Mental health conditions are complicated things. They are intensely personal and I’ve found it nearly impossible to discuss with someone from either side of the table without projecting my own opinions or experiences onto the other person, or having them do the same to me – with each having lived different existences, this cannot represent the true experience.
Recently I find myself considering the mental aspects of health as I am in the process of returning to work after five weeks off for stress. It took two weeks of walking to shut my brain down at least some of the time, another two weeks of rest to recover physically enough to consider returning to the factory and a fifth week to be able to constructively consider what going back means and how I can change things to take care of myself while still getting the job done.
I’ve learned some things through the act of taking myself away from the workplace:
- I work with some absolutely lovely people who’ve regularly checked in with me in a supportive and unpressurising way
- Care from a professional business perspective is rarely personal – at the end of the day, I am responsible for how I feel at work
- There is no ‘right’ amount of time for recovery – no matter what my preconceived time is, it takes as long as it takes
I’ve highlighted stress at work previously relating to my workload with my current and previous managers, but it’s nearly impossible to have someone help with prioritising when I have no idea what’s on the list to start with because I’m too busy to sit down and make the list because there’s too much on the list so I’ve no time to sit and generate the list so…you get the picture.
I wanted to be able to return to work, whenever that was, able to have a constructive conversation with my manager about steps we could take so I didn’t feel like this again. In my first week off I spent some time going through my calendar for the previous month listing all the meetings I had and whether my attendance was mandatory, including meeting length and prep time. If I worked only my standard working hours (which I think is the preferred for everyone, especially when you’re not paid overtime!) these meetings and prepping for them took up 54% of my working time. The content of these meetings probably isn’t more than 30% of my job. Doing this exercise I was able to easily see which could be cut, redelegated to someone else, reduced in frequency and have a proposal which reduces my meeting associated time to 32% of my working month.
As well as giving me a framework for discussions, this exercise made me feel justified in feeling as overwhelmed and tired as I have been: this was not a sustainable situation without working several hours of overtime sometimes daily for the rest of my working life if nothing changed, and I’m not willing to do that (judge me as you will for that!). This helped me feel more accepting of being off work: space in my head to take the time I needed without judging myself for doing so and writing myself off as weak or incompetent.
I went through the full project list for the process team – myself, our new engineer and our graduate. I have reducing involvement in their work too as they become more experienced but it still requires some of my time. Going through the whole list including my degree of involvement (owner or mentor), and a column for scorecard critera for taking on the work (safety/quality/cost/delivery objectives) should help my new boss understand enough to be able to help me effectively with prioritising. Some will need to be pushed back to next year, and others need to be delegated to other areas of our department. My absence has also fast-forwarded some of the delegation onto other members of the process team: their growth will be greatly accelerated by my not being there as a safety net for them and I intend to leave them with some of the jobs they’ve picked up which I would normally do.
Many of my concerns about feeling rested enough to go back to work were based around realising at the end of the day the one responsible for my well-being at work is me. My manager is responsible for making sure the team achieves their business objectives, preferably without killing each other in front of the coffee machine. HR are responsible for making sure the company is compliant with employment law and employees are compliant with their contracts; neither are responsible for me being ‘happy’ at work. If I’m lucky, I’ll be part of a supportive team with a manager who’s realistic and capable of shielding their employees from the inevitable storms from higher up the business allowing their team members to do their jobs, and working with other departments in the company who are realistic in their demands and timeframes understanding what I do for them is probably a support element of my role rather than the most important thing on my plate right now.
Realistically, I count myself lucky to have some of these elements – if I get a day where all come together I’ll do a dance, and if I get a week I’ll buy a lottery ticket! At this juncture however the important thing is I need the energy and mental fortitude to be able to cover any lacks from my own reserves. To say no, to build walls to keep disruptive elements at a distance, to be able to maintain my own working standards with peace instead of anxiety and a head aching with missed benchmarks.
By the end of my fourth week off work I felt I had that energy. I wasn’t full of beans, but I had enough to get by and hopefully the rest would come over time as I got the ball rolling again. The fifth week gave me time to understand why I felt the way I did, and to come up with some strategies to give myself the best chance when I went back.
