My robotic pandemic productivity
This year has been devastating in so many ways to so many people. Death, chronic illness, grief, depression, stress, and anxiety are everywhere. In my relatively privileged bubble, with a stable income, a home, no young children to care for, and a job I can do from home, the worst of my past year has been manageable: I have lots of practice with depression, despair, and isolation, and know how to overcome them with some patience and self care. That’s let me focus on caring for family, faculty, staff, and students without the same resources or resilience.
But when I think about what it means to do my job well right now, it’s hard fathom what productivity should even mean. Is it managing crises humanely? Preventing students from dropping out, or worse yet, harming themselves? Is teaching just creating a safe space for fatigue and grief online? Is it just making sure that everyone around me is safe and healthy? It’s certainly it’s not the usual notion of publishing a lot of research, excellent teaching, and reliable service to my university and communities—that level of achievement seems unreasonable to expect of anyone right now. On many days, it seems like the only productive thing to do is for us to all find a few months of food and take an 8-week vacation at home, and just end this pandemic. And on some days, it seems like nothing is the only equitable thing to do: don’t burden people with more communication, don’t start new projects, and don’t ask for anything. It feels like every ask is a burden; most asks probably are.
Of course, on some days, this is moot, since it’s a struggle to do anything. I’ve been feeling so much stress, grief, regret, fear, and confusion. Much of that is just from coming out as transgender about 15 months ago, and having to do 10 months of that home alone. Transitions can be hard, and mine’s not done, and had there been no pandemic, I would still be having a hard time. I certainly was a year ago last February, struggling through name change barriers, through 7 am vocal therapy, and then figuring out how to be a woman in the world. Briefly, the pandemic was a relief from all of that stress, because suddenly I was just home alone, without all of the complexities of the social world. I sorted out a new schedule, carving out my mornings for quite solitary work, and my afternoons for teaching and meetings. But eventually, pandemic fatigue set in, and there was a whole new layer of loss, fear, stress, and grief for the vibrant gender-affirming life I wasn’t living. I finally felt free in my body and mind, only to be trapped at home.
There are certainly days when all of these transition and pandemic emotions are just too much, and I can barely manage to read, write, or interact with people. But I quickly learned that, at least for me, doing nothing only make things worse. Laying in bed only makes me feel more down. Playing games, especially at a time when so much is broken in the world, makes me feel irresponsible. The escape of movies and television can work for a while, but really only at night, when I’m winding down from a long day of tasks. When I sit down and try to do nothing, I feel a deep restlessness, and the nagging of dread.
What I found in my new pandemic schedule was that I’m simply not built for inaction. Rather, I learned that I’m an incurable busy body, like my mother, and always have to be doing something. Or perhaps we both got it from my grandmother, who even in her last year at 98 years old, with breast cancer and dementia, was walking a mile each day and busily checking in on neighbors. I realized that when I’m feeling stressed, depressed, or anxious, sometimes the most helpful strategy for me is to just do something: wash the dishes, fold the laundry, answer emails, do my taxes, write a blog post, edit a research paper, write a grant proposal. I found that the very things that feel unreasonable to do during this pandemic, and that many are struggling to do, are the things that help me work through fear and despair, sometimes distracting me from these feelings, but more often helping me push through them, finding the other side of feeling down.
When I hear of colleagues, coworkers, and students in my community struggling to get things done, my compulsion to get things done doesn’t seems particularly fair—especially for my neurodiverse friends, family, students, and colleagues. I’m quite sure it makes people around me feel worse about their own struggle to work. And this reflection probably isn’t helping. I find myself hiding my accomplishments this year out to avoid inadvertently shaming people by sharing what I’ve gotten done. And I find myself saying yes to even more things, trying to help others who are struggling get their own work done. The result of all of this is that I’m working more than ever, and more overcommitted than ever, out of a desperation to deflect despair.
To make it all work, on most days I am suffocatingly procedural and robotic. I wake up at 5:55 am and do 10 minutes of high intensity interval training, starting my day sweaty and breathless. I clean up, make a big breakfast, and then do an hour of email at 7:30. I then read for half an hour, sometimes a book, sometimes a research paper, sometimes a student’s draft, sometimes a paper in review. And then on most days, I get tasks done for three hours writing papers, proposals, book chapters, reviews, letters, policies, and more. I end precisely at noon, do some core or strength training, then eat, taking an hour break to refuel and care for my body. And then the afternoon is 4 hours of teaching and meetings, with a break at 3 pm for more email, Slack, Discord, and social media. I end at 5:30, listen to a podcast, reunite with my wife at 6:30 who arrives exhausted from a day of primary care nursing. We eat and talk and play games and do dishes. I get ready for bed at 9, watch a television show, and then sleep for 7 hours. I do this over and over, with a great abundance of destabilizing exceptions in my calendar, eating away at the order in my routine.
My year of overcommitment has transformed my 45-hour, 5-day work week until a 55-hour, 6-day work week, ending Saturday mornings when I finish everything I shouldn’t have said yes to. And when I agree to collaborate with procrastinators, my weekend sometimes fills with work too. And yet, as ashamed as I am to be working more, and seeing people less, it all still feels good and right, because the moment I sit still at night or on the weekend, my head fills with dread, despair, and sadness.
When I reflect on my ability to be productive during this pandemic, it strikes me how many distinct factors compel me to action:
- The compulsion to work that I inherited from my mother.
- My compulsion to organize my time, my tasks, and my thinking.
- My obsession with capturing every thought and task for later doing.
- My skills in decomposing tasks into smaller units, helping me get started.
- My love of habits and routines.
- My ability to focus.
- The utter dread I experience sitting motionless, in silence.
And across all of these, I find myself thinking to myself constantly, saying things like, “Time to be creative,” “This email isn’t that important, wrap it up,” “Just three more things to do before noon, you can do it!” It’s like there’s a little Amy on my shoulder at all times, keeping me on task, cheering me on, but also keeping me from feeling all of the terrible things under the surface.
And when I do sit in silence, ready to rest, that little Amy keeps talking. “Why are you just sitting there?”, “We have things to do.”, “People need your help, get off your butt.” Sometimes, I sigh, and tell myself, “Caring for others requires caring for yourself.” And little Amy says, “You’re fine. Life is short. Sitting around isn’t going to help. We have things to do!” And so I get up, and keep moving, staying one step ahead of dread.
