The Importance of Rest and Renewal

I'll be on vacation next week, so I won't be posting on May 31.  Looking ahead to my vacation led me to think about the importance of taking time to renew.

Years ago, when I went on vacation, I tried hard to avoid checking email or voice mail while I was away.  Now, with advances in technology and changing expectations, I find it harder to stay away from work.  I'll probably check my email for important items while I am away, but I'm going to try hard not to be drawn into work.

Even this approach is a bit suspect, though.  It may take five minutes to scan my email, but when I do, I get pulled back psychologically, even if I choose to take no action.  Taking a vacation means getting away from it all, resting, and renewing one's emotional as well as physical energy.  If technology keeps me from never truly getting away, am I taking full advantage of my vacation time?

Mobile devices make it so easy to check in quickly and often.  I often listen to podcasts on my iPhone when I go to sleep at night.  But opening my phone to get to the iPod draws my attention to the unread email at the same time.  I try to resist, but I don't always succeed.

Please join me in working on resisting the always-on approach to work.  We all need our rest.  When we allow ourselves time to renew, we come back with new ideas, approaches, and energy.  We do our best when we get away sometimes.

Remember to be Grateful

As a hard-working professional, I find it easy to focus on what needs to be done.  I make time to be grateful for what has been accomplished much less often.

Today we celebrated the thirty-three plus years of experience and service that Gordee Bennett has brought to our organization.  I think I have been grateful for Gordee's contributions many times through the years, and it was great to see so many people gather today to honor her.  But just think how wonderful it would be if we remembered to be grateful more often.

There are many things to be grateful for in the work world.  Here are a few of mine:

• I am grateful for students.  Because I work in higher education, students are my reason for being here.  I attended commencement last evening, and I celebrated the hundreds of students who crossed the stage to receive their degrees.  Commencement helps us to be grateful for the many accomplishments of our students and the services that we provide that help them succeed.
• I am grateful for colleagues.  My colleagues include faculty, staff, administrators, and student employees here at my campus as well as the many people I work with across the UM system.  Sometimes we disagree, but most often we are able to work through our disagreements in order to focus on our shared goals.
• I am grateful for citizens.   I believe in higher education, and I appreciate that it is much more widely available because of government funding.  I am grateful to all of those taxpayers who provide our support as well as legislators who distribute it.  Our many donors add to the support of our students and our campus, so I am grateful to them, too.
• I am grateful for interesting work.  I once had a friend tell me he worked only for the money.  How sad!  I am so lucky to have a job that I enjoy doing, with work that is constantly changing.
• I am grateful for progress.  So many things have changed and improved during my working life.  Not only am I grateful for progress, but I am grateful for the people that create progress.

If you haven't taken time to be grateful today, take some time now.

Loads of Change

This has been a huge week for IT staff at the University of Minnesota.  We reached the culmination of a three-year project to revamp the IT job classification system.  This week all IT staff received a placement in the new classification scheme.  For some this was a relatively small change, but others experienced great change.  Some experienced extra stress by having to make decisions about benefits changes.

Here is an article that might help some of those having the most stress about this change:  "5 Tips to Help You Respond Effectively to Change."  This article is published in Psychology Today.

Here are the major sections of this article, along with some of my thoughts.  But I strongly encourage you to read the article itself for a richer experience.

• Keep things in perspective.  I personally have found it easy to get stressed out when I let things grow bigger in mind than they are in reality.  My dad used to advise me to imagine writing my cares down on a piece of paper, sealing them in an envelope, and then opening it a year later.  You'll be surprised how this imagery can help you put things in perspective, even if you don't actually do this.
• Practice the 5 P's:  patience, persistent, practical, positive and purpose.  My personal downfall can be lack of patience.  Sometimes I want things fixed now.  Over the years, I have come to realize that things take time, especially if you want a good outcome.
• Stay focused on who you are and what you need.  It's easy to focus on what others want from you or think of you.  What do you think of yourself?  What can you do for yourself today?
• Question, assess, and evaluate your core beliefs about change.  If you tend to think change is bad, why is that?  Is there anything good about change?  Or about the particular change you are faced with now?
• Take as much time as you need before you respond.  This has been truly helpful to me.  I often "sleep on" an issue and mull it over for a day or longer before I respond.  It continues to amaze me how answers pop up if it give it enough time.

If you are feeling stressed by change, take a deep breath and treat yourself well.  It will all work out, one way or the other.

A Stressful Time of Year

April and May always seem particularly stressful to me.  It is the end of the academic year, so everyone pushes hard to complete all those projects that must be done before the year ends.  I do this, too, so I understand it.  The problem is that many people need my help on their projects, which makes it difficult for me to complete my own. 

This useful article, Nine Ways Successful People Defeat Stress by Heidi Grant Halvorson, was helpful to me today.  I particularly liked "5: Add where and when to your to-do list."  The idea is to plan in advance when and where to accomplish a task.  I have been doing this more and more lately using the defensive calendaring technique.  I block out times on my calendar to work on specific tasks.  This accomplishes two important things.  It forces me to actually work on that project I may have been avoiding.  And it keeps others from scheduling that time on my calendar.  I love the group scheduling function in Google calendar, but meetings other people schedule can sure fill up my time. 

Here is another of her tips "8. Think about the progress that you've already made."  I thought about this today when I attended the retirement party of Dean Kjell Knudsen.  It's amazing how many things he has accomplished in his tenure as dean.  But as he pointed out, he had the help of many people, and he didn't do it all at once.  When I listed my accomplishments for the year for my annual performance appraisal this week, I thought, "Well, now wonder I'm so tired!"  

The author has many other useful tips in this article, so if you are feeling stressed this time of year, take a few minutes and read the whole thing.