Tag Archives: work/life balance

End of year thoughts and advice for 2022

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We are entering the third year of this pandemic. Vaccines have been available for over a year – a turning point we anxiously waited for as 2020 came to an end. But 2021 was not the turnaround year we had hoped for. Over 840,000 people have lost their lives in our country since the start of the pandemic – the majority of people who died of COVID since this summer were not vaccinated. Anti-vaxxers proudly proclaim their resistance and misinformation continues to spread. Our health system and healthcare workers are under incredible strain. Hospital leaders are pleading with their communities to get vaccinated and boosted.

It is hard to be optimistic at times.

Those who can continue to work remotely. Kids are in classrooms and used to wearing masks with parents and grandparents viewing school holiday concerts over Zoom. Families cautiously gathered over the holidays or changed plans at the last moment.

We crave normalcy and getting out in the world to do the things we enjoy – spending time with family and friends. live music, sports events, travel and more.

We tend to look ahead to the new year with hopes and dreams of a better year. We ask ourselves how can things get worse? We make resolutions.

David Muntz, my StarBridge Advisors colleague, recently wrote a blog post, “12 Steps to Prepare for 2022 – Big Challenges – Bigger Opportunities” that was far more than just a professional health IT perspective and advice. As this year comes to an end, I leave you with a few excerpts from his steps 1 and 12: Continue reading →

With gratitude – family says it all

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I’m challenged to write something brand new on gratitude this Thanksgiving week even though this has been a far better year than 2020. At the same time, it has not been as positive and as “back to normal” as we had all hoped as COVID cases surged over the summer. So, I went back to my 2020 post to see how I had reflected on gratitude a year ago at a time when we weren’t gathering as families the same as we are now. I share it again here as some things haven’t changed.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with our immediate family this past Sunday at our new house. My two daughters, their husbands, and four grandkids. One of my daughters has in-laws in Florida so she and her family will travel there for the holiday. We now live within half hour of our other daughter and her in-laws live near her. We will celebrate with all of them on Thanksgiving as we have done many years in the past.

While my husband is a retired Unitarian Universalist minister, if I suggest we say something before dinner at a special family gathering, he will often pass it over to me. This year it was simple. I asked everyone to hold hands (as the grandkids wondered what I was doing) and I commented on family being together again and that I was thankful for each and every one of them as I looked each one in the eye around the table. The adults know they are my “big rocks” as Stephen Covey would describe. And someday the grandkids will understand that as well.

Being together with family says it all. I am truly grateful that we didn’t lose anyone to COVID, that we are fully vaccinated and that we can all be together again.

May you share similar love and gratitude with those closest to you this Thanksgiving 2021. As my StarBridge Advisors colleague, David Muntz, likes to say – “let the season of gratitude begin”.

Related Posts:

Treasuring family after a long year

The year we meet again

Family first

 

Never too late to make time for a break

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Labor Day weekend is upon us. The last holiday weekend of the summer. A summer that we hoped would be more normal. One where we could enjoy vacation travel, visiting family again, and spending time with friends.

Was your summer what you expected? Did you get the break from work you needed? Did you get to see family?

Talking to my oldest daughter this morning, she described it as “the summer of yes”. She is a nurse practitioner and given what last summer was like with COVID-19, this year she was able to do short trips with her family and friends to Martha’s Vineyard, New Hampshire, and Maine.  My youngest daughter and her husband finally got to see his family in Florida taking a road trip there with their two kids.

For our first vacations since before the pandemic, my husband and I planned a long Memorial Day weekend in New York City and a 2-week vacation in California that was to include a several day visit to my Minnesota family who I hadn’t seen since October 2019. Neither trip went as expected for health reasons. Over Memorial Day weekend, we spent two of the four days in a New York City hospital after my husband had another serious medical incident. I could write Part 2 of my September post “When healthcare becomes personal” at some point – this one would be a focus on the lack of interoperability. I’m happy to say he is fine but there are still medical mysteries for us. Our California trip had to be scrapped due to my injury from a bad fall though we still visited family in Minnesota where I was able to rest and take it easy.

But I can’t complain. It is truly heartbreaking to see the current COVID-19 surge with exhausted frontline healthcare workers and so many preventable deaths of people who are unvaccinated. We all long for better times.

If you have not found time this summer to take a break, even a “staycation” if you’re concerned about safe travel, or quality time with family, I hope you can find time in the coming weeks. I have written in the past about the importance of finding time to reboot, putting family first, and prioritizing self-care. Now more than ever we all need it.

Related Posts:

Take time to reboot

Renewal, big rocks, and the elusive work life balance

The 6 Rs of summer

One of those weeks… (again!)

