A couple of years ago, I wrote about the helpful and unhelpful head noise that goes on around my work in coaching teams, leaders of teams and individuals in career transition (take a read here). For the past two weeks, I have been noting down some of the head noise that’s going on right now, in this time of Covid-19.
In the same spirit of that first time, this is to share, see what resonates with others and discover if any sense or insight emerges as a result. Don’t expect structure, analysis or evaluation. It’s just a snippet of what I’ve noticed for myself and thought, in the moment: “that seems interesting.”
- Zoom Fatigue – flitting between no focus (especially early morning/late afternoon) and what someone described to me as “hyper focus” or “cognitive overload” – sometimes losing attention more often and at other times paying extra attention
- Being an introvert and always feeling on show
- Zoom Grooming – more conscious of how I dress, shave, or what’s in the background in the room
- What Martin Saville described in a brilliant LinkedIn post as “melancholia” – including thoughts about ”is this now how it will in some way continue to be”?
- Lots of doing, snatches of being
- The feeling of needing to use time wisely
- Finding myself in meetings or calls and being not sure of why I am there and how I am able to contribute
- Finding myself in some meetings or calls which feel less task-oriented than usual and really collaborative and productive
- Losing track of dates, appointments, days of the week
- An anxiety about what I should be doing, sometimes with accelerated heart rate
- Changes in routines – less scheduled and structured, different sleep and dreaming patterns, a shift in cadence of how often/how long things happen, more awareness that caffeine, diet, alcohol, antihistamines all kick in on these things
- A shift from teaching and acting the expert to learning and contributing through facilitation
- More attention to relationships including family, neighbours, friends and working relationships – noticing that some of these have become unexpectedly important and that is a welcome surprise
- A different quality of time to prepare and follow up sessions with clients, and that feeling beneficial to me and hearing that it’s beneficial to them – not doing some of this on the go, on the train
- Finding some activities are more compressed, with fewer gaps, and looking for ways to decompress in a different way.
Finding that in a quiet time, the working day can be surprisingly long and there’s always something left to do that I would have liked to have found time to do that day (but noticing that it’s easier to leave many of these for another day and to feel not such a problem – less things are urgent)
I’m sure there are many other head noises that we are all experiencing, feel free to share yours too.
Patrick