’s, although I wouldn’t say no. Instead, Friday’s are all about “Letting it go”, I know, the link is tenuous, but there isn’t a day beginning with “L” … although I could invent one and I doubt many would notice right now. ANYWAY as part of “letting it go” I try and consider each of the things that have caused me niggles throughout the week… and I let it go. I tell myself it’s not the end of the world if X and Y aren’t done, that’s true of LOTS of things at the moment. If my son has watched 2 whole series of Grace’s Amazing Machines so I could work this week his brain cells have not completely given up, hands-on parenting can resume shortly and he will be none the wiser. If all else fails I usually finish off with a lovely rendition of “Let It Go” in the kitchen while I consume a double G&T… sometimes you just have to right?!?

The pressure of “self-improvement”

Not a day goes by when I don’t receive an email/message or see a statement on social media about using this time for self-improvement. Am I learning a new language? learning a new skill perhaps?

ermm, no I’m not, I’m SURVIVING! I think my twitter post sums this up well

I like to think that if this lockdown had happened before I had my son I would be making the most of it and doing this “self-improvement” everyone is pushing for. In reality, I would probably still be sat in my Christmas PJs whilst doing it, but I would FEEL more productive and “improved”.

I have a MASSIVE list of online training I want to do and a reading list as long as my arm. I found the pressure incredibly stressful in the early days of lockdown. I was clearly supposed to be fluent in Italian when all this was over. But in reality, my working day now stretches from 8am-8pm with no downtime, unless you count the 10 minutes peace I get while my son watches Go Jetters. The point being, when 8pm rolls around I want my bed, not a lesson plan.

For me, and probably many others the whole discourse is very damaging, it’s not portrayed as a suggestion, it’s a must! A sort of, if you don’t “self improve” you’re going to come out of lockdown “less than”, and everyone else will have transformed, body and mind, into far superior (multilingual) beings. Ok, that’s pushing it I know, there are still PLENTY of people out there using lockdown to simply take it easy and binge watch Netflix (you know who you are!). But the point is, there’s an expectation, and I fell into the trap. I put that expectation on myself, and I was always going to fail. There’s a lot being said about being kind to others. But I think I needed to learn to be kinder to myself.

Mentoring

I started looking at this just before lockdown after reading Mikey’s “What to look for in a mentor” post. I’ve been speaking to Mikey since I first applied to work at DWP and he provides great support when I need assistance, advice… or a moan :P

Since then I’ve had some excellent chats in recent weeks about mentoring. It’s something that I want to do more research into certainly. DWP doesn’t have an “official” mentorship scheme so as a potential mentee I’m doing my own digging to really discover what I want from the experience whilst also trying to find out (through word of mouth mostly) potential individuals who might be willing to mentor me.

That’s pretty difficult when you can’t meet people face to face. One thing I have found is that the process is best described as a bit like speed dating, not in a romantic sense of course, but you have to “gel” with the other person and feel comfortable enough to have difficult and frank conversations with them.

This is probably something I need to pick up once lockdown is over, but for now, I’m concentrating on getting “myself” in order. I had a great chat a few weeks ago with another Delivery Manager, who has mentored for a while now. He suggested I put a product spin on things

“To put an agile spin on it: you’re the product and the product owner, you’re defining the next iteration of the product, creating the backlog, and then regularly refining/prioritising the backlog, doing the work and having regular retrospectives.”

Dave has also written a blog about his Mentoring experiences that is worth a read.

So that’s what I’ve been doing, I’ve started a Trello board on which I’ve added in what I see as my goals, some short term, others longer-term. I’ve also added in references to the success profiles of my job family so I can record examples over time and also a reading list and training list (you know, the one I said I can’t get to yet!). I then went through the backlog and chose 3 cards to start looking at in the next few weeks.

I can really recommend doing something similar, it’s helped me to look at the bigger picture and think about what I really want. Rather than becoming overwhelmed in all the stuff I want to tackle, it’s allowed me to focus on just a few things that will make a difference.

Doing my “bit” & community

So many people are doing so much, helping to process payments, improving systems to make things easier for claimants, lots of really great stuff, but I sometimes feel frustrated that I personally, can’t do more, do my “bit”, no matter how small. That’s definitely something that I’ve found frustrating in recent weeks, and I know I’m not alone in that, it’s difficult to feel part of something when WFH and having a community has been key for me still feeling invested.

Apart from discussion with colleagues and the wider TS and delivery teams I’ve also enjoyed my continued involvement in #govcampnorth We haven’t got any firm plans yet but everyone is so enthusiastic to make it happen so watch this space!

Things to be thankful for

Still having employment— ok so I’m only 2 months into my probation so I won’t count my chickens just yet, BUT I’m very thankful that I still have employment. So many of my friends in agencies and the private sector in general are facing very uncertain times so I’m thankful.

Time with my family — I’m thankful for the extra time I get to spend with my family. It might not be dedicated time but being able to grab those extra snippets of time with my son in particular, is a gift.

My Health — Thankfully for me and those that I love Covid-19 is still just a threat and not a reality. Yes, I might have the odd panic about it, usually while queuing to get into Tesco, but for now, we are safe and well.

And finally… Amazon’ s 90’s Dance station and My Spotify 90’s playlist both of which have kept me sane and formed my “lockdown playlist”. Along with songs from tumble tots of course! We have to shake our sillies out at least once a day!

Wellbeing

I’m not sure I can even give a score on this. I feel that on any one day I can go from a 3 to a 10 it’s that up and down right now. For now, I’m just trying to be kind to myself in any way I can.