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I wrote “One of those weeks….” several years ago. As usual, I had a lot of blog ideas that week but no time to write given how the week evolved in “CIO land”. I recently moved my blog writing and publishing schedule to the weekend but with this past weekend filled with getting a house ready to list, that just didn’t happen. When we first decided it was a good time to sell and downsize, I told my husband I couldn’t deal with it while I was still doing this interim CIO engagement and giving weeknight and weekend hours to my consulting firm, StarBridge Advisors. I was just too busy.

Once we started looking at places, we decided to jump in and not wait. So here we are, getting the house ready for pictures so we can list it (you know those pictures in the online listings that look like model homes and as though no one lives there). It’s still a hot seller’s market so hopefully it will sell fast. But we’ve been there before only to be disappointed by a longer than expected sales cycle.

Being super busy means being organized is not an option – it’s a necessity. Prioritizing, staying organized, timeboxing, and knowing when to get help are just some of the skills needed now. As I’ve admitted in the past, I am a work in process in all these areas. If you can relate, check out some of these past posts:

Struggling to get (or stay) organized? You are not alone

Managing priorities and maintaining balance

7 tips for managing in the fast lane

What does weeding have to do with work?

Operation Baby Blanket

Yes, despite the funky titles of the last two, even they are useful. Lot of good reminders and tips for me during this period. If you find yourself busier than you can handle, you might just find something useful here as well.

Treasuring family after a long year

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I hesitate to say “post COVID” or “post pandemic” even though there are signs of the new normal as organizations roll out their plans for employees to return to the office, states drop their mask mandates and businesses are allowed to open at full capacity. But when will we be truly “post COVID”? While the U.S. COVID-19 cases and deaths are at new lows, the global situation is far different and the variants continue to be a concern. Globally, there have been more deaths in 2021 than all of 2020. So it is far from over.

I am glad that I live and work in states with high vaccine rates and where mask mandates were accepted and not protested. In both Rhode Island and Massachusetts, over 60% of the population has received the first dose. In fact, all the New England states are at that level of vaccination, and all are over 50% fully vaccinated.

In the past few weeks, I have experienced more “firsts” in this transition to the new normal. We had friends over for dinner. Our Saturday morning outing at the local farmers market no longer requires masks. Wandering the stalls with our two little dogs, it is good to chat with strangers like we used to. We went to a Red Sox game and seeing so many people in one place was a big change. The wave doesn’t catch on the same at partial capacity but the enthusiasm for the Red Sox hasn’t changed. At my hair salon, my most recent haircut was the first without a mask; they are no longer required if you are vaccinated. On my daily walks, I no longer cross the street when someone else is walking towards me with their dogs but rather stop and talk and let the dogs do their sniffing thing.

Being in public places without a mask is one thing. But being with family is what I have truly missed. Our immediate family (our two daughters, their husbands and all the grandchildren) has not all been together since early November. Our few get togethers last year were outside socially distanced with masks as needed. We respected everyone’s comfort level and deferred to the least comfortable. Continue reading →

Career advice revisited

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It seems that I am getting a lot of requests to provide career advice these days. I did formal career coaching for a few people in recent months and am currently participating as a mentor in the Boston Young Healthcare Professionals (BYHP) mentor program. In all these situations, I point people to my many previous blog posts on career advice to supplement what we discuss.

For general career advice, they find these “classics” useful to review:

Career advice in a competitive market

5 job search challenges in 2020

You need to own your own career

Taking control of your life

Make career choices right for you

New year, new job?

Time for a job change?

Stand out at the interview

So you didn’t get the job

In this new virtual world of recruiting, I tell people not to underestimate the power of LinkedIn. It is an online professional directory that recruiters look to for candidates. Optimize your profile. Ensure the one liner under your name is a good description of your role since that is what people see when you invite them to connect with you and when you are found on searches. Use the about section to describe what you offer and how you can add value – don’t just copy and paste your current job description summary. Be active which shows you are current and engaged – that means sharing content yourself and commenting on other people’s posts. And if you are actively looking for a new job, check the “open to work” box – don’t worry, you can control who sees it.

If you are thinking of using a coach, check out these two posts:

When to use a career coach

Investing in you, the value of a coach

Looking for a new job can be exciting and hard at the same time. Hopefully, the lessons and tips in these posts will make it a little easier.

Treasure the good

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The past 14+ months have been a period of loss and sadness. Even if you and your loved ones have remained healthy and employed, the pandemic has impacted all our lives. Now that over 200M people in this country have received at least one dose of the vaccine, 87M people are fully vaccinated, and the vaccine is available to anyone over 16 who wants it, we are on our way to a new chapter. But we still need to get to at least 70% for herd immunity and continue with precautions.

I don’t want to appear Pollyannish as we look to the future, but let’s ask ourselves what good has come out of this past year.

Have you had more quality time and connections with your family being home so much?

Have you found new ways to connect and celebrate milestones with family and friends at a distance?

Have you simplified your life and decreased your consumption?

Have you found new hobbies or restarted old ones?

Have you spent more time reading and learning?

