Do More, Stress Less

In the last two years, I've written almost nothing creative. Everything has been poured into candidate work. Submissions have taken all of my attention. Further, I began to doubt whether I was adding any value. Still, now that we are in the midst of the Coronavirus Pandemic, I've found myself giving myself little treats, and writing is one of them.

One thing that has changed is that I've opted for a more direct approach. That being said, I'll cut right to it.

Here's the huge opportunity of shelter in place and work from home: you can do more.

Here's the big challenge: actually do more.

The New York Times ran an article this week and in the Sunday edition that extolled the virtues of just saying 'enough' to extra projects. While I agree that if you need a change of pace, by all means take it. But, in reality, we have the chance to explore our creativity.

So, here is my advice:

If you are working: Challenge yourself to get to a higher level of organization. You can save allot of time by not standing at the water cooler. Use "time blocking" or other techniques to remind you what your quarterly and year goals are. Start knocking them out. In addition, you may want to look at those goals. Were they really aggressive enough? Are you really adding to your department, your organization? What are you going to do this year to go above and beyond. It's not enough to survive "all of this." We will survive. What will be remembered is those who took their own production and that of their subordinates and colleagues to higher degrees of professionalism and productivity.

If you aren't working: You should be looking full-time. Full-time looking for work means 40 hours per week, at least. Companies ARE still hiring. Work with a recruiter if appropriate for your industry. That might leverage your time as recruiters work for free from the candidate perspective. Take some of that leveraged time to create. Create more in terms of writing output, thinking up new business ideas, or taking more time to really engage in your creative pursuits whatever they are. We can find the same amount of happiness in any set of circumstances, no matter how chaotic or threatening. We owe it to each other and, most importantly, to ourselves, to embrace our inner bravery. And guts.

For everyone: If you haven't found a super intense at-home workout that doesn't require any equipment, I recommend this youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheMiamiTrainer These are insane workouts that will off the couch and back into "doing things" mode.