I was on the phone recently with my friend Tommie Meredith, a seasoned executive who among other things helped build Dell to its first success as CFO, pioneered just in time inventory in the computer industry so probably one of the top guys in the world on complex supply chain (ahem), and now a leading early stage investor in Austin.
The conversation was fascinating, as talks with Tommie always are, ranging from global politics to digital learning. But I could barely keep my eyes open because I’ve been up since 4:30 in the morning for Europe, and had just run through a series of back to back to back phone calls all day. My exercise for the day consisted of taking a two hour walk while conducting three calls.
Tommie has been experiencing the same kind of “Coronavirus Burnout” I have — eight to ten hours of solid conference calls on zoom or other platforms, without the breaks that you normally get between meetings when you were walking somewhere or driving somewhere to get to a meeting, without the change in format that a social business lunch provides, and so on — just meeting after meeting.
It’s productive, on the one hand (perhaps too much so), but on the other hand I find myself entering into kind of a fugue state.
So how can we stave off Coronavirus Burnout?
1. The 45/25 Rule.
Productivity experts will often encourage you to schedule a 45 minute meeting instead of a 60 minute meeting, or a 25 minute meeting instead of a 30 minute meeting. This gives you a little time to reset, prepare for the next meeting, and re-calibrate your brain. I’ve automatically defaulted to one-hour meetings but have to remind myself of the 45/25 rule.
2. The 5-1/2 Rule.
Your brain has about 5-1/2 hours a day of truly productive work time with high cognitive focus. My business partner Beth Porter has written eloquently about “Compiling With My Dog” so I will simply say, try to structure your day so that high focus tests occur within that 5 1/2 hour window and you don’t over schedule.
3. Walks!
Even in time of enforced physical distancing, we can still go for a walk and maintain 6’/ 2 meter separation from other people. Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman described the benefits of walks on your creative and cognitive process in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow.
4. The Virtual Social Life.
Just because we can’t physically go visit with other people doesn’t
mean we have to remain separated. And it doesn’t have to be just work calls. One friend of mine, Richard Titus, makes a point each day of calling at least one old friend who he hasn’t spoken to in a while. A few weeks ago, a group of us held a virtual birthday party for AI supply chain entrepreneur Tee Ganbold. I’ve started scheduling drinks over Zoom. You can still have a virtual social life even if you can’t be in the same location.
5. Take a Pause.
Meditation is always a good idea, but now more than ever, sitting in silence, with no devices or distractions, helps ground your thinking and reduce your stress levels.
We may be looking at a new normal of remote working and enforced physical distance for quite some time — but we can take steps to carry through it while avoiding Coronavirus Burnout.
David Shrier is a futurist with dual appointments at MIT and University of Oxford and is cofounder of Esme Learning. His next book, Augmenting Your Career: How to Win at Work in the Age of AI will be published by Little Brown in 2021.
