#007 – The fight against busyness and the case for slowing down

Last post, we did a deep dive into why attending to our attention is important in our work lives, especially for our productivity. This week, a look at why cultivating attention is important to our personal wellbeing as we battle with a million things competing for our attention every day – and what we can do to slow down.

 Physical and mental exhaustion is on the rise. Burnout rates are off the charts in Australia. The 2022 Microsoft Work Trend Index showed that 62 per cent of Australian workers felt burnout at work, compared to the global average of 48 per cent.

 Burnout, of course affects us at work, but it has an enormous impact on our individual and community wellbeing. When you suffer from burnout you don’t have the energy to nurture family relationships and friendships, to engage in your local community, or to prepare nutritious meals. It feels difficult to work out where to start to fill your cup again.

 We all know what we need to do to feel less stressed and burned out – slow down, get more sleep and do one task at a time. Yet, most of us multitask routinely (and proudly), are over-scheduled, and don’t get nearly enough sleep. So why do we keep doing it?

 If we slow down and pay attention to what our days/weeks/months look like, how much space is there in your day for connection with other people or with nature?

 A typical day for me used to look like rushing to get 3 kids to school/preschool/daycare, rushing to get to work by 9am, lots of meetings, eating lunch at my desk, rushing to get kids before 6pm, rushing to get dinner on the table before kids got hangry, kid baths, kid bed, collapse on the couch in front of the TV with barely any energy to chat to my husband let alone go out and see friends. I might have not gone outside all day (except for racing to and from the car), and barely stopped to chat with colleagues or friends. Does this sound like your day – at least for part of the week?

It is easy to see how our fast living culture doesn’t leave time for connection – with ourselves, friends and family, or the natural world. By paying attention to how we spend our days, and how we outwardly project our experience, we can slowly work to change our relationship to busyness and improve our wellbeing.

But how?

I am not naïve enough to think that just saying no to busyness and embracing a counter-cultural, slow lifestyle is the answer. It’s not.

Like the fight for gender equality is not a matter of women ‘trying harder’, the fight to slowdown is not simply a matter of going for a walk outside at lunchtime (but it is a good start!). There are huge structural barriers to restructuring our work lives. Until Australia introduces a ‘right to disconnect’ like the French did in 2017 (where workers have the right to disconnect from work and not engage in work-related communication out of hours), or a 4-day work week, we need to take matters into our own hands to reframe our work days to improve wellbeing.

What are a couple of things to try this week to find pockets of slowing down in your day?

1.     Go for a quick walk around the block (a couple of times if you can)

Rather than scrolling through your phone when you need a brain break, put the phone down and go for a 2-5 minute walk – outside if you can, but even walking to a bathroom on another floor counts! Research shows that light walking, especially 60-90 minutes after a meal can help to minimise blood sugar spikes – which will help to avoid that mid-afternoon slump.

2.     Don’t eat at your desk

An oldie but a goodie! We all know that we shouldn’t eat and work at our desks, yet many people still persist with this bad habit. According to many studies, prolonged exposure to the blue light emanating from all sorts of screens ― from computers to tablets to phones ― drastically increases the stress hormone’s levels in our body. Stepping away from your work station will therefore prevent another trigger that’ll raise your stress levels.

3.     Say no

Workplace boundaries are often difficult to set (or reset). How often do we say yes to things that we don’t have time for, or aren’t part of our job, or because we just want to be agreeable? Start to consider what you need to give up in order to say yes. There are a number of techniques to try, including considering ‘what is in it for me’ and the opportunity cost of saying yes.

4.     Don’t overschedule yourself

If you have control of scheduling meetings at work, don’t schedule meetings for the default 30 or 60 minutes because that is the option that is in your calendar software. Schedule 25 minute or 50 minute meetings.

If you get invited to a lot of meetings, your default response shouldn’t be yes. Pay attention to who else is on the invite list -  is someone inviting you because they don’t want to leave anyone out?

This works for our home lives too. Do you ferry your kids to endless activities? Do you have multiple things scheduled every weekend? Assess whether this is still serving you. In my house we have a rule of one scheduled out of school activity per week and try to leave at least two mornings or afternoons free every weekend where we don’t have anything scheduled.

5.     Leave loudly

This might be a bit trickier, but is important to contributing to the broader structural reform we need around work hours. Rather than skulking off for lunch or sneaking off at 5:30 so you can collect kids before daycare closes, announce your departure from your desk loudly – the more people we have modelling this behaviour the better. Double points if you are in a leadership position and do this. Your staff will feel much more comfortable doing it themselves and you will likely have a much happier workplace!

Hopefully you can find some pockets of slow in your week this week.

Be well

Alicia