Have you spent more time outside enjoying nature?

Have you explored cooking new foods and eaten healthier at home?

Have you become a kinder person, more caring about your community and people you don’t know?

Have you come to know and appreciate your co-workers in new ways after working together through tough times, and perhaps meeting their kids on video calls and hearing their dogs bark in the background?

Have you converted your work commute into something positive for yourself?

Have you spent time reflecting on your career and what truly is important to you? Continue reading →

Renewal, big rocks, and the elusive work life balance

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Spring is a time of renewal and rebirth. I see daffodils, crocus, and blooming trees everywhere on my daily walks.  After the last 12+ months we have experienced and the vaccine rollout giving us all new hope, it is a time of renewal and rebirth unlike in previous Springs. In past years, I have written about my “big rocks” at this time of year. In April more than any other month I am reminded of my big rocks – it is when my siblings and I lost our father to cancer at a very young age. I turned four years old the day of his funeral.

Over 570,000 families in this country alone have lost one of their “big rocks” to COVID-19. For some families, it has been multiple losses. The stories of a husband and wife dying just hours apart are truly heartbreaking. I am fortunate that all my big rocks here in New England and back in Minnesota where I grew up are healthy and well. And all of us “elders” are vaccinated.

So, in this time of renewal and being two weeks post my second vaccine dose, I look forward to breaking bread this weekend with family members. It will be the first time since an outside, socially distanced, early Thanksgiving we had on November 8th. I told my husband back then that it could be a long, isolating winter as we would not be able to spend time outside with family nor have meals together. After a relatively mild winter, I am happy to say my daughter who lives only 20 minutes away came over on some weekends with her two young daughters to walk the dogs with me and to visit. Some of the visits were outside socially distanced and some were inside with masks.

Thinking about my big rocks is a reminder to take care of myself and maintain a reasonable work life balance, or life work balance as my StarBridge Advisors colleague, David Muntz, likes to call it. Taking on the interim CIO role at Boston Children’s Hospital means I am back to long days and catching up on the weekends. My personal gauge for work life balance each day during this period will be whether I’ve gotten out for walks to hit my 10,000 steps daily goal and if I’ve played the piano. Continue reading →

A different kind of summer comes to an end

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If you were a fan of Downton Abbey and remember the Maggie Smith character, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, you may even recall how she said in her aristocratic way, “What is this thing you call a weekend?”. For the landed gentry of England who didn’t work, what did a weekend mean? For those of you working from home, dealing first with home schooling and then kids on summer break, and with vacation trips cancelled, you may ask the same question. But it’s because every day seems to run into the next during this pandemic.

As we approach the final summer holiday and three-day weekend we know as Labor Day, hopefully you won’t have to “labor” but can actually take a break. In the health systems I worked at, August was the big vacation month – especially in the academic medical centers. When I was CIO at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, one of my VP colleagues would remind us that after Labor Day it is a sprint until the holidays in December. He’d say let your family know how busy you’ll be and be sure to take a break in August somehow.

With a trip to Disney with grandkids and a European trip cancelled this year, my husband and I feel like one day just rolls into the next as I’m sure many of you do. I’ve written in the past about the importance of making time to reboot and the 6 R’s of summer. But this year is different. I only hope that all of you and especially those on the front lines of this pandemic have found time for a much needed and well-deserved break, somewhere, somehow.

If you are feeling overwhelmed at times, this article by Tara Haelle may resonate with you – “Your ‘Surge Capacity’ Is Depleted — It’s Why You Feel Awful”. It describes our personal “surge capacity” and how to manage through these times. Continue reading →

Struggling to get (or stay) organized? You are not alone

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When I wrote my “Value of podcasts for professional development” blog a few weeks ago, I asked readers for their favorites podcasts. One of my directors at UVMHN suggested the GTD podcast series. I’ve known since I met Greg Van Buren at the start of this interim CTO engagement back in May that he was a big fan and proponent of the Getting Things Done (GTD) approach from David Allen. I told Greg early on that I’d like to take some time to learn how he applies it in his work.

There are many personal productivity systems and methodologies out there. I’m familiar with GTD concepts but have never really gone deep with it. So why not learn from someone who has? After all, what’s not attractive about the idea of “stress free productivity”?

Greg is paperless from all appearances – how he shows up at meetings and in his office. He uses a mobile device to capture all his notes and to dos. If he does momentarily have paper with handwritten notes, he scans it and copies it into the appropriate note for future reference. And as I have more recently seen he appears to have mastered an organization system for all his notes and tasks within OneNote.

After listening to a few GTD podcasts, I realized again that none of this is rocket science. It’s basic organization of your ideas and work at all levels – from the macro long term goals, to the house and family tasks of today and everything in between. And I realize that I could make a lot of adjustments to improve how I work. That sounds better than saying I’ve realized I’m out of control! Continue reading →