Rituals
our routines from commuting life are gone, let's make new ones
I’ve been thinking lately about rituals. Or, if you prefer a more secular term, routines. When we used to go to an office every day, we had a ritual, packing things up from home, getting dressed, a commute where you listened to the news or a podcast. Transitional time.
Now many of our commutes are from one room to another in our house. There’s no set of activities that preceded it, and no in-between time.
When I first started my business I found I need something to signal the start of my day. I’m not a morning person, and I needed a little pep. So I picked a song that was sort of my anthem, and would turn it on at the start of the workday. I would listen to it as I quickly scanned my inboxes. It’s words reminded me of what I needed to do. This helped me a lot! And it was such a small thing.
If you’re wondering what the song was, it was “Hammer and Nail” by the Indigo Girls. It includes the lines “Now I know a refuge never grows/ From a chin in a hand in a thoughtful pose/ Gotta tend the earth if you wanna rose.”
I don’t use that song any more but I do often use music to jumpstart my day. When I can, I work out first. This helps a lot in terms of regulating my energy and mood. I’ve also started to try to have about 15 minutes at the end of my day where I either go for a very short walk, listen to something, meditate, or just plain space out. I need a buffer between working and parenting.
I’m trying to build rituals into my personal life, too. Things I do with my daughter that are particular to the day of the week or the season. Things I do for myself. These help mark and differentiate time in a week where the lines between work and life are blurry, if not nonexistent.
I’m naturally a night owl, but I have to get up pretty early most days of the week, and I am someone who really needs at least 8 hours of sleep. So I’m experimenting with different night time rituals to help signal to my mind and body that I need to wind down. So far I’ve been trying tea.
The rituals I mentioned are individual, or with my daughter, but they can also be with a group. Maybe you set up a monthly coffee meet up with a group of close friends or colleagues. Or you have a weekly activity you do with a group.
Not only do rituals help give a sense of order and balance to your day, but they also reduce your cognitive load. You don’t have to come up with a new idea or new time to see your friends, you know you’ll see them on Thursday. You don’t have to just leave it to chance that you have a buffer for a short walk between work and childcare pickup, you have it blocked off on your calendar already.
Workshop: September 18th
And speaking of balance, I’m running an interactive workshop on work-life alignment for academics. It's all about aligning your time with your priorities and hopefully feeling more at peace with that elusive sense of "balance." More details here.
Please forward this to any academics in your life who you think may be interested!
Please RSVP if you can make it, on Weds, Sept 18th at 12pm ET. Calendly is a little funky, once you click on this link, you select the date (the only one available), Wednesday, September 18 at 12pm ET, and you will receive the Zoom link.
If you can't make this one, but want to be kept informed about futue workshops, please fill this short form out.
What I’m reading / listening to
I just started listening to All The Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership. The title says it all. I’m early in but so far it’s a very horrifying read in the way where you are both shocked and not but how pervasive the issues are.