CMAD 2020 | Self Care Comes First

What is CMAD?
CMAD i.e. Community Manager Appreciation Day now known as Community Manager Advancement Day was first started back in 2005 as a way to reflect on and celebrate the work of community managers across the world for their hard work building, growing and delivering the value of managing online communities.
This day is celebrated on the fourth Monday of January Month every year i.e. today 27th January 2020 & the theme this year is self-care.

Why self-care?
Because burnout is still a fear and often a reality for many people who work in the community industry. It will get easier to care for your community, once you’ve taken care of yourself.

What is self-care exactly?
Self-care is any activity that we the community managers should do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health. Although it’s a simple concept, in theory, it’s something we very often overlook. Good self-care is key to improved mood and work productivity. It’s also key to a good relationship with oneself and others in the community.

Few days ago, Himanshu started this conversation upon CMAD 2020 (as you can find below) on Community Folks i.e. a community of community managers in India and there he asked everyone that what can be the best ways to practice for obtaining self-care.

Conservation from Community Folks

Surprisingly, many Community Managers came up with some really awesome & useful tips. The ones who are trying their best to keep a balance between their communities and themselves on the other side.

Michail Kosak, Co-Founder & Head of Global Community at KUED.ai wrote:
Meditation, prayer, time with family and loved ones, good food and from time to time some Netflix.

Meditate, Meditate & Meditate

Smriti Anand, Community Programs & Partnerships for Developer Platform at Truecaller wrote:
Well for me, when the body feels good, the mind does too! This trick works for me very well. So I plan to spend 1 hour daily (at least) on any kinda fitness activity and it keeps me going on.

Fitness keeps me active

Teja Bitra, Front End Developer at CrowdShakti and previously a community manager wrote:
I took therapy. I was working on some personal issues and I needed an expert opinion. There’s no shame. Admit your issues and fix or improve upon them. Whatever can make you a better version of yourself, please try.

Frazer Fernandes, Community Manager at Smule wrote:
As they say “ Community Never Sleeps” but community managers have to sleep. I switch off myself after the office hours, only engage in work if it is critical.

Switching modes can be like

Grishma Singh, Community Manager at Gaius Networks wrote:
It’s never easy to deal with people and bring them together requires a lot of energy and thought to keep it flowing. I switch off from social media when required go close to nature and soothing music.

Sometimes music keeps me going

Kannaa, Community Manager at BMC Software India wrote:
A wonderful person told me once, it’s okay to be wrong & do mistakes. But make sure to learn from them & evolve yourself to become a better version for tomorrow. And ya, it absolutely is true & evident.

Avani Parekh, Program Manager for Community Partnerships, APAC at Facebook wrote:
Being fanatical about turning off. A self-care practice for me this year is turning off all notifications. When I’m “on” in a community I don’t need them. When I’m off — I definitely don’t need them.

Tamanna Dhamija, Co-founder at BabyDestination wrote:
1) I started running in 2019 as a beginning to my self-care ritual! Absolutely love the days when I go for the run — 25 mins listening to my favorite podcast how I built this. It’s the only time I have during the day.

2) I also make sure I catch up on sleep.

3) There are days when I am exhausted — use up so much energy during the day — physically and mentally exhausted. And those days, one hug from Trishaan(my son) works like magic.

One hug a day is all we need

4) I try to be less emotional in my day to decisions and be as rational as possible. Saves heartache

Biswajeeta Rath, Senior Associate & Community Manager at Sprinklr wrote:
Self-care can only happen when we have processes in place. Delegation and processes are essential when community managers are involved in building and growing a community. Otherwise, it’s just chaos. Let’s accept the fact that it takes time to set something big. Just like entrepreneurship — have patience, set the process for your community and you are on your way to self-care.

Slowly but for sure.

Adam Turnbull, Co-Founder at UnicornFuel.io, Community Lead at TechLondon.io Slack Community wrote:
Managing a community is the most emotionally draining experience I’ve ever gone through but for sure the most rewarding. It feels like I experience a portion of every high and low that others go through. It’s somewhere I take my whole self to.
I like to take the time to look after myself emotionally and spend time around those who help me recharge. I take a little therapy to help me understand my buffer between work and real-life and help me appreciate the benefits I provide to the people in the communities I truly care about.

For a quick recharge

Chitra HL, Senior Community Analyst at Sprinklr wrote:
Self-care in my view is caring community members and ourself community managers as well. Self-care of building our reputation as community managers also equally important while helping others. Keep learning, be updated about the industry and build our own personality, etc is self-care.
When my soul is happy it motivates more to perform better to the community.

Priya Sood, Head of Community at WOOP — Women of Opinion wrote:
It’s important to be proactive and reactive for self-care.
Proactive — ensure there is a professional understanding and reasonable expectation from yourself. Take regular breaks from the community.
Reactive — define a good mechanism to resolve conflicts and keep sharing with other Community managers.

Amit Jain, Co-Founder at Mitti Ke Rang wrote:
Community Building, interacting & networking with people is something which really keeps me going due to which I think I never feel down or low. This is something I realized lately and since then it keeps me going.

Yes, people keep me going!

So these were a bunch of self-care practices which are followed by Community Managers just to maintain a good balance between their work and life to avoid any kind of low feeling like burnout or stress during the process. Now, you can opt for any of them if you think it can help you bring your self-care. And, you can also contribute by telling us your practices towards self-care.

It’s a community-driven blog if you have anything to practice better for self- care & your community, do add your thoughts in the comment section and it will be updated here.

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