A year of working “slowly”
This time last year, the Center began an experiment. Recognizing how depleting an always-on, always-available work culture can be, we adopted “slow work” policies, strategies for prioritizing deep, sustainable thinking and a healthy work/life balance. This meant no staff emails after 5pm or on weekends, avoiding meetings or calls before noon, allowing more time to respond to emails and queries.
This was well before the coronavirus pandemic even more fundamentally altered our relationship with work. Balancing remote work, slow work, and the incessant strain of a global pandemic and social/political turmoil has meant constantly reevaluating what we’re doing and how.
In light of this, we think it’s a good time to reflect on how we’ve adapted. So we asked our staff: how has your work style changed? What strategies have worked for staying productive and maintaining a healthy work/life balance? And what lessons have you learned that you’ll apply once this period is over?
On strategies for remote working
“The best, small thing I have done has been to keep an ‘out of office’ message up explaining that my response time while working remotely during a pandemic (with a partner who is also working and taking care of a toddler at home) will be delayed and that if the email is urgent, they should flag it so. This has helped me both prioritize email responses and manage expectations about current email response time.”
“One of the things that’s been key to managing my own workload, as well as working with others, has been to maintain as much flexibility as possible. Flexibility is a valuable skill even in non-pandemic times, but it’s especially important during periods of increased uncertainty. This means granting others the benefit of the doubt; understanding timelines and processes as more malleable than usual; and adapting to changing priorities, work flows, and communication styles. Again, these are always good practices; but while working remotely they become paramount.”
“We have adopted the tardigrade, also known as a ‘water bear,’ as our informal pandemic mascot. When tardigrades are exposed to extreme or inhospitable climates, e.g., the UV radiation of space, they enter what is known as a ‘tun’ state where only the most essential functions continue. We have tried to approach our work in a ‘tun’ state, leaving unnecessary or non-critical functions aside to create room for the most important tasks.”
On the challenges of remote working
“Working from home during the pandemic without childcare means that most of my work, aside from meetings and calls, happens late at night. During the day I just hop from one zoom call to another and it is hard to keep up with email and text traffic. Since I know that the other Directors all have children too and are probably also burning the midnight oil, I sometimes muse — when I am up at 2am schedule-sending my 12th email of the night — whether we should flip the slow work rule on its head for the duration of the pandemic. No emails until 5pm!”
“I find that my strategies for working remotely vs. working remotely in a global pandemic are quite different and finding the best strategies in a pandemic are still eluding me seven and a half months later. Tips welcome!”
“I used to set out goals for every week. Now, with decreased bandwidth due to the pandemic and lack of childcare, I find it hard to accurately predict what I can get done in the workweek. So now I plan in two-week increments.”
On “slow work”
“It has taken me a year to fully embrace the slow work mentality and five years to unlearn the always-working mentality instilled at school. But it couldn’t have come at a better time. I can’t imagine navigating the new realities that have come with the pandemic without it, and I urge everyone to think about what you can adopt to make work more bearable in these surreal times.”
“Adopting the ‘slow work’ policies at the Center was revolutionary to me. It gave me permission to ‘turn off’ my brain and take a break from work. Even though that is what we are supposed to do when we leave the office, I never quite felt like I could when my emails were buzzing on my phone at all hours of the day. As a result of adopting these policies, I felt more present when I was at work and able to focus, knowing that when I left the office, I was going to be able to be fully present at home.”
“At first, it was difficult not to send emails after 5pm. This was absolutely the aspect of ‘slow work’ I was most skeptical of going into it. However, once I got used to it, I loved it. If I really needed to get something done I could, but the assumption that I wouldn’t be really helped me move away from the ‘always-on’ mentality that’s ingrained in all of us. Of course, moving to remote work/the pandemic, this practice became more challenging again. Particularly as we have staff at different stages of life, with different responsibilities in different locations, it was hard to align people on the same schedule. But the key to dealing with this is flexibility — understanding that timelines are going to be different, that feedback might be delayed.”
“I learned that if you don’t email people after 5pm or on weekends, they won’t email you after 5pm or on weekends. This seems pretty basic but it was a revelation to me.”
On work/life balance
“If I were to lodge a complaint with this country’s higher education system, it would be this: School completely, utterly fails to teach an appropriate work-life balance. In fact, the message it seems to instill is that work IS life; there is no leisure until every assignment is complete. I am five years out of law school, far more years out of undergraduate school, and only just now learning how to balance the demands of work on my time and the goals I have for my personal life. This lesson has come directly, and somewhat painfully, at the hand of the pandemic. In a world where we work from home — or perhaps more aptly live at work — more than ever it takes a conscious effort to protect our down time from the constant pressures of bottomless inboxes, the interminable news cycle, and oppressive addiction to doomscrolling in the name of ‘staying up to date.’ The Center’s policy of ‘slow work’ is instrumental to achieving this balance.”
“One thing that has become clear with working remotely is that everyone has a different situation at home. And the more we can be flexible, patient, and understanding of that, the more we can appreciate our colleagues as whole human beings with complex lives and situations. ‘Slow work’ principles have become even more critical in the remote working environment and I hope that they become more widespread beyond our organization even when we return to the office.”
“Managing work/life balance has been more difficult, as the separation between “home” and “work space” is non-existent. But one thing that has helped with this is working in different places (and outside when nice!). Taking multiple breaks throughout the day to read (especially outside!) also helps break up the routine.”
