Let me be blunt. The world is not going to slow down, change is not going to slow down. Not with different national and world leaders. Not with a new job at a new organization. The world is speeding up. It has been for decades, but between the pandemic, geopolitics, and the development of AI, we are more in touch with it personally in daily life.
So instead of trying to slow it down, to go back to what for many of us was a pretty intense normal, we have to go forward and assume that for better or worse, things are going to be changing. How do we do that?
I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I have a few things that are working for me.
- Plan for anxiety. Create space for small acts of self-care regularly. Meditating. Walking. Painting. Whatever works for you.
- Plan for uncertainty. Have multiple action plan. One doesn’t work, try another. Like how you change routes when your GPS sees a traffic jam.
- Plan for opportunity. Be curious. What can you do faster or deeper with new tools? While my writing is always original by me, I love using tools to assess data quickly. Instead of a weekend, in just a few hours, I built our city leaders a spreadsheet comparing education and general spending over time using a variety of definitions and datasets. What can you do with more connection? In my community, work from home policies have expanded the availability of volunteers in our local nonprofits. For example, those who need to use a food bank can more easily get food on their schedule, not just a random evening or weekend time.
What’s working for you?
Julie
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