I have a strongly ‘right’ aligned moral compass regarding myself and my own behaviour. It’s just the way I’m wired. If it’s the ‘right’ thing to do and noone else is going to do it, I’ll try and get it done one way or another. This is a major contributor to the length of my work list: I need to learn to raise issues, particularly outside my scope of work, to the relevant people and then leave it up to them to do it as time/resource/budget allow. This has worked on me almost in reverse too: jobs which are vaguely related to my responsibilities which others do not want to do because they’re complicated for example, will end up pushed towards me because I’ll get them done somehow.
I need to bring this aspect of my character up with my manager to make him aware of it, along with the list of work which I believe should not be sitting with me – either because it has been incorrectly delegated to me in the first place, or I’ve taken it as far as I can from my side and now need to hand it over to the technical side. I need to learn to abandon (not delegate) responsibility for its completion to the new relevant people. Currently, I will push it across but keep an eye on it – taking responsibility for the work getting done even though I am no longer the one carrying it out. I want to use this opportunity to ask my manager to help develop a structure within the department for sharing and accounting for these projects so they’re not lost with one person, but I also need to leave responsibility for generating this framework with him if he chooses to do so. If he does not, I need to put my contribution across and walk away from that particular aspect regardless of whether or not doing the job is right.
When I first went off on the sick our new HR manager asked me if I liked my job. It didn’t sound like it at the time to her, but in all honesty I do like many aspects of my job, and I can see myself enjoying it for years to come – if there is less of it. This is another aspect I need to watch when determining priorities for myself or with someone else: I already have a certain amount of the resource that is me tied up with the things I must do – I need to take on less of the things I want to do, even if they’re the things that make me tick and I get satisfaction out of progressing, until I have the capacity to do so. Keeping my workload at a manageable level – whatever that scope looks like at a given time as I fully expect it to continue to grow – will also mean I get more satisfaction or at least less headaches from the musts and will make me more efficient at them too, so eventually I’ll have more time for the wants too.
Talking is all very well, but what am I actually going to put into practice to help myself get off to the best start on my return to work?
- Use my absence to keep stuff off my list: having been away almost six weeks there will be some jobs which do not need picking up again and others which will have been picked up by other members of the team which may be able to stay with them
- Actively reduce my meeting calendar: weekly 1-2-1’s to mentor the two other members of my team will go to fortnightly, freeing up four hours a month for example
- Make better use of my manager: particularly for turning down or postponing work and meetings
- Leave Outlook and Teams closed outside of pre-determined timeslots: I will only check them between 11am and 12pm, and in the half-hour before I go home (e.g. to check for meetings or emails which may need addressing the following morning). I will have more focus time without distractions and new jobs popping up while I’m working – anyone needs me urgently, they can call me!
- Review the above monthly for 3 months, and then quarterly to check in with myself and determine what tweaks may be needed
What am I going to try to build into my routine to help me reduce the impact of work outside of working hours?
- Own my mornings: No computers until actively determined times in the evening. Make time for exercise (Pilates/kettlebells) to start the day positively. Meditate for 10 minutes
- Be in bed by 21:00 and ready for sleep by 21:30 – Can’t own the morning on no sleep! I am normally up between 5am and 6am so an early bed is a must
- Make healthier food choices – less sweets!
- Drink at least 2 litres of water a day
- Go for a walk at least 4 evenings/weekend days a week – build up to starting running again
- Ditch the technology: leave the GPS watch behind, don’t carry the phone everywhere, don’t mindlessly browse, sit and watch the birds on the feeders (we don’t get much exciting in the back garden, but I enjoy this anyway!)
- Write: allocate time at least 3x a week for 1hr
Nothing world-shattering there, and I’ve had elements of all of the above built into my days before and put them aside for work – which has always felt like the ‘non-negotiable’ element. The difference needs to be I need to give work a shove to ensure there is always a place for Healthy Me at the top of the list. Doing so will even make me more effective at work than when I’m doing nothing else!
I can only do what I can do in the time I have. If I can learn to be realistic with myself and open with my colleagues about this, my personal battery will not be draining more in the week than it can recharge at the weekends and my work will sit in balance with other aspects of my life rather than swamping them to the point it feels like all I do is
Work (badly) – Eat (badly!) – Sleep (badly) – Repeat (badly)
A Life of Well 